The Unchanging God
Malachi 3:13–18
I the Lord do not change. Malachi 3:6

A reminder of these concluding verses is this. Just as the situation among the people had remained unchanged, so too God was unchanged. The Lord had stated this explicitly earlier: “I the Lord do not change” (v. 6). But verses 14–18 make the point again by bringing some of God’s immutable attributes before us as the book closes. God is unchangeable in his knowledge; he knows the faithful and the faithless, the righteous and the wicked. God is unchangeable in his holiness; his standard remains the righteousness that the law embodies (see Mal. 4:4). God is unchangeable in his judgments; though postponed, the reality of judgment still looms before the wicked (vv. 1–3). God is unchangeable in his promises; he still speaks of a day of blessing in which the hearts of the fathers will be turned to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers (v. 6).

Men and women wish that they could get God to change. They do not like him for his godly attributes: sovereignty, holiness, omniscience, justice, wrath—even love, because it is a holy love. But they could endure these perfections if it were possible to think that given time God might change in some of them.

We could endure God’s sovereignty if we could think that given a bit more time God’s grip on the universe might weaken and another strong personality might take over. Perhaps we could take over. Maybe men could be sovereign.

We could endure God’s holiness if we could think that given a bit more time his tough moral standards might change. What we are forbidden to do now, we might be able to do then. We could wait to sin.

We could endure omniscience if given the passage of years it might be possible for God to forget. We could wait for him to become senile.

We could endure his justice if with the passage of time it might become more of an abstract ideal than a reality.

We could even endure his love if it could cease to be the perfect and properly jealous love the Bible describes it to be.

But God does not change. God is the same today as he has always been; he will be the same in what we would call billions of years from now. God will always be sovereign. He will always be holy. He will always be omniscient. He will always be just. He will always be loving. It is appropriate that we be reminded of this in the closing pages of the Old Testament.

Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865

Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.