Change is the order of the day for all creatures regardless of one’s station in life. Life itself is often described as an ongoing series of changes and adjustments, and they unfailingly occur on every level and in every venue. The lowliest of peons to the most elevated of royalty cannot fight off change. And while this is all true of all of humanity, God knows nothing of change, and theology calls this God’s “immutability”, not subject to change.
We understand mutations, how certain biological life-forms, such as lowly bacteria, can mutate itself into a more resistant strain to stave off extinction. God’s immutability ought to be a great source of comfort to all beings who are not immutable. It’s wonderful to know that, despite change occurring all around us and even within us, there is One being not subject to change. God alone is the great Constant, and His immutability is coupled with His other attributes that even require His immutability. How could God be omniscient and not be immutable? Or omnipotent, or omnipresent and not be immutable? In God, there is no capriciousness.
The psalmist related his pleasure in serving an immutable God in Psalm 102, when he stated, “Of old, hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end.” Malachi adds his sentiment in chapter 3 when God speaks through him saying, “I am the LORD; I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed.” God is saying the only reason Israel continues to exist is because the covenant-keeping God is not fickle and does not change. If God were changeable, Israel would have been history because God would have not put up with them. But, being the immutable God He is, Israel is safe as the recipient of God’s promises, promises He will honor because He is immutable.
A beautiful passage extolling the immutability of God in James, chapter 1, says, “Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning.” God’s great unchanging nature is one of the attributes required of Deity. With man, change is so much a constant it has been said that the more things change, the more they stay the same. With us, change is sameness, but the immutable God, the opposite is true…no variation, no shadow that is caused by God’s turning because God doesn’t turn. An immutable God is the very basis of the believer’s security and stability. Immutability is one more of God’s attributes that should cause us to rejoice.
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