By Nicholas J. Mattei
God’s attributes are a deep and broad subject. No mere mortal can plumb their depths or reach their heights. For this reason, many evangelicals have shied away from studying and talking about these high doctrines. Though we may not be able to fully comprehend God’s attributes, it is better to try, than not to try at all. This brief essay will interact with and attempt to explain the incommunicable attribute of God’s immutability, His changelessness. Ultimately God’s immutability should comfort every true Christian and aid them along their path of holiness. So, what is the immutability of God and why does it matter?
Before addressing immutability directly, we have to address our knowledge of the transcendent God and the proper ways to interpret the Scriptures. We must keep this in mind as we move forward. God is not like us, and we must fight the constant temptation to bring God down to our level and turn Him into something He is not. This takes humility and patience and faith. Mankind does not want to hear that God’s order of being is higher than ours, and it will cost us popularity points for confessing this to be so, but we should not comprise in order to please the flesh.
When we talk about what God is like we are attempting to use our human language and knowledge to predicate what God is like. From the start there is difficulty in doing this. For God is pure being, “And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”” (Exod. 3:14). In the history of the Church, theologians have sought to use philosophy as a handmaiden to Scripture to help better understand the deep and complex doctrines of Scripture such as the attributes of God. Here we shall use the philosophical categories of act and potency or being and becoming to help us understand our subject going forward. “Potency and Act divide being in such a way that whatever is, is either pure act, or of necessity it is composed of potency and act as primary and intrinsic principles.”[1] What has been argued in the past is that God is pure act or pure being, while his creation is a combination of act and potency/being and becoming.[2] We see this in Psalm 102:25-27:
Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
So, if this be true, how can we, as creatures who are not pure being and pure act describe and talk about God who is pure being and act?
The handmaiden of philosophy comes to our aid again when discussing how we can make true predications (logical affirmations of something about another)[3] about God. There are generally three modes of predication that can be used when we try to talk about anything; there is the equivocal way, the univocal way and the analogical way.[4] When you speak about two beings in a univocal way you are speaking and using words about how these two beings are identical, such as John and Peter are human. Whereas when you use a word to speak about two beings in an equivocal way, it is used to show the unrelatedness of two to each other.[5] The analogical way, or the analogia, is distinct from these other two as Richard Muller defines it as, “the relation of likeness between two things, or analogates; a relation that obtains only when the two things are neither totally alike nor totally unlike but share one or more attributes or have similar attributes.”[6] This analogical mode of predication has been the way in which many in the Church down through the centuries have talked about what God is like. The univocal way has also been used but it has its issues, Charles J. Rennie states that:
William Placher argues that this drift toward univocity has been one of the primary causes of what he calls “the domestication of transcendence . . . a drift towards univocity is the inevitable result of either an explicit or implicit rejection (perhaps neglect of the real distinction between act and potency. As Aquinas argued long ago, “potency and act are a complete division of being. Hence whatever is must be either pure act or a unity composed of potency and act,” so that there can be no univocal core of being predicated of the Creator (who is pure act) and the creature (who is composed of act and potency). Neglect of this distinction, or dismissing it all together, will inevitably produce a view of analogy that will eventually surrender divine discourse to a univocal concept of being, in which the infinite God is nothing more than a greater version of ourselves, a god in our image.”[7]
So then, as we proceed, we will be using the analogical mode of predication. But to further understand the analogical way of speaking about what God is like, we must make the distinction between proper and improper analogy.
To help us understand the distinction between proper and improper analogies, we can think of an improper analogy as a figurative or metaphorical way of showing how something intrinsically exists in both of the analogates, and a proper analogy is a formal or literal way in which something intrinsically exists in both of the analogates.[8] For example,
Life is predicated properly of God and man because life exists formally in both . . . If I were say . . . “George is a lion” . . . While that to which lion refers exists in the animal formally, it exists within the man figuratively (or metaphorically.) There is after all, something in George that corresponds to the likeness of a lion (i.e, fierceness, strength; cf. Gen. 49:8-9), although the form, or nature, of a lion is not actually in him.[9]
Likewise, God is said to have hands and eyes and a nose in Scripture but because God is Spirit (John 4:24), these must be taken in an improper or figurative way.[10] This leads us to consider the two terms, anthropomorphism and anthropopathism. An anthropomorphism is an improper analogy used throughout Scripture that speaks of God in a human way, it attributes different human body parts to God. In a similar way, an anthropopathism is an improper analogy used in the Scriptures to speak of a God in a human way so that it attributes human emotions to God. We are to take these analogies to help us learn about what God is like, but we are not to attribute formal or literal human properties to God.
