NXR Podcast - DAILY TRUTH - Does God Change His Mind?
Aired: 2022-08-31
Duration: 08:03


=== God Is Not A Man (08:03) ===

[00:00:00]  Big news, really big news.
[00:00:03]  Our next Right Response Conference is in the works.
[00:00:06]  We've got a number of things already lined up and organized.
[00:00:10]  This is what we've got so far.
[00:00:11]  The whole conference, three days long on post millennialism and theonomy.
[00:00:17]  And the speakers Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webbin.
[00:00:25]  We've got a great lineup, we've got great topics.
[00:00:29]  If you want to find out dates, And location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website, rightresponseconference.com.
[00:00:39]  Rightresponseconference.com.
[00:00:43]  Jesus said, Man cannot live on bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
[00:00:49]  You're listening to Daily Truth.
[00:00:53]  The Bible is clear.
[00:00:54]  Look at Numbers chapter 23, verse 19.
[00:00:56]  God is not a man that he should lie, neither the Son of Man that he should.
[00:01:02]  Repent?
[00:01:03]  Hath he said and shall he not do it?
[00:01:06]  Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?
[00:01:09]  So, did God repent or regret making man?
[00:01:14]  No.
[00:01:16]  No.
[00:01:18]  But this is what I love about Numbers chapter 23, verse 19.
[00:01:21]  Did God lie?
[00:01:23]  See, Numbers 23, verse 19 is perfect because it says it protects us on both sides.
[00:01:27]  It says God's not a man that he should change his mind, that he should repent of something.
[00:01:34]  He is decreed the end from the beginning.
[00:01:36]  He knows all things.
[00:01:36]  He's the omniscient one, the immutable one.
[00:01:38]  He never changes.
[00:01:39]  But look at what it also says in Numbers.
[00:01:41]  It says, He's not a man that he should change his mind.
[00:01:44]  He's also not a man that he should lie.
[00:01:45]  So this is what we have.
[00:01:47]  Verse 6 of our text.
[00:01:49]  It feels as though we only have two options.
[00:01:50]  It's either a literally true one to one ratio statement or it's a false statement.
[00:01:56]  But Numbers chapter 23, verse 19, protects us because it says, God's not a man that he should lie.
[00:02:01]  So we can exit all false statements.
[00:02:03]  Verse 6 of our text can't be false.
[00:02:05]  But God's also not a man that he should change his mind or repent.
[00:02:08]  So we know it can't be a literally true statement.
[00:02:11]  So what other option do we have?
[00:02:13]  Well, the option is that you can make a statement that is true without it being literally true.
[00:02:17]  So it's neither a false statement, but it's also not a literally true statement.
[00:02:22]  So there is a sense in which, as it were, God regretted making man.
[00:02:26]  As it were, God repented.
[00:02:29]  In a sense, these things are true.
[00:02:31]  In a literal sense, no, because God's omniscient.
[00:02:35]  How can you repent?
[00:02:36]  How can you change your mind when you have decreed all things from the very beginning?
[00:02:40]  You knew exactly what would happen, right?
[00:02:42]  God is not in process, God's not surprised, and God is not emoting.
[00:02:46]  We need to understand that God is not a teenage girl.
[00:02:49]  So He doesn't see things happen and then He emotes and says, That made me sad and that made me mad.
[00:02:54]  God is not flying by the seat of His pants.
[00:02:56]  He's God.
[00:02:58]  He is the infinite one, the immortal one, the immutable, unchanging one.
[00:03:03]  And for God to fluctuate in emotions constitutes change.
[00:03:08]  God does not change.
[00:03:10]  He does not change.
[00:03:11]  And I believe that it's most faithful in Orthodox Christianity, especially in the Reformed tradition, not just to say that he does not fluctuate in his emotions, but it's safer just to say he doesn't have them.
[00:03:21]  He is God without passions.
[00:03:23]  That's the doctrine of impassibility.
[00:03:25]  Sam Renahan has a great book, God Without Passions, The Doctrine of Divine Impassibility.
[00:03:29]  If you'd like to do more study, I recommend that to you for your personal study.
[00:03:33]  God is not fluctuating, God is not emoting.
[00:03:37]  God is not showing his hand that, hey, you know how I say I'm omniscient?
[00:03:40]  I actually.
[00:03:41]  Am not.
[00:03:41]  You know how I say I do not change?
[00:03:43]  I actually do.
[00:03:44]  You know how I decreed the end from the beginning?
