Malachi Chapter Three, God's Unalterable Nature

 

Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.

 

This verse is the golden thread in the book of Malachi. The Lord will come to His temple. He will refine the priesthood. He will be a swift witness. For He is Yahweh, Israel’s covenant God. I AM of the burning bush, and the I AM who is the Nazarene (John 8:58), is changeless. God is eternal. With Him there is no beginning; with Him, there is no termination. Past, present, and future hold no bearing or meaning for Him. Time is a construct made by God for human utility, Genesis 1:14. God is self-existing and self-determining. He is complete of Himself, having perfect unity of fellowship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Needing nothing and providing all freely of His own will and by His own power (both might and authority in this instance), God shows Himself infinitely rich, wise and all encompassing. God’s knowledge is perfect; there is nothing He needs to learn. He is the Teacher. God’s ability is flawless; what He purposes to do will be done because no power in Heaven or earth or Hell can resist Him; He is the Maker of all. He holds all things together by the word of His power. All things consist in Him, and by Him we live and move and have our being. The universe’s seemingly boundless complexity and depth merely serves to showcase our God’s unparalleled creative prowess. He speaks and things exist. By an act of direct creation whatever He does is perfect, Genesis 1:31, Psalm 18:30.

All that God is, as this verse tells us from the mouth of God the Holy Spirit, is unchanging. The same God that created the universe remains the same today, partly because time is irrelevant to Him. Imagine time as a table. One end represents the past, the middle the present, the far end the future. God, however, stands apart from the table observing the whole as one finished object. God’s foreknowledge is perfect because He knows every event from creation to culmination. He arranges kingdoms and people to progress His purposes, advancing His kingdom despite and amidst the opposition of 8 billion petty gods pretending at being His successors. His unchanging nature is why the Bible is (and will always remain) relevant to each generation that reads it. Salvation’s message does not change or diminish in the light of progress, ecumenical sensitivity, or religious pluralism. Christ was sacrificed before the foundation of the world, 1 Peter 1:20, Revelation 13:8. Before Adam sinned, indeed before Adam existed, the Trinity took counsel and determined that the Word would be made flesh in due time to bear the sins of Adam’s sons. The Old Testament saints would live by looking ahead to the cross; the New Testament saints live by looking back at its accomplishment. Knowing that payment was tendered, Adam’s sons would live by faith. When Christ stepped into our world He knew to what end He had come. He knew where, how and why He would die. Our unchanging God, in whom the whole of our faith should rest, brought this to pass because to Him it was an accomplished fact.

 

God’s name that He spoke to Moses in Exodus 3:14 speaks of His unchanging character. I AM WHO I AM, God told Moses. He is perpetually present; and for Him there is only the present, so to speak. There is nothing to reflect upon in terms of past events, nor anything to anticipate in the future. Our God is perfect in His ways, and two millennia after the cross He is no less unchanging, His cross no less capable of salvation. From these observations several inferences can be made. Old Testament or New, every man or woman saved by God’s grace is saved forever. They are kept by the power of God for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Whether it be Noah or Abel, Paul or Apollos, salvation is of the Lord, Psalm 3:8. Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, Joel 2:32. The self-existent One, the All-Sufficient El-Shaddai, spreads his hands from one end of eternity to the other, and at His heart is the cross: the fulcrum of human events and history. Because God is unchanging He cannot lie or change His mind. “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent (feel regret, change His mind). Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” Numbers 23:19.