The Unchangeableness of God
The Book of Malachi
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6jVAbGXhsk
When we think about the topic of change, the one thing that stands out above all the rest is the fact that everything changes, which is the only thing that is unchangeable in this world. Change is a part of life, and what we are told, and for the most part is true, is that change is good.
Now, there’s an old saying that variety, or change, is the spice of life, but the only problem with that is that too much spice can either burn out our taste buds or make us sick.
But change is a part of life, and we live in a society that embraces change. How else can we explain over 200 plus channels on cable TV, or the millions of Internet sites?
But this begs the question, “Why so many?” Well, the answer may be as simple as we quickly tire of the same old thing, which is why the shock value of both TV and movies are at an all-time high. I guess that the old reliable “G” rating doesn’t cut it anymore.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against change or doing things differently. And as Christians and the church, we must always be seeking new and better ways to reach out with the gospel message of Jesus Christ. But what I am against is changing the gospel message itself to make it more palatable to a society that is against everything that speaks of God’s will and ways in accordance with His word.
This is what we see in Malachi’s day as well, as the people were changing the basic fundamentals of the faith and their relationship with God. This is seen in a series of statements made by the Lord throughout the book of Malachi concerning the people’s relationship with Him, and their defense in asking “how.”
Let me give you just a few examples so you see what I am talking about.
“‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord. Yet you say, ‘In what way have You loved us?’” (Malachi 1:2 NKJV)
“‘Where is My reverence?’ says the Lord of hosts to you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’” (Malachi 1:6 NKJV)
“‘Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me!’ But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’” (Malachi 3:8 NKJV)
How did they, and then for that matter, how do we let this happen? It happens when we start to change the basic foundations of our faith. This is seen when the church actually goes against God’s word and allows our society and culture to dictate what we believe and what we say.
It also happens when we start seeking after experiences instead of God’s word. I’ve seen people literally leave a church based upon the goosebumps. They say, “I don’t feel the Holy Spirit.”
Has God’s word changed? Has God changed? The answer clearly is “no.” So what has changed? We’ve changed! We’ve taken our focus off the Lord who does not change and placed it upon ourselves or upon our culture and society which do change and always seem to be in a state of change, including our feelings.
And so, we need to center our focus off of ourselves and our society and place it firmly upon the Lord God who does not change. And God’s unchangeableness is seen throughout the Bible, not only here in Malachi, but throughout God’s word.
“For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore, you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.” (Malachi 3:6 NKJV)
In the Law it says, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good.” (Numbers 23:19 NKJV)?
And of Jesus, the writer of Hebrews said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8 NKJV)
From what we see from these verses about the fact that God doesn’t change is how it dovetails into the themes we’ve looked at on goodness and faithfulness of God from the books of Jonah and Hosea. That is, because God doesn’t change, he is both faithful and good, and because God is both faithful and good, He doesn’t change.
Let’s look at the ways that God doesn’t change from the Book of Malachi.
God’s Love Doesn’t Change
“‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord.” (Malachi 1:2a NKJV)
Now, in the Hebrew language, this is in the present subjective tense. Now, I’m not a Hebrew scholar, but what I am told is that this indicates that God always has and always will love His people.
This is beautifully brought out by the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” (Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV)
We can’t get any more unchanging than everlasting. We also see this in God’s choice of Israel as His people.
“The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers.” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8a NKJV)
But what we see in God’s pronouncement through Malachi is the people’s response in asking God just how He has loved them.
We ask the same question as well, especially when things don’t go our way, or when sickness or disaster strikes, we wonder where’s God, and why doesn’t He love us enough to stop all that is happening.
When we get to this point, what we must do is to look past our circumstances and directly at God’s revelation that God doesn’t change and that His love for us is everlasting, and that He is a good and faithful God.
Our problem is that we don’t like God’s tough love. That is a love that won’t allow us to get away with doing whatever we want, rather than what the Lord has for us in His word. And so, much like a child that questions a parent’s love for them when they don’t get what they want, we question God’s love for us.
Now, God reveals just how much He loved them when He talked about His love for their progenitor, Jacob, over that of his brother, Esau. “‘Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" says the Lord. ‘Yet Jacob I have loved; but Esau I have hated.’” (Malachi 1:2b-3a NKJV)
Now, this is a really harsh and hard statement to understand, in how God could love one and hate another. But to understand I go to Paul’s statement in Romans 8:29 that says, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined.”
You see, God knew ahead of time in His foreknowledge, even before they were born that Esau would despise his birthright and rebel against both his parents, Isaac and Rachel, and also against God. And while Jacob was a deceiver, God loved him because he knew that Jacob would eventually turn towards Him.
And the history of both the Jews, the descendants of Jacob, and the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, proves out this statement.
God’s Glory Doesn’t Change
This aspect of God’s unchangeableness is seen in verses 6-8.
“‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence?’ Says the Lord of hosts to you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’ ‘You offer defiled food on My altar.’ But say, ‘In what way have we defiled You?’ By saying, ‘The table of the Lord is contemptible.’ And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?’ Says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 1:6-8 NKJV)
God does not change, and this then extends to His glory, or the glory due His name on our part. What God is saying is that they were not glorifying His name as they should have by offering a poor quality of worship. He compares this to how a king or father is honored, but they were not extending that same honor to God, who is both their King and Father. And when they asked God how, He replied that is through what they were offering.
