GOD UNCHANGING
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this
is the place of repose"—
"But You remain the same." Psalm 102:27
This is an antithetical clause; a statement which is
placed in contrast with something preceding, in order to bring the truth it
contains more strongly and powerfully before us. The sacred writer deepens
the shadows of his background, to give a more vivid prominence to a great
Pillar of natural and revealed belief, the Immutability of God. The
background! it is the dark, fitful, flitting shadows of time and sense. He
thus chronicles their history—"They will perish." His foreground! it
is the changeless and unchanging Jehovah, "BUT You remain the same."
The highest and most sublime truths in theology are often
supported alike by reason and revelation. What says reason with
regard to the Divine Immutability? That if God is a changeable Being He
cannot be perfect, for mutability is the necessary attribute of
imperfection. Again (if we dare to suppose for a moment), that if God were
to undergo a change, it must be an Infinite change; moreover, it must
be one of these three (I quote the words of an old divine)—(1.) A change for
the better. This would suppose present imperfection. Or (2.) a change
for the worse; bold and blasphemous impiety, which would reduce the
Holy One to a level with the creature. A third supposition—most presumptuous
of all—is that of annihilation. This would leave the world without
God, which would be a contradiction in terms.
Turn we, now, to what is the testimony of revealed
scripture. That testimony, though uttered in many ways, may be comprised in
the one assertion, "I the Lord do not change" (Mal. 3:6). Glorious truth! To
think, as imagination wings its flight from everlasting to everlasting, that
in the existence of the Being whose lifetime is eternity, there has been no
"variableness"—that He was the same before the world was; that He is the
same now; and will be the very same, ages and ages after the angel has stood
on the wreck of matter and proclaimed "Time to be no longer"—as perfect at
the present moment as He can be when an "eternity of eternity" shall have
rolled by.
But in what ways may this unchangeableness of God be
regarded as a 'Palm of Elim,' imparting a sense of rest and refreshment to
those encamping under its shadow? Comforting doctrine, it undoubtedly is. It
leads us, among other reflections, to feel assured of His certain
foreknowledge of all events—that whatever happens to us must be
ordained by Him; and that the fitful changes in a changing world—our
relations to one another, our domestic and social ties, our joys and our
sorrows, are ordained, watched, and controlled by Him, who sits enthroned
alike amid the radiant sunshine and above and behind the cloud-lands of
life; bringing good out of seeming evil, order out of apparent confusion;
overruling all (ALL), for His own glory and for the best interests of His
Church.
He is spoken of as "the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows" (James 1:17). "This," observes an
eminent Christian of a former age, commenting on the words, "is His
disposition. An act of love may be very kind, but there is no security for
the future. But when the disposition is love—unchanging love—all must
be loving because He is love—all must be wise because He is wisdom."
"Because God," says the inspired writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
"wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs
of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by
two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who
have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged"
(Heb. 4:17, 18).
There is a view of this peerless truth connected with our
motto-verse, pre-eminently comforting, to which we have not yet turned our
attention. The passage of which that verse forms a part, has, by Scriptural
warrant (Heb. 1:10-12) a special application to the adorable Person in the
sacred Trinity, who is pre-eminently the PALM under whose shadow His
Pilgrim Israel repose. Christ, the God-man Mediator, may be supposed (in
vers. 23-27) to address His Divine Father—"In the course of My life He broke
my strength; He cut short My days. So I said: 'Do not take Me away, O My
God, in the midst of My days.'" Then follows the Father's answer—"Your years
go on through all generations. In the beginning You laid the foundations of
the earth; and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but
You remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will
change them and they will be discarded. But You remain the same, and Your
years will never end" (vers. 24-2 7). Yes, of Jesus, wearing our glorified
human nature—the sympathies of a refined and exalted humanity, we can
say, "You are the same."
The absolute unchangeableness of God we could take little
hold of —it is high, we cannot attain to it. But "the Man Christ Jesus"—the
same as He lived and moved and suffered and died on earth; the same in His
compassion, in His words of mercy, in His messages of love, in His
tenderness to the penitent, the fearful, the doubting; in His sympathy with
the bereaved and lonely; and who no longer with tears to shed, has still the
heart to feel—Oh, when the spirit is torn with sorrow, and wounded with
thoughts into which the cold world cannot enter; when estrangement severs
brother from brother and friend from friend; where can the eye peacefully
repose but on this unchanging One? "BUT YOU are the same!" Truly this is "an
anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast," for it "enters within the veil!"
Change is our portion here in this present world. The
Psalmist in this passage points to the starry heavens above, and the
apparently immovable, immutable foundations of the earth beneath, and
inscribes on them the record, "They will perish. Like clothing You
will change them and they will be discarded" (as a worn-out garment which
the Almighty Maker lays aside, as for no more use). When everything within
and around us may be echoing the same sad verdict, it is blessed to be able
to turn from the unstable to the stable; from the reed which the blast may
bend and the hurricane shiver, to the Great living ROCK which spurns the
storm and defies all change! In a word, to lay firm grasp on the glorious
antithesis of Israel's Kingly Minstrel. It is God in contrast with
man; Immutability in contrast with mutability, the Infinite with the
finite, the mortal with the Immortal, Eternity with time. "But You
are the same!"
"Our years are like the shadows
On sunny hills that lie;
Or flowers that deck the meadows
That blossom but to die;
A sleep, a dream, a story,
By strangers quickly told,
An evanescent glory
Of things that soon are old.
"O God! the Rock of Ages,
Who evermore has been,
What time the tempest rages
Our dwelling-place serene.
Before Your first creations
You were the same as now,
To endless generations
The Everlasting Thou!"
"Those who know Your name will trust in You."