Perhaps one of the most beautiful doctrines contained in all of Holy Scripture is the doctrine of justification: that God declares us righteous because of the imputation of His Son’s righteousness credited to us, and our sins imputed to Him. It makes my jaw drop when I consider it.
One other doctrine that I marvel at, and without which justification wouldn’t make any sense, is the doctrine of divine immutability. To say that God is immutable means that He does not change in His being, His character, or His purposes. The whole story of redemption, from Genesis to Revelation, depends on this incredible attribute of God. If God is who He says He is today, but He is not that tomorrow, how can we depend upon Him for all things, not the least of which is His declaration of our being righteous?
God’s Unchanging Character
The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 4, states that God is
“unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”
Psalm 33:11 says that “The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.” James 1:17 says that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
While those passages deserve their own treatment regarding God’s immutability, there is one passage that I am drawn to more and more. In the last book of the Old Testament, we read in Malachi 3:6, “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”
Why Jacob Is Not Consumed
To understand that passage, we need to remember who is being addressed. Context, like any biblical passage, is king here. Malachi is writing/speaking to a people who have returned from exile in Babylon. God has accomplished what He promised and has brought them home. And yet, throughout Malachi, before 3:6, the response of Israel towards their covenant God is astounding. Consider God’s pronouncement of love upon them in chapter 1:1-5, and yet Israel continues to doubt God’s love. The priests dishonor God by offering defective animals and treat worship as a burden, and because of the corruption of their duties, God warns them of covenant discipline. The people break covenant faithfulness, particularly through the treatment of their wives and of foreign marriages.
And, in a stunning display of irony, the people have the audacity to complain that God seems to tolerate evil and isn’t judging the wicked, and ask, in 2:17, “Where is the God of justice?” And God answers them.
He says that He is coming to judge.
In 3:1-5, we read that His “messenger” will prepare the way, and the Lord will come to His temple. But His judgment will include Israel itself, particularly those who are corrupt and oppressive.
And then comes 3:6: “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”
God’s response to Israel’s “Where is the God of justice?” is nearly a reversal. They claim to have been robbed of a God who has been faithful to them, but in Malachi 3:8, He tells them it is they who have been robbing Him. And the grounds for His reply is verse 6. After centuries of covenant-breaking, Israel still exists not because of Israel’s faithfulness, but because of God’s. Consider the “therefore.” Because He does not change, because of God’s immutability, they are not consumed.
In other words, God's unchanging nature is both a warning (He will consistently judge sin) and a comfort (He will remain faithful to His covenant promises to preserve a people for Himself, despite Israel's unfaithfulness).
The ultimate survival of Israel and the preservation of the elect therein was never a reward for their steadfastness in obedience, but wholly upon the character of God and His steadfast love towards them (Lam. 3:22).
A Sure and Steadfast Hope
If you read Hebrews 13:8 carefully, it almost reads like a kind of New Testament lens on the truths of Malachi 3:6: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” The author of Hebrews contrasts the unchanging nature of Christ against the shifting “diverse and strange teachings” that threaten the church (Heb. 13:9). In applying to Jesus what Malachi says of Yahweh, Hebrews also testifies to who Jesus is as God in His immutability.
Earlier in the letter, the author connects God’s unchangeableness to our sure hope. God guaranteed His promise with an oath so that we might “have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Heb. 6:18). Then, in the next verse, is a familiar illustration: “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Heb. 6:19).
Picture in your mind an anchor at sea. It, of itself, is not an object that calms the sea around it. A ship that is at anchor can still be tossed by the roaring of the wind and the waves around it. It is the anchor that keeps the ship from being carried away. So it is with us. We will still be battered and whipped by the world, but because Christ does not change, we are held by Him as our anchor.
If God were changeable, any hope that we have would rise and fall with our petty performance as Christ followers this side of glory, and we know how that would end. But the God of Malachi 3:6 is one whose mercy has preserved His people through every failure of eons past, and He will preserve them through those still to come. Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so we can rest on Him in every circumstance we find ourselves in this world, whether good or ill.
Returning to the Unchanging God
Now, granted, this isn’t a license to sin. Consider the words of Malachi 3:7 that immediately follow as words of invitation: “Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.”
A God who does not change is exactly the God to whom we can return in times of sin, whether of commission or omission, and is that Father running toward us, because of the Son’s finished work, made ours by the abiding presence of the Spirit.
In those moments, we remember that He is the Lord – Father, Son, and Spirit – and He does not change.
Listen to Jared Luttjeboer on MarsCast, the official podcast of Mid-America Reformed Seminary, and The Church History Project, his church history podcast.
