Dr. Joshua Malone unpacks the doctrine of God’s immutability. Does God’s unchanging nature mean he is static or immobile? Far from it—immutability means that God is fully and perfectly who he is, without diminishment. His love, holiness, and goodness are complete and unshakable.
The following is a transcript of the video above.
What does it mean that God is immutable?
Immutability means that God does not change. When you say that, people might wonder if that is a problem. Does that mean that God is immobile? Or does it mean that God is static, like a rock? Because those don’t sound like good things. However, the way Christians have used the term immutability is to refer to everything that God is, God fully. And that means that if God is love, God is fully love. If God is holy, he’s fully holy. If God is good, he is the fullness of goodness. And if he’s the fullness of those things, any change in him would be a diminishment. And so, Christians have, as they’ve talked about the immutability of God, that’s one way they’ve understood what it means that any change in God would be in a diminishment. The fact that God is immutable in that way is good news for us because it means he’s always in the go position. He’s always ready with the fullness of love – he couldn’t be more loving. He’s already in the fullness of his holiness or his goodness. And that’s good news because it means God has all the resources to meet our needs.
