“If it is not about Jesus, it’s not about anything”
Motto of the Fountain of Life
Our text for today is Hebrews 13:8; “Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Father in Jesus’ name, please guide this study of your
immutability. Let our primary focus be
to seek unity in universal principles and not to seek division over
interpretation of terms or scriptures.
May we listen to other positions with respect. We seek knowledge to understand You, but
more so; we seek wisdom to live lives that please You. Therefore may the request for knowledge be
blessed, and may the request for wisdom be double blessed. Amen.
This sermon message wants to examine The changelessness
of God and show the great significance of God’s eternal attention toward
mankind. Immutability is a term
identifying an attribute of God. It
means changelessness.
Theologically if a
being changes it is not infinite and therefore not divine and not God. There are many scriptural proofs that God is
changeless; does not repent; is immutable:
James 1:17: “Every
good thing comes from God, in whom there is no variableness neither shadow or
turning.” Or no shadow due to change.
Malachi 3:6: “For
I the Lord, I change not.”
Numbers 23:19:
“God is not a man: that He should
repent.”
Repentance indicates change.
1 Samuel 15:29:
“The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is
not a man that he should repent.”
Romans 11:29: “For
the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
Some time ago I discussed Hebrews 13:8 with a man who
believed in the Saturday Sabbath. He
offered as proof that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. That meant for him that Sabbath is of God,
God is eternal, Jesus is God and does not change. Therefore Saturday Sabbath forever carries
God unchanging will for mankind.
Orthodox Christian traditions sometimes, in an effort to
defend the doctrine of God’s unchanging will, have taught that God’s eternal
plan of salvation commands the patriarchal, hierarchical, social, and political
status of ancient Israel to continue forever, not only in the millennium, but
also today. They hold that any attempt
to teach differently is to disobey the unchanging will of an unchanging
God. With such an understanding some
religious traditions taught that the immutability of God means that there is an
unchangeable plan for our lives and that nothing we can say or do can alter
what God has already determined will happen to us. Some may use this position to argue
Predestination and Double Predestination or even Fatalism. Let us honestly ask, are these valid
applications of the immutability of God, or the application of an incomplete
understanding?
If God is changeless, how does that fact affect these
equally valid scriptures?
Luke 2:52: “And
Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” This is change.
Genesis 6:6: “And
it repented the Lord that He made man.”
Genesis 13:`6:
Abraham bargains with the Lord to spare Sodom for 10 righteous.
Exodus 32:14: “And
the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.”
1 Samuel 15:11:
“It repented me that I set up Saul to be king.”
2 Kings 20:1: The
Lord instructed Hezekiah to put his house in order for he was to die and not
live. But God heard Hezekiah’s prayer
and changed His decision to take a life and added 15 years to that life.
Was the eternal Word of God the same before the creation
of the world as He was after His birth in Bethlehem as He is now after His
Resurrection? We see scriptures showing
that God can change. But God is
changeless. This is not a
contradiction. We have difference in
meaning and context that is not always clear.
Immutability means infinite changelessness. God is infinitely changeless. What is changeable is finite.
Finite means loss
or gain, increase or diminishment.
Changelessness in
God means infinite perfection. It means
that God is without any lack which a change could fill up. He is without any fullness which a change
could diminish.
Consider some comparisons. Since the beginning of this message we have
changed because of the passage of time.
The cells in our
bodies have grown older. Time diminishes
our bodies. Tomorrow we shall have aged
more.
Jesus has not
aged. He is the same now as He was at
the start of this message and the same as He shall be tomorrow. Time does not increase or diminish Him
because He is changeless.
Food changes me for good or ill. I ate breakfast. It was gain for my body to provide energy for
life. When I do not eat, it diminishes
the body because it provides no energy for life, because the body is changeable
with respect to physical nourishment and finite life. Jesus ate fish and honeycomb with the
Apostles after the Resurrection. Yet the
food neither diminished nor increased His body or His eternal life. The food did not change Him for good or for
ill. Jesus is not changeable with
respect to finite or infinite life.
