Well, let's get started with our Sunday school lesson this morning, as we continue our study of chapter two of our confession of faith. And we're still in paragraph one, taking our time, as we study the doctrine of God, which we confess. And this morning's lesson is about divine immutability. Divine immutability. So we're going to define it and then defend it. and connect it to other parts of our doctrine of God, not parts in God, but parts of our understanding of God. So let's begin by noticing in our Confession of Faith, chapter 2, paragraph 1, where we confess God's immutability. We confess that God is a most pure spirit—that's divine simplicity—invisible, Without, so here's a negation, without body, incorporeality, without parts, again, divine simplicity. or passions, we'll talk about impassibility next week, Lord willing, who only hath immortality, immortality is a negation, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, who is immutable. So we're focusing on those affirmations that God is immutable and without passions. This morning, immutability, next Sunday, Lord willing, impassibility. So when we say that God is immutable, What are we affirming, which we're actually denying? What are we negating? This is the way of negation. He is immutable. So divine immutability is the negation of all mutation in God, and not just the negation of the fact of mutation, but the possibility of mutation. There is no mutation in God, nor can there be any mutation in God. No changes. God is unchanging and unchangeable. That is what we mean when we say that God is immutable. You can't mutate him. He's not able to be mutated. So this is a negation of the possibility of mutation in God. Now, having asserted it, having defined it, we need to defend it. Why do we say this? Why do we say that God is immutable? And we say that God is immutable because God has told us that He is immutable. In Malachi chapter three and verse six, God says, I, the Lord, change not. And then He goes on to say, therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. But for now, we're just focused on God's affirmation. I don't change. I the Lord, I Yahweh, do not change. In Numbers chapter 23 and verse 19, it is said of God, God is not a man. That's a very important statement. That He should lie, neither the Son of Man, that He should repent. In other words, He doesn't change His mind. He doesn't say one thing. and then decide to do something else. He doesn't lie, he doesn't repent and say, oh, I messed up, I need to do something different. He doesn't change. James chapter 1 and verse 17, God, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. There's not even the slightest hint or approximation or beginning of a shadow or a gradient or anything that could be separated or distinguished into degrees in God. He is simply all that he is. There's no variableness, no changeableness, nor even a shadow of turning with him. So, for these three scripture verses, and we could add others, we say God himself, in his word, has communicated to us that he does not change, nor can he change. He's not a man. He's not like us. And so we can proceed from this and say another reason why we assert God's immutability or deny mutation in him is because if his being were capable of change, he would be an imperfect being. It does not fit perfection of being to be able to be changed. To change or to be capable of change is an imperfection of all being. But let's defend that statement. to be able to change is to be in an imperfect manner. Because all changes would be either for the better or for the worse or for the same. And God cannot change for the better, He cannot change for the worse, and He cannot change for something the same. Why? God cannot change for something better because that would imply that he's not perfect. There's some greater perfection, some other betterness that God could be changed to. No, he's already perfect. You can't make him perfecter. You can't make him more perfect. So he could never be changed for the better. You can't change him for the worse because it means he's susceptible to decay. He's susceptible to decomposition. He's susceptible to de-perfection, we might say. If he can lose perfection, then he's not perfect. So he can't be changed for the better. That would imply he's lacking something better. Then he wouldn't be perfect. He can't change for the worse, because he would be able to be changed for the worse, which would mean he's not perfect. And you can't change him for something equal, because what, are you going to make more God perfection to add to God's perfection? I mean, that just doesn't make any sense. He's perfect, but we're going to change him for more of the same perfection. That's just nonsense. It doesn't mean anything. There's no other equal perfection that God lacks that he could then change himself to have. So he can't be changed for the better. He can't be changed for the worse. He can't be changed for something equal, because any of these ways of changing would imply an imperfection in God. We also say that God is immutable because he is simple. We've looked at the doctrine of divine simplicity in a previous lesson, that God is pure, perfect being, no parts, no division, no composition in God. And so because God is pure, perfect, simple