The Immutable God

“You cannot step into the same river twice.” So said Heraclitus, one of the most important Greek philosophers of the pre-Socratic era. He observed that between the time a person steps out of a river and back in again, the water flowing between the banks moves downstream and myriad other changes occur to the river, though most are too minute to be observed. This was Heraclitus’ memorable way of arguing that all reality we encounter, everything we know, is changing. In his opinion, the only permanent thing is flux, or change itself.

Heraclitus was surely right that change is a constant in the creaturely realm. All creatures change—they grow, they age, they decay, and finally they die. Change is fundamental to creatureliness. But it is not fundamental to all reality, for the Scriptures declare that God does not change. He possesses the attribute of immutability. That means He never undergoes mutations or changes; rather, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This aspect of His nature is hinted at in the name He gave to Moses in Exodus 3, “I am,” which we examined last week. This great name of God tells us that He is always the same in His being. In Him there is only being, no becoming. He is the one thing that remains constant in the universe.

Some improperly conclude that if God is unchanging, He must be inert, frozen, or paralyzed in His being. Those who think this way are applying human categories to God, assuming that He cannot be active and immutable at the same time. But the Scriptures present just such a picture, telling us God is immutable even while depicting Him working in myriad ways from Genesis to Revelation.

Mankind is naturally at enmity with God, protesting and rebelling against His government of creation. Why are we like this when we owe Him everything? Jonathan Edwards once preached a sermon on this topic. To explain our antipathy, he pointed to the attributes of God. Man, he said, hates God because of His holiness (which exposes man’s sin), His omnipotence (which means He is infinitely stronger than we are), His omniscience (which means that He knows us exhaustively), and His immutability (which removes any possibility that God will ever cease to be holy, almighty, or all-knowing). All that God is He will continue to be forever, without change.