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

(Hebrews 13:8 NASB) “Jesus Christ [is] the same yesterday and today and forever.”

God is unchanging and unchangeable. Nothing about God changes. He is immutable in His; being, desires, purposes, attributes, and morals. Everything we see around us changes and is changing, and we ourselves are constantly changing. God is the only totally consistent being in the universe.

The other attributes of God are inherently linked to His immutability. God is absolutely perfect, and as such cannot change. Change is always from better to worse or from worse to better. If God is perfect then He cannot improve, and any deviation from this perfection would make Him less perfect (and it is a lack of perfection to be able to become less perfect). God’s self sufficiency is also connected to His immutability. If God is truly independent, then what outside of Him can have the power to change Him?

When we read verses in the Bible that say or imply that God changed His mind, these do not teach that God Himself changed. God uses human language in a way that we understand to communicate truth about Himself. It is the same as when the Bible talks about God’s arm, or hand (though He is spirit and does not have a body). God does not change, but we do, so necessarily His relationship with us and His actions toward us in time will change. One person described it like this. It is like someone wading through a river. If you go against the flow, it will push against you and hinder you. If you turn around and go with the flow, it will push you along and make it easier for you. God is like the river, ever flowing in the same direction, but we necessarily experience Him differently as we either obey Him or as we rebel against Him.

If God is unchanging then we can trust Him. I think this is the greatest application from this teaching. God will not somehow grow old and lose His power. God will not get board with us and ignore our prayers. God will not somehow become tainted with sin and start to hurt us for no reason. We can know that He will not change His mind about something that He once said or promised. He will never change. All of the wonderful things that we know are true about God will always be true about Him. Everything He has said to us is sure. We can fully trust Him because He does not change.

(See also; 1 Samuel 15:29, Psalms 102:27, and James 1:17).