Our Immutable God
God’s immoveable position on justice and righteousness makes Him appear to be a God of unreasonable harshness. God does not change. What God is, remains exactly the same today as in past generations. Man and his environment change, but God doesn’t.
This creates a view of God from a human point of view, that He can be somewhat irrelevant to human life today. God doesn’t move with the times. He does not compromise as society changes. God and His way of life changes not.
Our struggle is to be able to separate the changes which dominate the core aspects of our environment from God’s unchanging standards. In recent years we have seen the Church of God wrestle with this dichotomy – often to its detriment.
In other words, as society changed, the Church has been tempted to make changes to keep relevant in the scheme of things. The accreditation of Ambassador College would be a prime example. Certainly there were good reasons for opening the door to changes. The college was no longer providing potential employees for the Church, so students needed to be prepared for outside employment.
However, Ambassador College was established to give young people a grounding in God’s way of life. The original motto for the college was, “The Word of God is the foundation of knowledge.” As time progressed Church leaders began trying to change the Church and college to be accepted by the world and more in line with common theological beliefs.
It is difficult for us in our still human form to see things clearly from God’s point of view. We are used to a world that changes with values and standards that become flexible. As we age our bodies and minds change. Together with these changes, we are dedicated to spiritual change as we strive to grow into the image of Christ. So, change is very much part of our world.
How do we adopt a mentality of change and mesh it with God’s immutability?
The Apostle James offers us some directive in this regard. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). We have to be hearers AND doers. The doing is very relative to establishing what we hear. James tells us that faith without works is dead. If our faith only has an intellectual base – that is, based only on what we hear – then we will be open to being washed to and fro.
Whereas by doing and acting on what we hear, it reinforces and strengthens our belief and understanding of God’s will. By hearing, we are hearing the word of God. We are hearing our unchanging God. Those values will be strengthened by our actions of obedience. “… for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified” (Romans 2:13).
Doing the will of God draws us into an Elohim family relationship. This is an empowering relationship – a hedge against the constant pressures to compromise. “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12: 50). “You are My friends if you do whatever I have commanded you” (John 15:14).
Brian Orchard
