Wednesday, November 17, 2010

God Does not Change

God's life does not change. He is "from all eternity" (Psa. 93:2), "the eternal King" (Jer 10:10), "who alone is immortal" (1 Tim 6:16)....Created things have a beginning and an ending, but not so their Creator. The answer to the child's question "Who made God?" is simply that God did not need to be made, for he was always there. He exists forever, and he is always the same. He does not grow older. His life does not wax or wane. He does not gain new powers nor lose those that he once had. He does not mature or develop. He does not get stronger, or weaker, or wiser, as time goes by. "He cannot change for the better," wrote A.W. Pink, "for he is already perfect; and being perfect, he cannot change for the worse."

The first and fundamental difference between the Creator and his creatures is that they are mutable and their nature admits of change, whereas God is immutable and can never cease to be what he is.

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, pg.77

If something is mutable it means it's changeable, but if something is immutable it means that it is not subject to change. That's why its so dangerous to try and judge God based on your ever changing emotions. All of man's anger against God comes from the desire that God must be like us. Man struggles with God because God is perfect and no matter how hard man tries he is not.

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Amen! Thank you for this, truly. I read Packer's book several times some years ago - I'd forgotten this excellent passage. You are so right in what you say about mankind's struggles with God - seems to me to date right back to the garden!

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