Spurgeon on the Immutability of God

Funny that Andrew should post something on Spurgeon as I was preparing my own post from ol’ Charles Haddon. A gift I recently received was Spurgeon’s sermons from the New Park Street Pulpit, and the collection opens with his sermon on the immutability (or unchangeableness) of God. When was the last time you heard a whole sermon on this blessed truth? I don’t know if I can even name one instance in my own time, but thankfully Spurgeon did not shy away from such things, things most figure too complicated for the average audience to grasp. Ironically, the sermon is uber simplistic yet strikingly insightful. I would like to break down his points quickly for you.

First let’s look at a piece of his introduction: “While this subject humbles the mind, it also expands it…. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in its immensity….”

The text is from Malachi 3:6 – “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.”

Here is an outline of his sermon:

I. “I am the Lord, I change not”

a. God changes not in his essence – he is unchanging by his own nature. Whatever substance God is, it is always the same substance

b. He is unchanging in his attributes – his wisdom, power, justice, omnipotence, love, etc. NEVER change. He has been and always will possess his attributes fully

c. God changes not in his plans – When God starts something, he finishes it, for he cannot have planned wrongly

d. God changes not in his promises – especially important to believers, for if God’s promises changed, he would not be trustworthy or a reliable being to put our faith in

e. God is unchanging in his threatenings – as God is infinitely loving and just, he must administer perfect justice, and so one can also put their trust in God following through with his promise of justice

II. He then goes on to expound on an argumentative proof on the unchangeableness of God, coming to his third point – how it is to our benefit that God is unchanging:

III. Under the New covenant, God’s elect are the “sons of Jacob” – those who are not consumed

a. First benefit – we are not consumed in hell as we deserve, for God’s grace is permanent upon election, and once delivered from hell, God’s elect cannot be thrust into its grasp once again

b. Second benefit – we are not consumed in life; God delivers us from sin in the very face of our trials, so that we are not consumed by our sin nor given over to its destruction.

i. He gives the illustration that we are suicides for our own souls without the work of God’s sovereign grace.

IV. In closing, he states, “since our good works did not win His affection, our bad works cannot sever that affection; since our righteousness did not bind his love to us, so our wickedness cannot snap the golden links. He loved us out of pure sovereign grace, and he will love us still. But we should have been consumed by the devil and by our enemies – consumed by the world and by our sins, by our trials and in a hundred other ways, if God had ever changed

Spurgeon’s conclusion holds a glorious truth for us – our whole hope rests upon the unchangeableness of God. I hope that this breakdown from a great man’s sermon helps you (and I) apply the doctrine of the immutability of God to our lives. And as Andrew stated in his last post, if you aren’t into reading the “old guys”, well…. GET INTO IT! You just don’t find this kind of stuff in today’s writing.