being, If you changed God, you would change the entirety of God. You couldn't change a part of God, because there are no parts in God. So if God is simple, you either change all that God is, or you can't change him at all. And the simple being of God, the perfect being of God, cannot be changed. Similarly, because God is pure, perfect being, or pure actuality, He has no passive potency by virtue of which he could be actualized. So let's just unpack this language briefly. Remember that we're going to talk about potency and actuality, in particular, passive potency. Passive potency is a being's capacity to be changed. So there are all kinds of things in me, in my being, that are potential, that could be. And so I have a passive potency. I have a capacity to be other than I am. And when your potentiality or your potency is changed to something else, you are actualized. Your potency is actualized into something different. So I can actualize myself to stand to the left, and I can actualize myself to raise my arm, and I can actualize myself in all kinds of ways. I could cut off my arm if I didn't want, don't want to. I could actualize myself in many ways. I could get stronger. I could get weaker. I could become angry. I could become sad. I could actualize my body. I can actualize my soul in various ways because my being has passive potency, the capacity to be actualized. But we say that God is pure actuality or purely actual. That's his being is completely and perfectly all that He is. He can't be actualized in any way to be more or less or the same because He's pure actuality. There's no passive potency in God. There's nothing in God's being that you could actualize. There's nothing in God's being that you could activate, and that's how changes happen. A change happens when passive potency is actualized. If God has no passive potency, just he is purely actual, he cannot be changed. He doesn't even have the capacity to be changed, because the Lord our God is a most pure spirit without parts. So God has no parts, which means you either change him all, or you don't change him at all, And because God is pure actuality and has no passive potency, it's not even possible to change God. You might say, okay, well then let's change all of God. You can't. He has no passive potency. We also say that God is immutable because he's eternal. We haven't studied eternity yet, but eternity, or excuse me, time, is successive moments. And in order for a change to take place, there has to be a succession of moments whereby one thing passes from one state to another, whereby passive potency is actualized on a succession of moments. So if God could be changed, he must be temporal. His being must have a successiveness. He must not be eternal. But because God is eternal and God is without succession, Therefore, he cannot be changed. There are no moments, plural, in God where he could pass from one thing to another. So why do we deny mutation in God? Because the scriptures tell us this. And then with the help of natural theology and systematic theology, we can develop well-structured and articulated arguments to defend this further. God is simple, God is eternal, God cannot be changed and does not change. Now, I want to read a very helpful quotation where Various of these doctrines are put together and really summarizes what I've just presented to you. This is from Benedict Pictet. The date of publication is much later. It was written in the, I believe, the early 1700s. I could double-check that. Anyway, Benedict says this, he says, from the simplicity of God follows his immutability, which denotes nothing else than such a state of the divine essence and attributes as is not subject to any change. Now, this immutability is proved by Scripture. God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. I am the Lord, I change not, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, Besides, so he starts with scripture, as we did, and in many ways I used his quote to structure the previous section. Besides, that which possesses all perfection cannot be changed. If God changed, he would do so either for the better or for the worse or for something equal. Now, he cannot change for the better because he is the best. Neither for the worse, for then he would not possess all perfections, for he would not have that by which he could preserve himself from becoming worse. Nor can he receive any additional perfections equal to what he has already, otherwise he would not possess all. Therefore, there is no changeableness in God. And now he's going to list a variety of ways in which God cannot be changed. Neither in his essence, his eternity, his understanding, nor his will. And he explains them. Not in his essence, for being the first, he cannot be superseded by any prior being. Being all-powerful, he cannot be injured by any. Being most simple, he cannot be corrupted by none. Being immense, he cannot be increased or lessened. Being eternal, he cannot fail. There is no change in his eternity, for where there is no succession, there is no mutation, neither in his understanding, for the knowledge of God is all perfect, nor in his will, for the will of God is all wise, to which nothing unforeseen can happen, so as to compel him to change his intentions for the better. Again, nothing