Immutable

There is an old adage that says something along the lines of "The only constant in life is change." It sounds like an oxymoron but there is quite a bit of truth in the statement. Things are constantly changing around us. The weather. Seasons. Moods. Age. Likes. Dislikes. Health. Things are constantly changing around us whether we like it or not. I, like most people, am not a fan of change. In many ways I like routines and schedules. Not that I can't handle change, but I prefer things to stay the same in most areas of my life. When we grasp the reality that basically everything around us is constantly changing, we naturally think about things that do not change.

When something is described as unchanging or insusceptible to change we refer to it as being immutable. We might think of a rocky island in the ocean as never changing, the same year after year, and therefore immutable. But the reality is that the waves are slowly eroding the shore and eventually the island will be on the bottom of the ocean. When we search the galaxy, the depths of the ocean, the deepest rain forest, or the smallest molecules, we will find that everything changes. The only things that are really immutable are God and His Word.

Over the centuries mankind has done all they can to relabel, repackage, and even do away with the God of the Universe. Some such as Friedrich Nietzche have even went so far as to claim that "God is dead." But regardless of what mankind has devised, God does not change (Malachi 3:6) and the reports of God's death are greatly exaggerated. Regardless of what mankind says, thinks, or does, it does not change the fact that God is the "same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

Thankfully God's Word is as immutable as He is. It seems like mankind is constantly coming up with new packaging on millennia-old sins and trying to pass them off as something mankind has never heard of or seen before. As our world "develops" these "new" things that are in contradiction with the Word of God, the first comments are generally that God's Word is wrong, archaic, and judgmental. The problem with this philosophy is that God's Word is as correct today as it was some 2,000 years ago when it was recorded. Call me old-fashioned but I still believe the Holy Spirit of God inspired more than 35 authors, from many different backgrounds, on 3 continents, over 2,000 years, to write His message using 3 different languages. The important aspect of the immutability of God's Word is not in who wrote it or when they wrote it, but the truths contained within it. God's Word, for all the variety in locations, authors, time periods, and languages, has one central theme at its core. This theme is God's desire to have a personal relationship with mankind through Jesus Christ's sacrificial death on the cross. From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, you read a story of mankind's disobedience towards God and God's plan to redeem mankind. The truths contained within God's Word tells us how to make our relationship with Him perfect once again and how to pursue the holiness God expects of us. No matter how enlightened mankind thinks they have become, we never get to the point where the truths of God's Word are no longer valid and no longer apply to us. 

The next time you think about how crazy things are because everything is always changing, give thanks to God for the fact that He and His Word never change. In a world of constant change, it is nice to know that God and His word never change.


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