The Attributes of God: Part 4 - Immutability

TBC Glassboro Sermons and More · The Attributes Of God: Part 4 - Immutability

The third of God’s Absolute Attributes is immutability.    Louis Berkof states that immutability “is that perfection of God by which He is devoid of all change, not only in His Being, but also in His perfections, and in His purposes and promises…”(1) 

Because God is immutable means that He does not change.  

• For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. - Malachi 3:6
• Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. - James 1:17

God’s immutability also guarantees that what God says, He will do.  God cannot lie.  

• God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? - Numbers 23:19
• ...it is impossible for God to lie, - Hebrews 6:18

One should not interpret God’s immutability to mean that God cannot or does not respond to His creatures.  Walter Kaiser states, “God is not a frozen automaton who cannot respond to persons; He is a living person who can and does react to others as much and more genuinely, than we do to each other…” (2)

Immutability is not immobility.  Consider the incarnation of Christ.  At a moment in time, the second person of the Godhead took on human flesh and nature.  However, nothing changed in regard to His deity.  He remained one hundred percent God, while becoming one hundred percent human.

ENDNOTES:

1. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1941), 58.
2. Walter C. Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 209.​