can prevent and resist his will. He does indeed will the various changes of things, but his will itself remains unchangeable. This immutability of God is the foundation of our faith and hope. He makes an important statement there. He says that God wills the various changes of things, but his will itself remains unchangeable. Remember that statement as we consider some questions and objections on the back side of your handout. We're going to consider three objections or questions that are commonly raised in relation to the doctrine of divine immutability. The first of which is, as people read the scriptures, They read passages like the ones we'll look at in a moment, and they say, I don't understand how we can say that God is immutable when the scriptures seem to present God mutating or changing in certain ways. It seems like God changes his plans in the Bible, which would mean that God learns things and changes his mind. So, for example, Genesis chapter 6, verses 6 and 7, a verse that we'll mention in the sermon this morning, it says, and the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I'm sorry that I have made them. It seems that God has changed his mind. I made man. But now I regret that I made man, I'm going to destroy man. It seems that God is reversing and changing his plans. Similarly, 1 Samuel 15, when God removes Saul from the kingship. Verse 34, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. Older translations would say, and God repented him, or repented himself, that he had made Saul king. Jonah chapter three. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. So did God change his mind in these verses? Can God be changed? Is his knowledge capable of change? Is his will capable of change? Well, no, because here are several answers, four answers. Number one. When the Bible tells us about God's being, it controls how we understand the human language used to communicate with us and to describe God. A moment ago, we read 1 Samuel 15, 34. You know, in the very same chapter, we read in verse 29, the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret. And then, five verses later, it says, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king. That means you need to read verse 34 in light of verse 29. And when it says that God regretted, we need to understand that in a way that fits with the fact that it says God's not a man and he doesn't regret. So the statements that describe God's being, such as his immutability, control the language that is used of God that sounds like mutability. We'll explain this further. Answer two. Dr. Barcelos, Richard Barcelos, has a very helpful saying. He says we need to weigh texts and not just count them. certain texts of Scripture weigh a lot more than others, in a sense. And this is really the same as the first answer. If God says, I'm not a man, and I don't regret, that verse, you could find 100 verses in the Bible that describe God regretting, and they won't weigh as much as one verse where God says, I'm not a man, and I don't regret. So we have to be careful not to fall prey to concordance theology. Concordance theology is where you just look up words in your concordance And then you draw your theology based on that, just those words that you've found, because theology is much more connected than a list of the same words in a concordance. A concordance is just collating and bringing together certain words, but there are concepts and doctrines that are running through these things that are not sorted by a concordance or an index. And so you can take a hundred verses that describe God in the language of human emotion and change, and none of them can weigh as much as one verse that describes God's being, where it says that God does not change. So you put a hundred change-like verses describing God in the scriptures on one side of the balance, and one verse that describes God's unchanging being on the other side of the balance, and God's unchanging being outweighs all the rest. and controls how we read the rest. Now, concordances are very useful. It's just, it's a list of words that have been collated by the same word, and we should understand that sometimes those words have diverse meanings, or that we need to understand those words in light of other words in the Scriptures. Answer number three. In God's decree, which is one single and eternal decree, He ordained to make man and to destroy man by a flood. He decreed to make Saul king and to remove him. God decreed to threaten disaster upon Nineveh and to relent from doing so. But answer number four, We, human beings, we perceive the unfolding of God's decree in successive moments of time. So what God decreed from before the foundation of the world would happen in a sequence, we witness and experience in a sequence, and we describe it in a sequence. But we should not read that successive unfolding of God's decree back into the being of God and think that God has changed as a result. God changed his mind about man. God changed his mind about Saul. God changed his mind about the Ninevites. No, that's not true. God decreed to both warn and to make the warning effectual so that they might not be destroyed. But the scriptures use the language of regret and change to describe this to us, and there is a true sense in