What I find interesting is the great lengths they took in rebuilding God’s temple but ended up not offering God the best. Kind of like a new restaurant that spends thousands on décor, but pinch pennies on the food they serve.
How do we do this today? By offering what might be considered as second-rate worship. We offer God our leftovers, what we can spare, or the old, while we buy ourselves the new.
But the Lord says something through Malachi that should make us stop in our tracks and reevaluate.
“‘Who is there even among you who would shut the doors, so that you would not kindle fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘Nor will I accept an offering from your hands.’” (Malachi 1:10 NKJV)
God is saying that no worship is better than or preferable to worthless worship that is falsely taking place in His name.
But God doesn’t stop there. He actually reveals why we do so.
“You also say, ‘Oh, what a weariness!’ And you sneer at it" (Malachi 1:13a NKJV)
They found their service and worship of God weary and empty. Does our worship of God excite us like let’s say going to a sporting event, a movie, or a concert? Do we put God on the backburner of our lives? In our worship of God do we give Him the glory, or do we give His glory to another?
Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord said, “I am the Lord, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images.” (Isaiah 42:8 NKJV)
Whenever anything else take precedence over our worship of God, then that is what we are worshipping. How do we arrive at church, if we do at all? When other events or activities or even our comfort takes precedence over our gathering together to worship God, then we are giving His glory over to that.
But God’s glory, like His love remains unchanged.
God’s Faithfulness Doesn’t Change
Now, we looked into God faithfulness in our study through the book of Hosea, and there saw this same thing, that is, while we remain faithless God always remains faithful (2 Timothy 2:13).
In Malachi this is seen in chapter 2:10-16. But when we read this section it would seem that it doesn’t actually deal with the faithfulness of God, but of our need to keep our vows. But it does applies to the unchangeableness of God’s faithfulness in a most unusual way.
“Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution which He loves: he has married the daughter of a foreign god.” (Malachi 2:11 NKJV)
And again, on the surface this deals with Judah’s unfaithfulness, not God’s unchanging faithfulness. But Israel was God’s covenant people, and they broke His covenant through spiritual adultery. Notice it says that “married the daughter of a foreign god.”
But like our study on the faithfulness of God in the book of Hosea, we see that same faithfulness from God, but it is through a prophecy given by the prophet Jeremiah concerning this very thing.
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 31:31-32 NKJV)
But again, God’s faithfulness doesn’t change, therefore although they broke God’s covenant, time and time again, God in His faithfulness gave them a new covenant which we are all the beneficiaries of, through our faith and belief in Jesus Christ.
God’s Justice Doesn’t Change
Now, the people charged God with an injustice in Malachi 2:17 saying that the evil are rewarded. So, they asked the question, “Where is the God of Justice.”
“You have wearied the Lord with your words; yet you say, ‘In what way have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,’ Or, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (Malachi 2:17 NKJV)
And to this charge God relates His ultimate justice that will be meted out at the end through the coming of the Messiah.
“‘Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,’ says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord, as in the days of old, as in former years. ‘And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien—because they do not fear Me,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.’” (Malachi 3:1-6 NKJV)
To answer the people’s charge, God revealed that final and ultimate justice will be meted out when the Messiah comes, both in His first and second coming. And while evil may succeed for a time, it will not succeed forever. And we need to remember that, we owe our very existence to the grace and mercy of God, because if God meted out justice when the crime was committed, then there would be no one here in the room or on the face of the earth, because we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.
God’s Mercy Doesn’t Change
I’d like to pick up this next point where I left off in Malachi.
“For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.” (Malachi 3:6 NKJV)
The prophet Jeremiah says much the same thing, that because of God’s unfailing mercies, we are not consumed in God’s unchanging justice.
“Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23 NKJV)
And this is what we see further on in Malachi 3:7. “‘Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 3:7 NKJV)
And once again we see the audacity of the people who asked, “In what way shall we return,” or better, “What do we have to repent for?”
And while God can give a multitude of various examples, He choose one glaring area, and that is of the giving of the tithes. And by not giving the tithe as required, they were actually robbing God.
“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings … Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this … If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground.” (Malachi 3:8-11 NKJV)
And in this statement by God a very powerful point is being made, that no one can rob God and not end up robbing themselves in the process.
So, God’s mercy is unchangeable which is pointed out quite clearly in Psalm 103:17, where we’re told that God’s mercies are from everlasting to everlasting, and so it doesn’t get any more unchangeable than that.
God’s Purpose Doesn’t Change
We now move into chapter 4 and look what it says in the first two verses.
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up … But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings.” (Malachi 4:1-2 NKJV)
The coming of the Messiah, the Sun of Righteousness has always been God’s purpose, and that through the Messiah, He would redeem and deliver His people. The Apostle Paul points this out in his letter to the Ephesian Church.
“According to the eternal purpose which He (God) accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ephesians 3:11 NKJV)
The whole and ultimate purpose of God is for our lives to be intertwined with and locked up in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
As we close just a few thoughts from our study about the unchangeableness of God, and that is that the Lord God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, that is, the Lord God doesn’t change. His love doesn’t change, neither does His glory. His faithfulness always remains the same, and His justice never changes, therefore in His unchangeable mercy we are not consumed. And finally, God’s purpose for our lives and for this world in Jesus Christ never changes and therefore remains fixed throughout all eternity.