We change our minds.
Good choices increase the experience of life. Bad choices diminish us. Because changes change us and have an effect upon
us, we are changeable. God’s choice to
destroy Sodom or to spare it did not increase or diminish Him. Neither did His repentance from destroying
Israel and rising up a people to Moses add to or detract from His infinite perfection. He can repent, that is change, without adding to or detracting from Himself.
Therefore He is
not changeable.
But what if Romans 7:14 is correct and the Law is
spiritual? Then is immutability a valid
warrant for Sabbath keeping, or reinstituting animal sacrifice, or abstaining
from pork or shrimp, which are carnal ordinances? If not, what therefore is the meaning,
promise and assurance of Hebrews 13:8?
We look at the context in which Hebrews 13:8 was written.
Hebrews 13:7
says: “Remember them which have the rule
over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of
their conversation.”
The several
commentaries which I consulted indicate that this verse is not an admonition
for a Christian congregation to blindly follow their current minister. In fact it does not refer here to a current
minister at all, but to the original preachers of the Word.
At the time of the writing, the faithful conversation of
many of the original teachers of the Gospel had ceased due to their
deaths. Stephen, James the brother of
John, and perhaps already Peter and Paul were killed. Hebrews advises us to remember their
teaching, their conversation, because it had not changed. The end of their conversation was Jesus. Jude, the brother of Jesus, advises the same
thing in Jude 3: “Beloved…ye should
earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
Hebrews and Jude
are warning against any change in the conversation, a warning against false
teachers. The end of the original
conversation is to become the end of our conversation, which is Jesus. There would be no change in the teaching
about Jesus. That teaching about Jesus
was and is the same yesterday, when preached by the martyred Stephen and James,
today when preached to them by Paul or Apollos, and forever, when preached by a
faithful 21st century minister.
Jonathan Edwards
With that as a backdrop, Jonathan Edwards examined this
issue of changelessness in sermon which he delivered in 1738. The remainder of our sermon follows Edwards’
work.
He wrote, “The
Christian faith does not change. It is
not one way now and one way when they (the Hebrews) were first converted. Christ and Christianity are the same
thing. The writer of Hebrews did not
want them uncertain and changeable in their faith. He wanted them to be faithful to their former
faith and not be carried away with new and strange doctrine. The next verse emphasizes this when it says
that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. By yesterday is meant all times past; by
today, the time present, and by forever, all that is future, from the present
time to eternity.” Edwards proposed that
Jesus is unchangeable in two ways:
First:
He is unchangeable
by His divine nature. Second: Christ is unchangeable in His office.
1). Christ is
unchangeable by His divine nature: Jesus
occupies a position in the Trinity. He is God and has the divine nature, the
Godhead dwelling in Him. He has all the
attributes of God including immutability and therefore is changeless. Jesus as a man, in His human nature, was not
totally unchangeable. He was born, grew
in stature and wisdom and gained knowledge.
He most likely learned how to become a carpenter. He, however, was also God and not in
subjection to His human nature. Having
His divine nature to uphold Him, Edwards teaches that His human nature was not
subject to fall and commit sin, as Adam and the fallen angels did.
Jesus’ human nature on earth was subject to painful
changes, not sinful ones. He suffered
hunger and thirst; He felt chill and cold; He suffered greatly in the Garden
and upon the Cross. Afterward His body
was gloriously changed at the Resurrection and the Ascension. His human nature was not subject to sinful
changes as was Adam’s or the angels’.
His human nature was always in constant and intimate relation and
contact to the divine nature which upheld it.
Christ’s divine nature is absolutely unchangeable. It was the same after His Incarnation as
before. After the resurrection when He
was glorified and sat at the right hand of the Father, His divine nature did
not change.
2). Christ is
unchangeable in His office as Mediator andSavior of His Church and people.
