Behold Your Unchanging God: The Measure of All Things.
There are many ways in which we must state that God does not change. Just as He Himself, says about Himself.
God does not change in that which makes God, God. This relates to the divine being or His essence. That which makes God to be God does not, and indeed cannot change. As an example, if God is all-powerful, He is essentially omnipotent and therefore it is inconceivable that He should become less than omnipotent. God is perfect in His essence and so He can never become imperfect or incomplete.
This means, in another sense that God cannot change in either direction of improvement or deterioration. God is perfectly perfect. He cannot diminish. Any change must be for the better or the worse. As God is completely perfect, he cannot change. Only sick people get better, so to imply that God could better Himself somehow, necessarily entails that He is not perfect prior to the betterment. No, our God is Wholly Perfect. He lacks nothing, He needs nothing, and He is in possession of all His attributes to the maximal degree. He will never lose His wisdom, knowledge or power.
A foundational aspect of God’s immutability is found in Exodus 3:14-15:
But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?"
So He said, "I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain."
Then Moses said to God, "Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?"
And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’"
Moreover God said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’”
This is God’s self-designation that He gave to Moses at the burning bush. What is significant here is that this identifies God in His immutable and eternal being.
The Hebrew of this verse reads: ehyeh asher ehyeh.
The Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as LXX or the Septuagint, puts this saying of God in the absolute sense of being: ego eimi. This is the manner in which the New Testament refers to the Exodus passage in the words of Jesus in John 8:58: “Before Abraham was, I am,” or as this last phrase is rendered, “ego eimi” (emphasis added). The present force of this saying in Exodus of God’s self-designation is captured in comments by John I. Durham, a Hebrew scholar. He says:
In saying “I am that I am,” God is using first person verbs that are common qal imperfects of the verb hyh, “to be.” This means that the connotation is of a continuing unfinished action: “I am being that I am being,” or “I am the Is-ing One,” that is, “I am the One who Always Is.” This does not refer to conceptual being or being in the abstract, but true active being. God is not to be though of as ‘was’ or ‘will be,’ because the Active being of God can only be thought of as Present Active Being. Thus he cannot and will not change. God is the “is or Is-ing One,” the One who “Always Is,” and the One who is plainly, “I am.” (Word Commentary on Exodus).
This is God’s name, as He calls Himself. This means very little in our culture, but in Ancient Near Eastern culture one’s name had a truly amazing significance. People were named in hopes and aspirations. God’s name is indicative of the kind of God He is.
The name of God is descriptive of His being. As God’s name indicates, He is One who will always be, He is the self-existent One. As such He will continue to reveal Himself in His being and doing, and as the true living God, He will not be brought under the control or influence of mere mortals. He is the measure of all things.
Theodore Zachariades |
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