the unchanging God
"...the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." (James 1:17 ESV)
A foundational truth in the Bible is the doctrine of God's immutability, that is, he is unchanging. He cannot become greater or lesser or other than who he is as the eternal and self-sufficient God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that God is "unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." Below are a couple of excerpts from J. I. Packer's Knowing God (IVP, 1973, 2023), specifically from chapter 7, "God Unchanging", which highlight God's immutability in relation to his word and his purposes:
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God's truth does not change. People sometimes say things that they do not really mean, simply because they do not know their own mind; also, because their views change, they frequently find that they can no longer stand behind things that they said in the past. All of us sometimes have to take back our words, because they have ceased to express what we think; sometimes we have to eat our words because hard facts refute them.
The words of human beings are unstable things. But not so the words of God. They stand forever, as abidingly valid expressions of his mind and thought. No circumstances prompt him to recall them; no changes in his own thinking require him to amend them. Isaiah writes, "All flesh is grass. The grass withers.... But the word of our God will stand for ever" (Is 40:6-8 RSV). Similarly, the psalmist says, "Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.... All your commands are true. ... You established them to last forever" (Ps 119:89, 151-52).
The word translated true in the last verse carries with it the idea of stability. When we read our Bibles, therefore, we need to remember that God still stands behind all the promises, and demands, and statements of purpose, and words of warning, that are there addressed to New Testament believers. These are not relics of a bygone age, but an eternally valid revelation of the mind of God toward his people in all generations, so long as this world lasts. As our Lord himself has told us, "The Scripture cannot be broken" (Jn 10:35). Nothing can annul God's eternal truth.
-- Knowing God, pp 78-79.
God's purposes do not change. "He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind," declared Samuel, "for he is not a man, that he should change his mind" (1 Sam 15:29). Balaam had said the same: "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Num 23:19).
Repenting means revising one's judgment and changing one's plan of action. God never does this; he never needs to, for his plans are made on the basis of a complete knowledge and control which extend to all things past, present and future, so that there can be no sudden emergencies or unexpected developments to take him by surprise. "One of two things causes a man to change his mind and reverse his plans: want of foresight to anticipate everything, or lack of foresight to execute them. But as God is both omniscient and omnipotent there is never any need for him to revise his decrees" (A. W. Pink). "The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations" (Ps 33:11).
What God does in time, he planned from eternity. And all that he planned in eternity he carries out in time. And all that he has in his Word committed himself to do will infallibly be done. Thus we read of "the immutability of his counsel" to bring believers into full enjoyment of their promised inheritance, and of the immutable oath by which he confirmed this counsel to Abraham, the archetypal believer, both for Abraham's own assurance and for ours too (Heb 6:17-18). So it is with all God's announced intentions. They do not change. No part of his eternal plan changes.
It is true that there is a group of texts (Gen 6:6-7; 1 Sam 15:11; 2 Sam 24:16; Jon 3:10; Joel 2:13-14) which speak of God as repenting. The reference in each case is to a reversal of God's previous treatment of particular people, consequent upon their reaction to that treatment. But there is no suggestion that this reaction was not foreseen, or that it took God by surprise and was not provided for in his eternal plan. No change in his eternal purpose is implied when he begins to deal with a person in a new way.
-- Knowing God, pp 79-80.
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