which God repents in these passages. Namely, repentance is a reversal. Repentance works like this. You're going one way, you stop, you repent, and you reverse. You go back the opposite way. That's the fundamental idea of repentance. And what do we see in God's plans unfolding successively? God makes man, stop, flood, reverse, destroy man. God makes Saul king, stop, reverse, remove Saul from king. God is going to destroy the Ninevites, stop, reverse, do not destroy the Ninevites. There is a reversal. There is an inversion, but it's not because God learned something new, it's not because God revised His plans, it's not because God was disappointed in the way that things played out and He just needed to alter His purposes. There is a repentance in God—not in God, excuse me—there is a repentance that God causes in the world, a reversal of circumstances, but it's not taking place in God. There's no passion in God. Why do we repent? We stop because we've learned something new, and we say, oh, I shouldn't have done that. And we repent. We reverse. So we repent with passion. We repent with new information. We repent with all kinds of changes. But God's repentance described in the scriptures is what he had decreed would take place from before the foundation of the world. So the Bible's not lying or making things up when it talks about God's regret or repentance. There's a real reversal here. And God uses that language to warn us and to speak to us, but we should not think that God has changed when we read these kinds of passages. And so that's why I said earlier to remember that portion at the end of Benedict Pictay's quote, he said, he does indeed will the various changes of things, but his will itself remains unchangeable. He willed the change. He willed that man would be created and destroyed, Saul made king and removed, the Ninevites threatened and preserved, et cetera. He wills those various changes. He decreed that those successive changes would take place in the world, but He Himself and His will has not changed. Next objection and question, a very practical, reasonable question. Why do we pray? If God is immutable, Why do we pray? Doesn't prayer change God's will? Don't we pray to kind of, we probably wouldn't put it this way, but to kind of get God to do something? Doesn't prayer change God's will? I read a tweet from a pastor, and that's like the easiest hunting ground, right? You wanna find bad theology, just look online. A pastor tweeted, God changes the hearts of people. That's true. But then he said, prayer changes the heart of God. Now, that may sound very sentimental, if not even encouraging to the Christian, we can change the heart of God by prayer. Let's pray to Him. But you don't want to change the heart of God, and you don't want God's heart to be changeable. Believe me, you don't, even if in a moment it sounds like, oh, I can move him to be such and such, you don't want that. You don't want a God who could then change against you. If he can change for you, he could change against you. So prayer does not change the heart of God. Why do we pray then? And how does prayer relate to God's immutability? Here's a helpful quotation. We do not pray to change God's plan. Rather, we pray in order to procure what God has planned to be fulfilled through the prayers of the saints. Prayer is a means which God has ordained to accomplish what he has planned. So God has so decreed the world that prayer is one of the ways in which we bring about what God has decreed will come about. And so He has commanded us to pray, and He has told us to pray for certain things, and therefore we ought to pray according to God's will. So we pray that God would do what He has promised to do. It is right for us to say, O Lord, come, come quickly. It is right for us to say, oh God, forgive our sins. It is right for us to say, oh God, preserve your church, watch over us and bless us. All the things that God has promised to do, we can pray that God would do them. That is according to His will. We can also pray according to His will in the sense of what He has commanded us. God, help me to be faithful. Help me to do what is right. Help me to be content. Help me to obey your commands, to fulfill your law. Help me in these things. And we can pray for things that God has not revealed or commanded, submitting it to if the Lord wills. In these prayers, we're not trying to change God's mind, we're not trying to change God's heart, we are asking God to do what He has promised to do, we are asking God to help us do what He has commanded us to do, and we are asking the Lord to act in sovereignty according to His decree, if it be His will. This is why there are many things that it simply, inappropriate to pray for because we have no reason or command to pray for such things. If you pray for your sports team to prevail, God's never, he's never revealed that he is for a sports team. Because think about it, if the Angels are praying for their team to win and the Dodgers are praying for their team to win, who's gonna win? So we don't pray for those kinds of things. We pray for God to fulfill His purposes, for God to help us obey His commands and other related matters following the Lord's prayer and the teaching of Scripture, if the Lord wills it. And so therefore, when we