In my teenage years (1980's), my father bought me, for a gift, a Franklin electronic Bible that had search capabilities. I wore that device down to where it broke because I used it so much. I couldn't afford to buy such a device, but my father, being quite wealthy, he bought it but more as like to his chagrin.
He wanted me to exhaust myself in knowing God. He wanted me to search the Bible so I could come to the conclusion sooner that I was in error for believing in "God". That is what I remember the "gift" was for. He was an Atheist at the time. He believed in something called "Unity", but he didn't believe God, himself, was real. It's "different" to traditional Christian beliefs.
This is from Wikipedia, "Unity views God as spiritual energy that is present everywhere and is available to all people. According to Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore: 'God is not a person who has set creation in motion and gone away and left it to run down like a clock. God is Spirit, infinite Mind, the immanent force and intelligence everywhere manifest in nature. God is the silent voice that speaks into visibility all the life there is.' "
For whatever reason it was, for good or for evil, I was gifted with the gift to search the scriptures, and search them I did!
Back then, as it had been, literally, for millennia reading the vastness of the scriptures let alone knowing where key words, phrases, etc. were ... was very difficult to do, so when someone behind a pulpit stated their beliefs, it was easier to go with it than it was to refute it.
As a young believer, full of questions and curiosities, I bucked the system often, especially the system of the pulpit. As it is often today, so it was back then ... the preacher preaches but he or her is unpreachable (unreachable - impossible to be preached to). You have to go with it or get down the road with your thoughts. If you buck the system, you're basically "out".
As that is, I came across a recent sermon where a scripture was quoted about how God is not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent.
CLICK!!!
Searches I have done on this very topic started falling into slots in my mind.
Hang on a minute!
Now, I saw the preacher's point of view, partly because I have heard it since I was a child, but he isn't seeing the whole counsel of the scriptures because if a person were to search for the keywords of "repent, good, evil", behold, there are scriptures where God himself says he repents. 👀 🫣
In context, what is missing from that verse where it is stated (by God through a prophet) is an understanding of the phrasing of the verse.
Here. Hang on. I'll dig up that verse for you ... brb ...
In fact, there are two verses that state that God is not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent.
Check them out below ...
"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19)
"And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent." (1 Samuel 15:29)
So, if you will, imagine you in a pew and me behind a pulpit.
The stage is set, and I am teaching you what these verses mean.
I would direct you to the first part of both of those verses ...
"God is not a man, that he should lie ..." (Numbers 23:19)
"And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: ..." (1 Samuel 15:29)
... now, I will tell you what is meant there.
The verses are prefacing this ... "God does not lie," ... "therefore, he does not regret like men do when men lie."
However, does God repent! Yes! Yes, in fact, he most certainly does! He just doesn't lie and then regret lying like men do.
Do you see the difference?
God does not lie. Men lie. God doesn't have to repent of lying because he does not lie. Men have to repent of lying because men lie.
And then there is this thing about "evil".
Does God create evil?
Well, by the way, yes, he most certainly does. He said so himself.
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)
How is "evil" defined then?
Is not "evil" the opposite of "good"?
Yes. Evil is the opposite of good.
"Good" is simply defined as "to bring together, to unite" as in, "in a pleasing way".
"Evil" then would be defined as "to unbring together, to un-unite", as in, "in a pleasing way".
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)
In follows also such beliefs that God does not change. However, from the verses at the bottom of this post, he, indeed does change.
The evidence folks use is, "Jesus Christ, the same today, yesterday, and forever."
However, that verse itself, as many use it, to try to establish that God does not change, they use it unskillfully.
The verse before and the verse after it are joined to its meaning.
Hebrews 13:7-9
"Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein."
The verses above could also be stated as this (condensed with a focus on Jesus) ...
"Remember Jesus who has rule over you, who has spoken the word of God to you: his faith follow, considering the end if his conversation. He came to you speaking the word of God. He speaks the word of God to you today. He will speak the word of God to you forever. So be established by God's grace, or his pleasure, in you for you believing in Jesus's words from God to you. Do not be carried away from this teaching about the word of God being spoken to you to guide you. Establish your heart in the voice of God. Don't be established in the things of the flesh because they do not profit like the things of the spirit."
The focus of that passage isn't on the deity of Jesus or upon his consistency. As the other scriptures state, God does repent of both good and evil he has planned. God does change. That is how he has mercy. Mercy is favor when you don't deserve it. He gives you mercy against his own determined divine judgment if he so chooses.
When I was young, I used to be in awe of the preacher behind the pulpit, but as I studied the scriptures more and more on my own, I learned that many preachers of my day were often reteaching what they had been taught. They themselves didn't have a specific mastery of the content. They were teaching, often, but not always, the teachings of men within their own circle of belief and doctrine.
So when I see preachers state that God doesn't change, I take it to understand that they aren't teaching about God himself but, rather, their ideas about the Bible itself, in that, it doesn't change, is true, is infallible, is inerrant, is inspired, etc..
But if God does repent (aka "change"), then what about the things written in the scriptures? Hmm? Do you see how that would destabilize the foundation of many religious orders whose foundation is on the Bible and not on God? 🫢 Like, did I really just go there? Yep. I did!
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Exodus 32:11-14
2 Samuel 24:16
1 Chronicles 21:15
Jeremiah 6:3,13,19
Jeremiah 42:10
Joel 2:13
Jonah 3:10
Jonah 4:2
