God’s immutability can be defined as: “The nature, attributes, and will of God are exempt from all change.”
Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 257.
So from this definition we can see that His immutability (also an attribute) is self-referencing in this definition. What I mean by this is that since immutability is an attribute of God and all attributes of God are immutable it stands to reason that God’s immutability is also immutable. In other words, this definition is placing a very strong emphasis on God’s unchanging nature.
Now this sounds like a bit of circular reasoning (God’s immutability is immutable) that we could think on for a long time. But let’s examine this in more depth.
To begin, let’s consider why we include immutability as an attribute of who God is. Better yet, let’s suspend reality and consider if God was not immutable or, rather, mutable. Well, we know that God is omnipotent (all powerful). However, if He was mutable then God could change who He is, which means His very nature could change. But then we would have to place all of God’s other attributes alongside His mutability as well, such as His omniscience (all knowingness).
So if God is all knowing and if He were mutable (which He is not), then God changing any of His attributes, His will, or His nature would erase His omniscience. God would no longer be able to be omniscient. “Why?” you ask. Well, what if God made Himself less graceful to us. Would our salvation now be in jeopardy? If His mercy was to wane, how would we now view our persecutions or our own pains and agonies that we go through? Are they still for our sanctification? Maybe that would mean that God has given up on us.
Let’s take this one step farther. What if God increased His grace to us. Wouldn’t that mean that He has limitations on the amount of grace He can give? Possibly…but the more striking issue here is that God, in His omniscience, may have made a mistake and didn’t give us enough grace. Once again our salvation is in jeopardy!
Therefore, if God was mutable, He could not be fully omniscient. If He is not all knowing, He cannot be all powerful. And, if He is not all powerful, we cannot trust in His word. Woe unto us! Once one of God’s attributes is removed or even reduced to a finite amount, God cannot be who He says He is. This is why His attribute of immutability is so important. Even His immutability is immutable.
But all glory be to the Father, who we have known through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord! Jesus, being the great I AM shows us that He also possesses the attributes of God as He is one with the Father. He is God. He has given us a measure of faith that we can know God through His infinite attributes even though we have finite minds. And those attributes are perfect. There is no possible way that they could change, neither increasing nor decreasing. How wonderful and comforting is that!
Can We Question God’s Immutability Through Scripture?
Now let’s examine some scripture in Hebrews 13:8:
8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
and in 1 Samuel 15:29:
29“Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”
and just to make sure let’s look at Numbers 23:19:
19“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
All these verses corroborate the fact that God is immutable.
But what about the verses in 1 Samuel 15:10–11:
10Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying,
11“I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night.
This verse says God regretted His actions. In most translations we see this word translated from the Hebrew as “regret” but in the YLT translation (a very literal translation) it is “repented”. If God is immutable, why does He regret His actions? I know if I regret my own human sinful actions that would mean that I’ve done something wrong and I wish I could have a do-over to correct my incorrect actions. But God’s ways are higher than our own ways and God (as we have just read) states that He is immutable. So how do we reconcile 1 Samuel 15:11 with these other verses?
One method of exploring what God means when He “regrets making Saul king” is to look at the Hebrew verb for “regret”. This verb is conjugated as a Qatal (perfect). This essentially means that we get the sense that this regretful action is viewed as full and complete. God was showing His displeasure with Saul in saying that His regret is now complete and God’s judgement would now take over. This is a major clue in helping us understand God’s actions here as an immutable God.
Another method we must use is to look at the context in which God makes this statement. Saul had just disobeyed God in not completely destroying the Amalekites and all their livestock. I might add that this is not the first nor the last time Saul has overtly disobeyed the commands of God. This had so angered God that he would now set Himself against Saul. This would not end well for Saul. Placing this context alongside what we know about the verb translated as “regret”, we get the sense that God’s regret didn’t just appear. That is, God was not caught unaware and now is feeling this regret for the first time. The regret was there at the beginning. Let’s keep digging…
We also need to look at how this mess all started with making Saul king. It says in 1 Samuel 8:7–9:
7And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
8According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.
9Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
God was giving Israel over to their sinful desire to have an earthly king and not the heavenly King. The key word here is the word “warn” in verse 9 (and Samuel does warn them of what is to come). God allowed them to have an earthly king to lead them. God could have punished them instead of giving them an earthly king but His grace, mercy, and patience stayed His hand. However, His judgement and wrath were also present in God’s decision to allow an earthly king. We see here that even though He gave them over to their sinful desires in order to punish them, He still cared deeply for His people. He never stopped loving them (His immutable love). But sometimes that perfect love must punish the unruly child in order to make perfect.
So God’s regret was being expressed as His sorrow over Israel’s desire to have an earthly king. It does not mean that God was changing His mind over allowing Israel to have their own king nor does it mean that God’s actions were done without careful consideration. And it certainly doesn’t mean that God made a mistake. God is simply revealing more of Himself to us and to Israel showing that He is a loving, graceful God and at the same time a God of wrath and judgement. In a sense both sides of God (love/judgement) were there all along, but God chose to only display one of those sides at a time. When the time was right (i.e., when God’s regret had come full circle and was complete), God chose to display His righteous judgement in wrath against Saul.
God was now turning from being for Saul (making every effort to direct Saul to obey Him) to being against Saul. Later we see a tormenting spirit descend on Saul and Saul himself spiraling into a depressed, psychotic, murderous rage. I could see the reasoning behind using the word “repent” instead of “regret” as God was making a huge change from blessing Saul to cursing Saul. Another way of putting it is that the immutable God’s love/kindness/grace/mercy towards Saul was in play at the same time that God’s judgement/anger also existed. When God knew that Saul was no longer useful to Him, He turned His judgement/anger towards Saul. At no time did God Himself change, just the way He handled Saul changed. And we know that since God was deeply sorrowful (regretful) over Saul that God still loved Him.
Taking this study one step farther we read in Hebrews 6:17–18:
17In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,
18so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
Note this last line says that we who have taken refuge in God (as young David did in 1 Samuel) will have not only an encouragement but a strong encouragement to hold fast to our hope in God. David’s hope was strengthened by God’s “regret” for making Saul king. God knew Saul would be a terrible leader, but this was not done to appease the people so much as to strengthen David’s faith and hope. This was necessary for David as he was to be the next earthly king of Israel.