pray, God, please heal this person, we're not asking God to change His mind. We're asking God to act, if it be his will, and it is through prayer that God brings about what he has ordained to do, which ought to encourage us to pray. Rather than immutability discouraging us from prayer, we should say the unchanging God has decreed that prayer is one of the ways in which things happen. So therefore, let us pray that those things might happen. Because if we cease praying, that means we don't actually believe that God uses prayer to bring about his purposes and plans. But if our unchanging God uses prayer to bring about his purposes and plans, how much more diligent should we be to pray to him? Not about random things that have nothing to do with what he has revealed or commanded, but in accordance with his will. Thirdly, the last and by far the most difficult question, which we can only briefly develop, is what about the incarnation? We say that God is immutable, he does not change and he cannot change, but we believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. Did not God become man? and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, does not the incarnation require that God be capable of mutation? Wouldn't it seem like such an inconsistency and a destructive tension in our theology to affirm on the one hand immutability and on the other hand a true incarnation? That seems like a self-destroying inconsistency. but these two things are not inconsistent, nor are they attention, nor do we have to just sort of make that elusive appeal to mystery. Yes, the Incarnation is a mystery that surpasses our understanding, but we don't just say, well, it doesn't make sense, but it's a mystery and I believe it. That's not a proper defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation and the immutability of God, while we do certainly acknowledge the Incarnation to be a glorious mystery. So the way in which to defend this properly requires a great deal, and these four arguments are a little summary of a very good article by James Dolezal on this matter. So if you wanted to read in more detail, and read very slowly and carefully. I can share that with you. He also presented much of this material at our Pastors' Conference in November, this past November. So, Dr. Dolezal is very helpful, and I'm really just drawing from his wisdom and good writing on this matter. So, here are four answers to the question of whether the incarnation of God violates or conflicts with the immutability of God. So, answer number one, God became man, the incarnation took place, not by adding something to himself. God did not add anything to himself in the incarnation. or subtracting something from himself. God did not lose something to become man. God did not get something by becoming man. God did not lose something by becoming man. But rather, the incarnation took place through the assumption, that's a key technical word, through the assumption of a human nature by the second person of the Trinity, the Word, or God the Son. So God the Son assumes a human nature? To assume is to take unto oneself, to unite to oneself, to take. But in what manner did Jesus take to himself a human nature? By adding something to himself? No. By subtracting something from himself? No. By an assumption, a taking unto. Answer number two. These are just developing, really, one big answer. When speaking of assumption or a taking upon or taking to oneself, there is an agent that assumes, there's one who assumes, and that's God, and there's a patient that is assumed, and that's the human nature, a human body and soul. So God assumes, and a human nature is assumed. That's not adding or subtracting. That's an assumption. Answer number three. In this assumption, the eternal word of God terminates the human body and soul. What does it mean that the word of God terminates the human body and soul? It means that God the Son gives that human body and soul a complete, to terminate is to bring to completion, God the Son gives that human body and soul a complete personal existence. moving that human nature from something, a body and soul, to someone, Jesus, a personal existence. So the human nature, body and soul, is given a personal existence. What is the someone? of this body and soul. It's not a created person like you and me. It's not a created personal existence. It's God the Son. That personal subsistence is what is terminating or completing this human nature. So a human nature is terminated or brought to complete personhood by the eternal God the Son. God the Son terminates this human nature. That is the way in which he assumes it. And so it's not God changing, it's not God getting anything or losing anything, it's God terminating or bringing to complete personal existence a human nature, and that personal existence is not a created person, it's an uncreated person, God the Son. Fourthly, in the resulting hypostatic union, or the union of the person of the Son of God with a human nature, though Jesus has a true human nature, his personal existence is not a created person, which we've said, but the eternal Son of God. So he is God incarnate. He is the eternal Son of God terminating a human body and soul, God with us. What was conceived in Mary's womb was created, human body and soul. But