First: The office of Mediator never ceases nor is it
ever replaced. Jesus is the only
Mediator between God and man. 1 Timothy
2:5 shows, “There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man
Christ Jesus.” He is an everlasting
Mediator and Savior. The Old Testament
priests died and were replaced. But
Christ, who lives forever, is a priest forever (Hebrews 7:23-24).
His kingly office is also everlasting. David and Solomon were powerful kings, but
they died and were replaced. But for
Jesus, as Hebrews 1:8 indicates, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” Daniel 7:13-14 show that though all other
kingdoms will be demolished, the Kingdom of Jesus will stand forever.
Second: Christ is
at all times totally sufficient for the office He has undertaken. He undertook the office from eternity past in
covenant with the Father. His power,
wisdom, love, and worthiness are forever sufficient for salvation. He is forever able to save, because He lives
forever. Hebrews 7:16 says, “He is made,
not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless
life.”
Third: Christ is
now, and ever will be faithfully fulfilling the duty of His office for us. He will not be who He is without us. Men will fail but Jesus is the same
yesterday, today and forever. He loves
us yesterday, today and forever. This
commitment to complete the work of His office is immutable and is grounded in
His love for us and His covenant with His Father. For past generations of saints it has already
been fulfilled. Therefore, since it is
already fulfilled it can never not be fulfilled for future generations.
Fourth: Christ is
the same yesterday, today, and forever as to the purpose of fulfilling His
office. His supreme purpose is the glory
of God. Edwards says that, “This is why
He undertook to be the Mediator between God and man.
He did it for the
honor of God’s justice and majesty…He also undertook the office to glorify the
free grace of God.”
Fifth: Christ is
consistent in the method of carrying out His mediatorial office. The manner by which Jesus executes His office
is found in a twofold covenant:
1st:
The covenant of
redemption or the eternal covenant that was between the Father and the
Son. In agreement with the Father,
Christ becomes Mediator with fallen man.
This is an eternal agreement from which Jesus never departs by the power
of His own free will. Christ does and
completes the work that God gave Him (John 17:4). 2nd:
The other covenant regarding Christ’s mediatorial office is the covenant
of grace that God established with man.
God makes promises to His creatures.
He made covenants with
Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. And by His sovereign free will, He wills to give us grace and mercy.
For example in Exodus 3:14 God wills to
reveal Himself as the great I Am in the glory of His self-existence. In Exodus 34:6, God wills to reveal Himself
to Moses and to us through the glory of His covenant of grace. In effect, God
says in so many words, “And this O Israel is how I will to be your God.” And it is through a covenant of grace.
Sixth: He is
unchangeable in the acts that He exercises in His office. That means that He will never reject those
who receive Him. His intercession for
His Church and His people never ceases.
Hebrews7:25 says, “Wherefore He is able also to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession
for them.” Just as He is unchanging in
His intercession, He is unchanging in upholding and preserving us.
CONCLUSION
Unchangeable in Holy Scripture does not focus on carnal
rites or institutions, but rather points us to the perfect self-consistency of
God throughout all eternity. In this
respect, Edwards shows God’s divine nature does not change. None of the attributes of God can
change. This unchanging work of His
attributes and grace is not a static concept, or an unfeeling sterile sequence
of infinite random iterations, but a dynamic action in each of His individual
relations with each of His creatures.
And that is a
comfort. When God in His free will says,
“I the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant
in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6), that means He acts that way toward us
forever. The notion that God’s
immutability is static immutability is not the Biblical view. His interest toward us is active, intimate,
and ever present. Edwards shows that
both the teaching (conversation) about Jesus and His work as Mediator and
Savior are unchangeable yesterday, today, and forever.
Brethren, lets offer a doxology using a free rendering of
Psalm 100:5: Praise Jesus. For He, the Lord, is good.
His mercy and
grace are everlasting and His truth endures to all generations forever.
George Relic, Assistant Pastor
Fountain of Life Church, Washington, Pennsylvania A
Congregation of Grace Communion International
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