Jesus - the Same, Yesterday, Today, and Forever - Pt. 1

 

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.  (Hebrews 13:8-10 ESV).

 

The most significant thing to notice in these verses is that the writer to the Hebrews clearly calls the Son of God "God." God says to his Son, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever" (v. 8). Therefore, the writer ascribes to him the work of creating the universe. "The heavens are the work of Your hands" (v. 10). And then he draws out the implication: the creation, which seems so stable and permanent and changeless will, in fact, "be changed like a garment," but "you are the same, and your years will not come to an end." The sameness of Jesus Christ is the sameness that comes from being the eternal God.

 

So, his sameness is the sameness of God. His unchangingness is the unchangingness of God. The visible universe with all its laws that so many count on to be unchanging is like a shirt compared to God: it was put on at creation, and it will be taken off when God is through with it. What the world regards as the baseline of stability is not. God is. And Jesus Christ is God.

 

This raises the crucial question about the changelessness of God, or what we call "the doctrine of God's immutability." We base this doctrine on texts like Malachi 3:6: "For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." And, texts like 1 Samuel 15:29, "Also the Glory of Israel [God] will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind." You may point to those texts that say God changes his mind. Yes, there are such texts in the Scripture. In fact, one of them is right here in this same chapter of 1 Samuel 15, which is why this text about God's changelessness is so crucial. The Hebrew word for "change his mind" in 1 Samuel 15:29 is the same as the word used in verse 11 and verse 35 for "regret" (NASB) or "repent" (KJV). In verse 11, God says, "I regret [or I repent or change my mind] that I have made Saul king." And in verse 35 God says, "And the Lord regretted [or repented or changed his mind] that He had made Saul king over Israel."

 

It says God does change his mind about Saul, and in verse 29 it says, God "will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind." Here is my suggestion about how we can see this. When the writer says that God repented or regretted or changed his mind about making Saul king, he realized that he has said something very liable to misunderstanding. So, he adds verse 29 to limit and clarify what he has said: “For He is not a man that he should change his mind [or repent or regret]." In other words, God's changes are not like man's changes. Changing for God is from one situation to another, but not the kind of changing a human mind would do. God is not man to change like man changes.

 

A man can look with joy on a person and on a situation one day and look with disapproval on that person and the new situation the next day. So can God. He rejoices over a person's behavior one day and may grieve over it the next day. His mind changes. However, there is a great difference. Man brings to every situation limitations that God does not. The most relevant one is that man brings finiteness and lack of knowledge. God does not. That should give us great comfort. That brings hope to us in ways that allow us to shake off our fear.