This year has brought many changes in almost every area of life: economic, health, social… even our own church community meetings.  Stability is what gives meaning to currencies, stocks, laws, morals, customs, and cultures.  The list goes on and on.  The Good News is that we have One who doesn’t change; who is immutable.  Therefore, He gives ultimate meaning to our existence.

God is unchangeable because He is perfect and infinite.  Since He is completely perfect, there is no way He could improve, nor would He want to become inferior.  His changelessness relates to all His attributes.  None of them change, become dormant or dominant.  Remember, God is Simple; He is One.  God’s name, Yahweh, reveals this unchangeable, full, simple person of God: “I AM WHAT I AM,” or “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE” (Ex. 3:14).  God has not, does not, and will never change being who He is.

His immutability can be seen in all His various attributes; for example, in His providence and sovereignty:

WCF 3.1: God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

His unchangeableness gives meaning and purpose to our entire world.  Chance and randomness are forever banished.  Even the present COVID-19 is part of His wonderful, mysterious, and unchangeable plan.  This virus has brought change and catastrophe to all of our country’s institutions: Wall Street, March Madness basketball, the Olympic Games, education, and business.  God is using this to once again demonstrate the futility of trusting in anything but Him and the worthlessness of the idols of our culture.  God has seen fit to use this little bug to produce effects similar to the 10 plagues on Egypt; namely repentance and faith, or the hardening of unbelief.

As believers, we are called to imitate God.  Although we are weak, sinful, and frail, we are called to be constant and unwavering.  Psalm 52 is a wonderful contrast between the person of faith and the person of this world.  The wicked are described in the first four verses, followed by their coming destruction in verses 5-7.  Our response to the trials of life is stated well in verses 8-9.  Note as you read these verses how God’s changelessness is behind all the statements and how the Psalmist is imitating God’s attribute in his professions.  (I would encourage you to read the whole Psalm to fully see the contrast with the unbeliever.)

5 But God will break you [the wicked] down forever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah

8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.
9 I will thank you forever, because you have done it.
I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.

Our hope is in God and in God alone.