Opus 2025-481: Changeless Variety

Does truth change?  No.  Does our understanding of truth change?  Yes.

So often we get these two things confused in all walks of life.  It seems to be part of the life of faith to think that we have arrived at an understanding of truth.  That may be an important and even vital element in our walk with Christ.  We need to believe.  We need to be able to overcome doubts.  But in the midst of that we also need to be open to greater insight into the truth that God has given us.

I am reflecting on the sovereignty of God and what we would call the doctrine of a mutability.  I keep coming across people advocating an understanding of this which conflicts with my contact with a living God.  God says He does not change. 

(Mal 3:6 KJV)  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

I believe the Bible also says He’s the same yesterday, today and forever.  That is the truth, but it is a truth that we only understand partially to our own deficiency.

We need to walk carefully here and not keep throwing the baby out with the bath water.  We need to not reject our brothers and sisters in the faith because their level of insight is higher or lower than ours.  We are united by our faith in Christ, not by our insight and eschatology.  We are one in the body because of the blood of Jesus, not because we agree on our theories of the atonement.  God does not change in character, power, holiness, and the list goes on.   However, in His unchangeability, He is constantly interacting with we humans who are nothing but change.  That requires Him to be expressing Himself differently one time from another.  From our perspective that has changed.  From His not so much.

I can trust Him because He doesn’t fluctuate.  I can trust Him because He relates to me as a free agent and desires genuine love, not slave obedience.  There is an understanding of truth that will never change in one sense, and yet we always become deeper and more meaningful as time goes by.  If the church could historically struggle with the concept of the Trinity, of God being one in three persons, then I think they could also struggle with a concept of an unchanging God responding differently based on the input from His world.

(Jon 3:10 KJV)  And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

And that’s the truth.

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