[00:03:47]  Well, I actually, this caught me off guard.
[00:03:49]  I was surprised.
[00:03:50]  I'm this.
[00:03:50]  God is not showing his hand.
[00:03:52]  There is no weakness in God.
[00:03:52]  He's God.
[00:03:53]  So then, all right, so we can chop off, we can write off a literal true statement, but God cannot lie, so we can't say it's a false statement.
[00:04:01]  So what should we glean?
[00:04:02]  All right, almost done.
[00:04:04]  What should we glean?
[00:04:05]  What is the truth God is communicating to us in His Word?
[00:04:08]  Because it's His Word.
[00:04:09]  He's saying something that we need to know.
[00:04:11]  So what truth is God giving to us in verse 6 and verse 7 of our text?
[00:04:16]  I think in a small sense, He's giving us a truth about Himself.
[00:04:19]  Let's look at Ezekiel chapter 33, verse 11.
[00:04:21]  It says, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
[00:04:24]  But rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.
[00:04:27]  Turn back, turn back from your evil ways.
[00:04:30]  Why then will you die, O house of Israel?
[00:04:33]  So, in a small sense, I think verse 6 and verse 7 of our text is telling us a truth about God that God grieves, as it were, in regards to sin.
[00:04:46]  That God does not take delight or pleasure that the wicked choose their own demise and peril rather than repenting and obeying.
[00:04:56]  Him.
[00:04:57]  That's the thing that I think it says about God in a small sense.
[00:05:00]  In a large sense, I believe that verse six and seven of our text says a lot about man.
[00:05:06]  I don't think primarily what's being communicated here is something that we can understand about the nature of God.
[00:05:10]  I think it's the exclamation point.
[00:05:13]  This is my theory.
[00:05:14]  Verse six is the exclamation point to verse five, which is a statement about man.
[00:05:19]  So verse five says, Man's really, really bad.
[00:05:21]  Every intention, every thought, all the time only, continue it.
[00:05:24]  Man's really, really bad.
[00:05:25]  Verse six says, Yeah.
[00:05:28]  Verse 6 is the confirmation.
[00:05:30]  It's the exclamation point to verse 5.
[00:05:32]  Think about this.
[00:05:34]  It would be sinful for a man to do this in his finite self.
[00:05:37]  He would probably be doing this motivated out of sin at some level.
[00:05:41]  But if a man was married and he found out that his wife had betrayed him in adultery, and upon finding this out, he speaks to his wife and he says, I regret ever marrying you.
[00:05:51]  Now, again, the analogy falls apart because he's a man.
[00:05:57]  And so it's very likely that there's sin involved in that statement.
[00:06:00]  That he's just trying to hurt her because she hurt him.
[00:06:05]  Or he's saying that infidelity, I won't continue my covenant vows with you.
[00:06:10]  But there's something else he's trying to do.
[00:06:13]  What he's trying to do is he's trying to help her see how severe her betrayal really was.
[00:06:19]  He's trying to say by saying, in a sense, he's saying, this was so grievous that despite all the good moments that we had together, despite all the loving memories.
[00:06:31]  We have, this was so grievous.
[00:06:33]  I wish that I had never married you.
[00:06:35]  I wish I had never met you to begin with.
[00:06:38]  I think that's the truth that we're supposed to glean from verse 6 and verse 7 of our text.
[00:06:44]  Verse 6 and 7, I don't think are primarily telling us something about the nature of God.
[00:06:47]  I think it's the exclamation point telling and confirming once again something that we need to understand about the wickedness of man.
[00:06:56]  Verse 5 every intent of his heart, every thought, only ever wickedness continually.
[00:07:03]  Really?
[00:07:03]  That bad, God?
[00:07:04]  Yeah, so bad.
[00:07:07]  I wish I never even made them.
[00:07:10]  I don't think the truth is, oh, so God is like what we should be gleaning from this verse is God's not omniscient or God's not immutable and he changes, he fluctuates and God repents and God regrets and God grit.
[00:07:19]  That's you're missing the point.
[00:07:21]  The statement, God is using human language under the banner of analogy because we're human beings and we need to understand.
[00:07:27]  So he's using, he's condescending and using our language to confirm what he just said in verse five.
[00:07:34]  Because verse five is so bad that our natural default when we read it is like, No.
[00:07:41]  Really?
[00:07:41]  That bad?
[00:07:43]  So then we have verse 6 and verse 7 to say, yeah, really?
[00:07:47]  That bad.
[00:07:47]  Thanks so much for listening.
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