Before going any further, we must also touch on the correct principles of interpreting the Bible. These are the grammatical historical method, or literal sense of the text, the analogy of faith, the analogy of Scripture, and the scope of Scripture.[11] The grammatical historical/literal sense of the text is that which the inspired author intended to mean by their words, and this is arrived at through the study of the language of the text and the historical background of the text. The analogy of Scripture is the comparison of clear texts with more difficult texts to come to an understanding of the meaning of the more difficult texts. The analogy of faith is the comparison of individual texts with the sum total of the cardinal doctrines that arise out of the Scriptures, so that one may understand difficult individual texts in light of the main body of divinity. This “presupposes a sense of the theological meaning of Scripture.”[12] Finally, the scope of Scripture is a “whole-Bible hermeneutic”[13] that centers all interpretation in the goal or target of Scripture, which is the person and work of the Messiah, Jesus. Utilizing these confessional Reformed principles of interpretation, we can better move forward in our study of the immutability of God.
As we now approach the doctrine of divine immutability, we need to recognize the category that this particular attribute belongs in, and we need to consider an example of how one of the other attributes in that category lead to immutability. Classically, among the Reformed tradition, God’s attributes have been divided into His incommunicable attributes and His communicable attributes. The term communication means, “am impartation of attributes resembling those of infinite being to finite beings.”[14] The communicable attributes of God would be attributes such as love, blessedness, and wrath. These attributes in God, which are infinite and perfect, can also be analogously seen faintly and imperfectly in His creatures. However, this is not so when it comes to the incommunicable attributes. Muller describes the term incommunicable as “a term for those attributes proper to God which have neither a similitude or analogy nor an image or vestige in God’s creatures, but represent the difference or “opposition” between God and the creature.”[15] The incommunicable attributes are in a way incomprehensible to us creatures. Examples of some incommunicable attributes of God would be those such as simplicity, infinity, aseity and immutability.
As I stated above, we will look at an example of one of these incommunicable attributes that lead to and support the attribute of immutability. That attribute we will look at briefly is divine aseity. I say briefly because this attribute alone could take up dozens of pages of paper to address on its own, and that is beyond the scope of this paper.
So, what is divine aseity? James Dolezal states that, “The perfection that maintains God’s self-sufficiency is sometimes referred to as God’s aseity (from the Latin a se – of himself, from himself).”[16] Herman Bavinck provides an additional definition by saying,
But as is evident from the word “aseity,” God is exclusively from himself, not in the sense of being self-caused but being from eternity to eternity who he is, being not becoming. God is absolute being, the fullness of being, and therefore also eternally and absolutely independent in his existence, in his perfections, in all his works, the first and the last, the sole cause and final goal of all things.[17]
There are a number of passages in Scripture that show this to be true, such as Acts 17:23-28, Rom. 11:35 and Exod. 3:14. A few are also found in the book of Job, one being from the mouth of Elihu in Job 35:6-7 which reads: “If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? Or, if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand?” God is absolutely independent of us. When He gives to us, he loses nothing, and we cannot add to Him or give Him anything that He doesn’t already have. Dolezal adds, “The delight He manifests in repentant sinners and the wrath He reveals against the ungodly are nothing but His own fulness of perfect being variously disclosed with reference to particular creatures at different times (see Psalm 18:25-27.)”[18] This is truly incredible and can be hard to comprehend. But let us return to a concept from earlier that might help us in grasping this doctrine further. God is pure act, and perfect being. He does not have any potency; He is not becoming. Dolezal expounds further by stating:
God as the first cause of all things, must be a being who is not susceptible to further actualization because He possess fullness of being in and of Himself . . . That which is pure act is dynamic and utterly full of being and life. Thus, it is entirely self-sufficient and independent of all others. . . The God of classical theism is not unmoved because He lacks actuality and dynamism, but because He is pure unbounded act and dynamism and thus cannot be moved some additional state of actuality, power, or liveliness. As pure act, God is life itself – ipsa vita.[19]
Far from being a cold, static, distant deity, the LORD God is an infinite thriving perfect being that cannot be affected by mere finite imperfect creatures. He is life, He is reality; He just is. These conclusions from divine aseity lead us into the doctrine of divine immutability.