who is in Mary's womb is uncreated, the eternal Son of God. Who died on the cross is God, but what died was the human body. And so in the Incarnation, you truly have God in the flesh, but God does not add anything to the divine being. He doesn't lose anything from the divine being. Rather, he assumes a human nature by terminating it, giving it a personal existence by God the Son himself. And in this way, this is the point where we say, and that's mysterious. This is far better than just immediately appealing to mystery. But we say, to assume by terminating is a mystery. But it makes sense. It's a logical, a rational way of presenting the truth, that the divine nature does not change, but rather a human nature has been terminated. And God has so ordained that this is an unending union, that Jesus is God in the flesh forever and ever. Yes? The word terminated here talks of the fusion of the word It's coming from Latin. A terminus is an endpoint. We use the word terminal. What terminal are you going to at the airport? Or terminal cancer would be cancer that ends. A terminus is an ending point. So the sense is completion. If you have a human body and a human soul, that's not actually a human person. That's a human nature. And so a person is more than just the parts of a human. And it's the what and the who. The what is body and soul. The who is the person. And so God the Son, eternal God the Son, completes or terminates that human body and soul with a personal existence. When each of us has a body and soul, but we're more than that, we have a created personal existence that God has given to us, because we're not just parts, we're not just what, we are who. And the who of Jesus Christ is the eternal God the Son, who completes or terminates that human nature. We do, but we terminate a human body and soul, but not by assumption, and as created persons. So, this doctrine is called terminative assumption. The incarnation takes place by terminative assumption, an assumption that terminates, to assume by terminating. In what manner does God the Son unite or take up unto himself a human nature? By terminating its personal existence with his own. And that's how it takes place without any change in the deity, while the humanity, of course, changes. And this is why This is what leads to, mentioned just so briefly, what we call the doctrine of the communication of properties, where Jesus is one person, but he has two natures, and so we attribute all of his actions to that one person, but certain actions are only proper to one of those natures. So when Jesus weeps, or when Jesus is hungry, or when Jesus is tired, or when Jesus dies and bleeds and dies and all the rest, we attribute that to the person, And we can say that God wept, and that God was hungry, and that God slept, and that God bled and died, and the scriptures use this language, God purchased the church with his blood. But we attribute those actions to the person, recognizing that they are proper only to one nature. it is not proper to deity to die, or to sweat, or to bleed, or to cry, or to hunger, or to thirst, or to be tired, etc. And yet the person, Jesus Christ, truly experiences these things according to his human nature. So that's why in the Scriptures we can talk about God doing things that are not proper to deity. because it's the person, Jesus Christ, who's doing them according to his human nature, but he's God. You can't divide his natures. They're united, inseparably united, but they are also distinct, without conversion, as we confess in our confession of faith. So, terminative assumption is a very important doctrine for understanding how the incarnation takes place. But this lesson isn't actually about the Incarnation, it's about divine immutability, and how our doctrine of the Incarnation is not in conflict with the doctrine of divine immutability. God did not become man by changing himself. God became man by assumptively terminating, or terminatively assuming, a human nature, then and forevermore, praised be God, and praised be God in the flesh. I know this is a lot for a Sunday morning in a Sunday school, but these are our blessed truths, aren't they? As Benedict said, this is the foundation of our faith and hope, that I the Lord change not, therefore you are not consumed. And this is why we pray with more trust and more confidence, and we pass through suffering with more confidence, because the unchanging God is not making up His plans as He goes. He's not figuring things out. He's not watching the news and then changing His plans. What He has decreed and ordained, He is accomplishing. And He who is perfect cannot become imperfect. And so we can trust Him, knowing that all His attributes are firm, and steady, and stable, now and forever, and always. We can always go to Him, knowing He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And next week, we'll talk about divine impassibility, which is a subset of divine immutability. And as I said, when it comes to the Incarnation and Terminative Assumption, It takes a lot more explanation, and Dr. Dolezal's done that very well, and so I'd be happy to push his resources your way, because I'm just repeating what I've learned from him on this matter as quickly and carefully as I can. Well, that concludes our lesson for today.