Immutable God

QUESTION: What do theologians say about our Immutable God?

ANSWER:

"[God] cannot change for the better, for He is already perfect; and being perfect, He cannot change for the worse. Altogether unaffected by anything outside Himself, improvement or deterioration is impossible. He is perpetually the same." – Pink¹

"God is not magnified by us so far as His nature is concerned—He is unchangeable—but He is magnified in our knowledge and experience, when we greatly esteem Him and highly regard Him, especially as to His grace and goodness." – Martin Luther²

[God] exists forever, and 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 wise, as time goes by. – J.I. Packer³

“Where is the sense of distance and difference, then, between believers in Bible time and ourselves? It is excluded. On what grounds? On the grounds that God does not change. Fellowship with Him, trust in His word, living by faith, standing on the promises of God, are essentially the same realities for us today as they were for Old and New Testament believers. This thought brings comfort as we enter into the perplexities of each day: amid all the changes and uncertainties of life in a nuclear age, God and His Christ remain the same—almighty to save. But the thought brings a searching challenge too. If our God is the same as the God of New Testament believers, how can we justify ourselves in resting content with an experience of communion with Him, and a level of Christian conduct, that falls so far below theirs? If God is the same, this is not an issue that any one of us can evade.” – J.I. Packer³

"Immutability means that God is unchangeable and thus unchanging. This does not mean that He is immobile or inactive, but it does mean that He is never inconsistent or growing or developing." – Charles Ryrie⁴

"There is a change round about Him [God], change in the relations of men to Him, but there is no change in His being, His attributes, His purpose, His motives for action, or His promises... If Scripture speaks of His repenting, changing His intention, and altering His relation to sinners when they repent, we should remember that this is only an anthropopathic way of speaking. In reality the change is not in God, but in man and in man's relation to God. – Systematic Theology⁵

Footnotes:
¹ Pink, A.W. The Attributes of God, 37.
² Luther, Martin, Works of Luther, 86
³ Packer, J.I. Knowing God, 77, 80-81.
⁴ Ryrie, Charles. Basic Theology, 38.
⁵ Systematic Theology [Eerdmans], 59.

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