He will not change

That we live in different times than the generation(s) that preceded us seems self-evident.  But the case of a certain John Fisher and Lizzie Clark, two strangers on a train near Atlantic City near the beginning of the 20th century reveals just how much change has taken place.  This, according to the New York Times, is what happened —

Miss Clark was standing on the platform.  He thought she smiled.  She got on the car and took the front seat.  He beat a ragtime refrain.  Then he ran his hand through his hair, brushed two specks from his coat, smiled a pensive smile, and took the seat beside Miss Clark and remarked in feeling tones “that it looked like rain.”

Hardly were the words uttered when the conductor bore down, attracted by the girl’s signals of distress.

And for the simple act of saying that it “looked like rain,” he was charged in a Camden, NJ court with flirting — and received 60 days in jail!  As one wag suggested, “It must have been the feeling tones that did Fisher in.”

Everything in our lives does change, leaving us unstable and weak. Yet there is one constant — God Himself.  He is absolutely, completely and eternally unchanging in all that He is.  He is immutable.

Psalm 102 reveals the unchanging nature of God.

God’s power does not change (v. 25).  His strength that was revealed in the creation of the universe has not diminished in any aspect since that day.  His ability to establish and set in motion the entire created universe with but a word is the same power He has to this day.

God’s character does not change (v. 26).  Even were all the created order of God to perish, He endures.  Nothing about Him changes.  His wisdom does not change and His purposes do not change.  His holiness does not change and His grace does not change.  He endures as He is for all time.  He neither grows nor diminishes in any aspect.  He does not gain any advantages through time — He does not grow in knowledge or grace or any other attribute — nor does He suffer any loss through the continuance of time.  What He is He always has been and always will be.  “You ever remain as you are,” Luther affirmed.

God’s ways do not change (v. 27).  The phrase “You are the same” literally reads, “You are He.”  That is, everything about Him always remains the same.  The way He conducts Himself with His people is always the same.  His promises remain ever in effect and those who have received those promises can rest comfortably in them.  His way of salvation does not change and His attitude toward sin does not change.  His purpose for all men to glorify Him has not and will not change.  Nothing about Him or His actions changes.

God’s Son does not change.  These verses are quoted in Heb. 1:10-12.  What is true of the Father is also true of the Son (Heb. 13:8).  So as the Father does not change, so nothing about Christ changes either.  He is eternally the Son of God.  His compassion, mercy, and grace towards sinners does not change.  His salvation does not change.  And His eternal plan and preparations for His brides does not change.

All these truths combine to reveal to us a God who is infinitely dependable.  When all else changes and fluctuates, God does not.  And because everything but God is transitory, we do well to be vigilant in fixing our affections on God and His unchanging nature.  We are wise when we rest in the One who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  We find encouragement from Him when we are patient in all His providences in our lives and continue to trust Him when tempted to not trust Him.

He is God and He will not change.