Divine immutability has a long history of agreement and affirmation in the Christian Church. Muller declares that, “The conception of divine immutability is certainly a mark of continuity between the Reformers and the Protestant Orthodox --- indeed, it is a mark of continuity in the thought of the Christian church from the time of the fathers through the seventeenth century.[20] Thomas G. Weinandy adds a more in-depth snapshot of the early church’s view on this doctrine:
For the patristic theologians the immutability of God, as philosophically understood, is taken for granted. Pelikan notes that “The early Christian picture of God was controlled by the self-evident axiom, accepted by all, of the absoluteness of the impassibility of the divine nature.” Thus, the early Christological controversies and debates were never concerned with the immutability and impassability of God as such, but rather they centered around the reconciliation of God’s immutability and impassibility with the new reality of Christ.[21]
Only in the modern era has this doctrine of divine immutability begun to be seriously questioned or outright denied.
God’s immutability can be defined as “that perfection in God whereby He is exalted above all becoming and development, as well as above all diminution, and remains the same eternally.”[22] It can also be defined in the sense that He is, “Unchangeable in his existence and being, he is so also in his thought and will, in all his plans and decisions.”[23] In Latin scholastic terminology, it is called immutabilitas which is defined as “changelessness; especially the immutabilitas Dei, or immutability of God, according to which God is understood as free from all mutation of being, attributes, place, or will and from all physical and ethical change.”[24] Put negatively, “He cannot be made to be in any way that He is not in and of Himself already.”[25] Scripture affirms this in multiple places such as James 1:17; Mal. 3:6, 1 Tim. 1:17, Rom. 1:23, Num. 23:19, 1 Sam.15:29, Ps.102:26-27 and Hebrews 1:11-12.[26] To some of these passages we will now turn to bring out the Scriptural understanding of divine immutability.
The first passage we will consider is Psalm 102:25-27 which reads,
Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure;Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
In this Psalm, YHWH is proclaimed as the creator of all things. He existed prior to creation and will continue on for eternity. Creation is finite, God is infinite. We also see that creation is subject to change, it is mutable, but the Creator, in contrast to His creation, is changeless, He is immutable. God causes changes to occur in creation, not the other way around. Stephen Charnock adds these comments on this Psalm by saying,
His eternity is signified in that expression, “Thou shalt endure;” his immutability in this, “Thou art the same.” To endure, argues indeed his immutability as well as eternity; for what endures, is not changed and what is changed, doth not endure; but “Thou art the same” doth more fully signify it. He could not be the same if he could be changed into any other thing that what he is; the Psalmist therefor puts not thou hast been, or shalt be, but thou art the same without any alteration.[27]
The Psalmist could not be any clearer. Everything else changes, but God Almighty does not.
The second passage to be examined is Malachi 3:6, it says, “For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.” I do not think there is any clearer of a statement in all of Scripture than this when it comes to affirmations of God’s immutability. Not much needs to be said here. There is no equivocation, YHWH declares “I do not change.” In the King James Version it reads, “I change not.” This passage is not being taken out of context. In the midst of God’s pronounced judgements on His wayward people, through the prophet Malachi, God also offers hope to His people, as He does so commonly throughout the prophets after He has them prophecy judgement on His people. In chapter 3 of Malachi God is declaring the hope of the coming Messiah and then makes the statement to His people that “I do not change, therefor you are not consumed.” Ronald S. Baines adds these comments to this section of Scripture by saying,
God himself, then, through the prophet, declares in clear, stark terms his own infinite and absolute immutability. Moreover, he states that his immutable nature is the basis for his dealings with is people. God relates to Israel, not in reactionary response to Israel’s behavior, but in love, according to his unchanging nature.[28]
It is clear, God is changeless and for that reason His people can rest assured that His lovingkindness will continue towards them.
The third passage to be examined is Numbers 23:19 which says, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do?Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” Here we have a more controversial passage. Here is a clear statement in the Old Testament that says that God does not repent, but yet, there are multiple other places in the OT that say that God does repent like Gen. 6:6-7, Exod. 32:12, 14, 1 Sam. 15:11, 35, 1 Chron. 21:15, etc.[29] What do we make of all of this? Well, first we must break down Numbers 23:19 and then from there we will attempt to explain its teaching in light of the rest of those other passages.
The context surrounding Numbers 23:19 is the story of king Balak and the prophet Balaam. Balak has hired Balaam to curse Israel as they approach Canaan. Instead of cursing Israel, Balaam is apprehended by God to go and bless Israel in the presence of Balak in the form of prophecies. Numbers 23:19 is in the second prophesy of Balaam to Balak, and what we see here is important. Baines commenting on this section of Scripture says,
God declares that his act of blessing Israel is grounded in his very essence or nature: because his is God and “not a man . . .Nor a son of man,” the blessing is irrevocable. In other words, it is not that God will not revoke his blessing; it is that he cannot revoke his blessing . . . By confronting Balak this way, God is establishing the practice of describing the Creator/creature distinction negatively, i.e., by what God is not.[30]
As I have just said, this is an important concept to grasp. God is contrasting Himself with his creation. Again, as we saw in Psalm 102, His creation is mutable, but He is not. Mankind lies, but God cannot and does not lie. Mankind repents, but God does not.
What, therefore, are we to do then with these other passages in Scripture that declare that God does repent? We need to view these other Scriptures in light of what has been revealed to us about the nature/essence of God in passages such as Psalm 102 and Numbers 23. A helpful phrase to consider and memorize is this “declarations of ontology take theological priority over statements of narrative description.”[31] In other words, we need to weigh more heavily, clear affirmative descriptions in Scripture of what God is like in His essence, than we do when it comes to descriptions of God’s actions in a narrative. Consider again the ontological foundation of Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent,” adding helpful commentary on this, Baines adds, “He does not change, not because he chooses not to, but because it is contrary to his being. He cannot change any more than he can lie. In other words, God does not claim volitional reasons but ontological reasons for his own immutability.”[32] Furthermore, repentance is said to be something that is anthropological, it is a part of mankind, not of God.[33] So, when we see statements in Scripture, such as in Gen. 6:6, which says, “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”, we need to read these as anthropopathisms, as defined above as an improper analogy used in the Scriptures to speak of a God in a human way so that it attributes human emotions to God. This is the same thing do we when we read in the Scripture descriptions of God having eyes, or hands or a mouth or a nose. We weigh the ontological statements in Scripture about God like John 4:24 which says, “God is Spirit” and we conclude that these statements in the other Scriptures of God having human body parts are anthropomorphisms, which, again, as defined above are improper analogies used throughout Scripture that speaks of God in a human way, they attribute different human body parts to God.
Some in our day recoil at and reject interpretations of Scripture that conclude anthropopathism when there is said to be a change in God. Yet, these same people have no problem arriving at the interpretive conclusion of anthropomorphisms when some Scriptures say that God has human body parts. This is inconsistent at best. They claim that this is all an explaining away of Scripture, but surely it is not. This is the right use of the handmaiden of philosophy and a good implementation of the principles of interpretation which we discussed above. For example, let us look at some of John Calvin’s comments on Gen. 6:6,
The repentance which is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sake, he should, in a certain sense, transform himself. That repentance cannot take place in God, easily appears from this single consideration, that nothing happens which is by him unexpected our unforeseen. The same reasoning, and remark, applies to what follows, that God was affected with grief. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains for ever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet, because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity. Wherefore, there is no need for us to involve ourselves in thorny and difficult questions, when it is obvious to what end these words of repentance and grief are applied; namely, to teach us, that from the tine when man was so greatly corrupted, God would not reckon him among his creatures; as if would say, ‘This is not my workmanship; this is not that man who was formed in my image, and whom I had adorned with such excellent gifts: I do not deign now to acknowledge this degenerate and defiled creature as mine’. Similar to this is what he says, in the second place, concerning grief; that God was so offended by the atrocious wickedness of men, as if they had wounded his heart with moral grief . . . Moreover, this paternal goodness and tenderness ought, in no slight degree, to subdue in us the love of sin; since God, in order more effectually to pierce our hearts, clothes himself with our affections. This figure, which represents God as transferring to himself what is peculiar to human nature, is called anthropoatheia. [34]
It is shown here that what the Genevan Reformer is doing is “invoking the analogy of Scripture and the analogy of faith, thereby allowing certain clear predications regarding God’s essence to be the lens through which he explains other texts which speak of God’s actions.”[35] This is good hermeneutics, this is consistent hermeneutics.
The last portion of Scripture we will be looking at is found in the New Testament, in James 1:17, it reads, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” In the context of James chapter 1, we see James exhorting Christians to be patient under trials and tribulations. He encourages his Christian brethren not to be moved by temptations and afflictions, he says that they should not be tossed back and forth like a wave of the sea and when temptation comes, they should not attribute it as from God, but from their own sinful flesh. He then makes his statement about God. We are to turn to God in faith and ask Him for aid in our struggle, and He, being our good Father, who does not change, who is not like our circumstances that are fluctuating, will give us good gifts for our life of faith. He is also said to be the Father of heavenly lights, referring to the sun, moon and stars. Again, God is contrasting Himself as creator with creation. Richard Barcellos adds these comments,
Though that which God created may (and does) change, he who created does not change. In other words, God is essentially and, therefore eternally immutable. Here God is said to be not like that which he has created. Unlike that which has come into being, he who made all things is of a different order of being. Turretin says, “The succession and flow of the parts of duration (which exist successively) necessarily involve a certain species of motion (which cannot be applied to God).[36]
Here in the NT just like in the OT we have a clear affirmation that God does not change.
In light of that we have just seen concerning God’s immutability, what are some applications that we should draw from all this? The first is that we should reject any language or theology which posits change in God. For “if God doth change it must be either to a greater perfection than he had before, or a less . . . If to the better, he was not perfect, and so was not God: if to the worse, he will not be perfect, and so be no longer God after that change.”[37] “Conversely, it is God who posits the creature, eternity which posits time, immensity which posits space, being which posits becoming, immutability which posits change.”[38] It is theologically devasting to teach change in God because “it would signify some alteration in His being or life and thus, to the extent that such change occur, destabilize human confidence in His covenant promises.”[39]
This leads to the second application which is that we should take great comfort and our faith should be strengthened by the fact the God does not change. What He has promised He will do. The good thing He has started in us, His people, He will bring to completion. He will not cast us away. He will bring us to glory. His convent promises are certain. His plan is certain. He is will not let us down like other people have, He is not like us fickle humans, as Bavinck has said,
The difference between the Creator and the creature hinges on the contrast between being and becoming. All that is creaturely is in the process of becoming. It is changeable, constantly striving, in search of rest and satisfaction, and finds this rest only in him who is pure being without becoming. This is why, in Scripture, God is so often called the Rock (Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37; 1 Sam. 2:2; 2 Sam. 22:3, 32; Ps. 19:14: 31:3: 62:2 7: 73:26; etc.). We humans can rely on him; he does not change in his being, knowing or willing. He eternally remains who he is.[40]
Yes, “change and decay in all around I see, Oh Thou who changes not, abide with me.”[41]
Thirdly, it is concluded that since God is immutable, He is also infinite. Turretin remarks, “The infinity of God . . . is equally diffused through the other attributes of God, and by it the divine nature is conceived as free from all limit and imperfection: as to essence (by incomprehensibility) and as to duration (by eternity) and as to circumscription, in reference to place (by immensity).”[42] Bavinck adds these comments as well, “When applied to time, God’s immutability is called eternity; when applied to space, it is called omnipresence. From time to time the two have been included under the umbrella term of “divine infinity.””[43] YHWH is the infinite personal triune God. Time does not affect Him; space does not affect Him. Remember what was declared in the book of Job? “If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? Or, if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand?” Our actions in the space time continuum do not cause God Almighty to be mutable. “From everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Ps.90:2) declares the Psalmist. Thus saith the LORD, “Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,” (Isa.46:9-10.) Dear reader, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. There is none like Him, we are mutable, He is not. Let us rejoice that this is so.
Lastly, the immutability of God taught in the Scriptures finds its goal in glory of God, specifically in the sufferings and glory of the Messiah, Jesus the Lord. The triune God is who He is, and He has purposed in Himself from all eternity to create and redeem, to the praise of His glorious grace. You see, when God created, He did not change. He wasn’t from all eternity not a creator and then at the moment of creation, became something He was not, namely, a creator; for creation and redemption were eternally in the mind of God. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,” (Eph. 1:3-4). He knew His people before He created and redeemed them. Christ was the redeemer before there was a creation to redeem, for Jesus was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev.13:8). Jesus, who is God the Son incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, took on flesh. He is the God-Man. One person with two natures. The immutable nature of God, through the person of the Son, took on mutable human flesh to accomplish the atonement. On the cross at Golgotha, Jesus the Christ suffered under the wrath of God on behalf of His people so that He might bring us to God. God does not change, and sin must be justly punished, and because God does not change, He is also merciful, so on the cross, “Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10). When Jesus accomplished redemption and was resurrected from the dead and ascending back into heaven, He sent out His apostles with the message of the Gospel into all the world with this promise “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mat. 28:20). The immutable God will finish the work that He purposed to accomplish from all eternity.
We have seen that God’s being is higher than ours. He has condescended to reveal Himself to us. But in that condescension, we still only know Him in an analogical way. God has declared that He is immutable, and in this, we His people, can take heart. God is not like us, and that is a good thing. Though we cannot become God ourselves to know Him more, He has become a Man, in the person of His Son, in order that we creatures might know Him more. For Jesus is “the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Heb. 1:3). Let us each pray to God; “lift my heart on wings of faith that I might see, only Jesus,”[44] amen, only Jesus, the same yesterday, today and forever.
[1] “A Summary of Act and Potency” Date accessed, December 8, 2020, https://ses.edu/a-summary-of-act-potency/.
[2] Baines, Ronald S, Richard C. Barcellos, James P. Butler, Stefan T. Lindblad, James M. Reinihan. Confessing the Impassible God (Palmdale, CA: RBAP, 2015), 51.
[3] “Predication.” Date accessed December 8, 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/predication.
[4] Baines, Ronald S, Richard C. Barcellos, James P. Butler, Stefan T. Lindblad, James M. Reinihan. Confessing the Impassible God (Palmdale, CA: RBAP, 2015), 54.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Muller, Richard A. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 24.
[7] Baines, Ronald S, Richard C. Barcellos, James P. Butler, Stefan T. Lindblad, James M. Reinihan. Confessing the Impassible God (Palmdale, CA: RBAP, 2015), 58-59.
[8] Ibid, 63-64.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid, 65.
[11] Barcellos, Richard C. The Family Tree of Reformed Biblical Theology (Owensboro, KY: RBAP. 2010), 72-73.
[12] Ibid, 74.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Vol. Three, The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 225.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Dolezal, James E. All That Is In God (Grand Rapids, MI. Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 11.
[17] Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 2, God and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic, 2004), 152.
[18] Dolezal, James E. All That Is In God (Grand Rapids, MI. Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 14.
[19] Ibid, 16-17.
[20] Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Vol. Three, The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 308.
[21] Weinandy, Thomas G. Does God Change? (Peru, IL: St. Bede’s Publications, 2002), xxi.
[22] Vos, G. (2012–2016). Reformed Dogmatics. (R. B. Gaffin Jr., Ed. & Trans.) (Vol. 1, p. 13). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[23] Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 2, God and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic, 2004),153.
[24] Muller, Richard A. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017).
[25] Dolezal, James E. All That Is In God (Grand Rapids, MI. Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 17.
[26] Van Mastricht, Petrus. Theoretical-Practical Theology. Vol 2, Faith in the Triune God (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019), 161.
[27] Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Books, 1996), 316.
[28] Baines, Ronald S, Richard C. Barcellos, James P. Butler, Stefan T. Lindblad, James M. Reinihan. Confessing the Impassible God (Palmdale, CA: RBAP, 2015), 134.
[29] Ibid, 110.
[30] Ibid, 108-109.
[31] Ibid, 131.
[32] Ibid, 111.
[33] Ibid, 112.
[34] Ibid, 113-114.
[35] Ibid, 116.
[36] Ibid, 197.
[37] Dolezal, James E. All That Is In God (Grand Rapids, MI. Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 19.
[38] Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 2, God and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic, 2004), 158.
[39] Dolezal, James E. All That Is In God (Grand Rapids, MI. Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 19.
[40] Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 2, God and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic, 2004), 156.
[41] Lyte, Henry F. “Abide With Me,” https://hymnary.org/text/abide_with_me_fast_falls_the _eventide.
[42] Turretin, Francis. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Vol 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992), 194.
[43] Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 2, God and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic, 2004), 159.
[44] Robins, Lee. “Thou Remainest.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeKkmnuHDRA.
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