Does God change His mind?

As we studied Exodus 32, we ran across this statement:

“And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.” (Exodus 32:14)

This is just one place where the Bible seems to speak of God changing his mind, and I got several questions about that statement in the weeks following. Perhaps a more striking example is found in 1 Samuel 15.

The word “regret” appears three times in 1 Samuel 15. In verses 11 and 35, God is described at regretting his decision to anoint Saul king. But verse 29 says:

“And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

What are we supposed to do with these seemingly contradictory statements? On the one hand, the Bible seems to clearly say that God’s mind has changed, but on the other hand, it also seems to clearly say that God’s mind cannot change.

Well, when it comes to these difficult problems, we must always use the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture. Our Confession of Faith summarizes this principle as follows:

“The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.”

To apply this principle, we need to take the whole Bible together, and what we find is that the clear testimony of Scripture is that God does not change. Consider this list of Scriptures:

• Psalm 33:11
• Malachi 3:6
• Hebrews 1:12
• Hebrews 6:17-18
• James 1:17

Now, there are two ways we could approach this. We could either read the change Scriptures in light of the no-change Scriptures or the other way around.

Just as a thought experiment, what would it look like to give the change Scriptures interpretive priority over the no-change Scriptures. We would begin by affirming that God really does change his mind, and then we would have to go to these other Scriptures and figure out an appropriate interpretation. Here’s where the problem lies: if we believe that God does change his mind, is there any way to interpret the no-change Scriptures faithfully (in the plain meaning of the words)? The answer is no! But we can interpret the change Scriptures in light of the no-change Scriptures faithfully.

We start by affirming that God does not change according to the clear testimony of Scripture. Then, we can look at the change Scriptures to see if there are faithful ways to interpret those passages in light of God’s unchanging nature. What we find is that there is actually more than one way to do this.

First, we might talk about anthropomorphism, that is, ascribing human characteristics to non-humans. We do this all the time with animals and inanimate objects. If I say that the copy machine is fighting me, we all know that the copy machine doesn’t actually have any animosity toward me, but that language helps us understand what’s happening. The same is true when we speak of God anthropomorphically. We know that God is not a man, but we speak, and often Scripture speaks, of God on human terms to help us understand God better. So when we say God changed his mind, we’re not saying that literally, but we’re using those words as a merely human description to get at something deeper.

Second, while God himself does not change, our experience of God does. Think of your experience of the Sun. The Sun has a regular course in the sky, completely independent of your location. But your understanding of the Sun changes depending on whether you’re inside or outside, whether you’re wearing sunscreen, whether you’re hot or cold, etc. Now, if I say something like, “The Sun finally decided to go down,” does that mean that the Sun made a conscious decision to stop shining? No! When we or Scripture say that God changed his mind, the same is true. It’s not as if God has changed; he’s always the same. But our experience or understanding of God has changed.

This is the best way to understand the apparent conflict between the change and no-change passages, and it’s the way the Church through the ages has always understood these passages. A deeper discussion of this question requires a dive into philosophy, so I won’t go there now. But if you’re interested, I did three lectures on this topic a few years ago that you can find here.

Easter Schedule

Be sure to join us for our Easter services, and invite your friends too! Easter is a great opportunity for outreach to our community. Many people, whether they ordinarily go to church or not, are happy to join you for this one week. If each of us invites just three people, we’ll have extended almost 200 invitations.

On Sunday, I’ll have some cards with information that you can share with your friends and neighbors as we get ready for our Resurrection celebrations.

Congregational Meeting

This week, we’ll also have our congregational meeting immediately following the worship service. Agendas are available on the hallway table at the church. If you have any questions for me or any of the nominees, be sure to ask them before Sunday!

Upcoming Communion services

We’ll have communion twice in April. First, we’ll have regularly stated Lord’s Day communion next week on April 6. Our Good Friday service will also be a special communion service.

If you plan on participating in either service, be sure to be preparing your hearts. As always, if you profess faith in Jesus Christ and are a baptized member of a Bible-believing church, you are welcome to partake from the Table.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid