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I want to begin with two texts 
of Scripture in this session on God's immutability and impassibility. Two texts of Scripture followed 
by a reading from Confession 2.1, and then we'll pray. Malachi 
3.6, For I am the Lord. I do not change. Therefore, you are not consumed, 
O sons of Jacob. And then also Acts 14 verse 15, starting in verse 14 there, but 
when the apostles Paul and Barnabas heard this, that they were being 
worshipped as if they were Olympian gods, when they heard this, they 
tore their clothes and they ran out among the multitude crying 
out saying men why do you these things we are men of the same 
passions with you and preach to you that you should turn from 
these vain things to the living god who made the heaven the earth 
the sea and all things that are in them in our confession Again, 
from the beginning, the Lord, our God, is but one only living 
and true God whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite 
and being in perfection, whose essence cannot be comprehended 
by any but himself, a most pure spirit, invisible without body 
parts or passions. who only hath immortality dwelling 
in the light which no man can approach unto, immutable, immense, 
eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, 
most wise, most free, most absolute, working all things according 
to the counsel of his will. and most, pardon me, working 
all things according to the counsel of his immutable and most righteous 
will for his own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, 
abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, 
and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. and 
with all most terrible and just in his judgments, hating all 
sin, who will by no means clear the guilty." I wanted to read 
the entirety because in this it includes the statement that 
God is most free, most loving, most terrible in his judgments, 
and also passionless. All in a single article. And 
so some of what we want to do in this session is consider how 
these things actually hold together in our confession and theologically. Let's ask the Lord to help us 
as we come to this time. Our God in heaven, you indeed 
do not change. Many good and perfect gifts come 
down from you, the Father of lights, but with you there is 
no variation or shadow due to turning. Lord, when you swore 
an oath, you swore by yourself because you could swear by none 
higher The importance of this, Lord, is that you are unchangeable 
and therefore your word and your promise to us is unchangeable. 
We bless you and we thank you for your immutability and all 
the consolation that it brings to us, the hope and strong encouragement 
to take hold of the hopes set before us that are grounded in 
your immutability. And Lord, as we consider that 
we men of like passions are distinct from you, that you are not like 
us, subject to passions, help us to see the meaning of this, 
Lord, not just as a strange saying, perhaps, but see the meaning 
of it as that which grounds your perfect and infinite and an abundant 
love for us, that your being most loving is indeed because 
you are without passions, not in spite of it. Teach us the 
meaning of this. Help us by your spirit, we pray 
in this time ahead. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen. Classical Christian theism is 
deeply devoted to the absoluteness of God with respect to his existence, 
essence, and activity. That God does not depend upon 
what is not God to be God or do what God does, we mentioned 
in a previous session. In the Second London Confession, 
then, we call God most absolute, which is an interesting language. 
There are relative absolute beings, beings that are relatively immutable 
and, yea, even relatively impassable. I speak here of the angels, not 
to derail myself in that regard. But God is most absolute, most 
loving, Most free, and His immutability and impassibility are key aspects 
of this confession. There's nothing behind God or 
outside of God that could increase God, that could change or alter 
God, that could augment His infinite fullness of being per impossibile. 
To augment infinity is just an absurdity on its face. God cannot 
subject himself to changes or to passions for this reason, 
that every change and every passion involves a cause that brings 
to the subject that has changed or undergoes passions an actuality 
of being that is somehow distinct from the subject itself. Changes 
make things be somehow. Passions bring about new states 
of being and actuality and things. Passions are causes, and change 
requires or require causes. Changes require causes. A cause, 
simply put, again, a few just principles here to guide our 
discussion, is something that makes things to be. Now, not 
all causes make things to be existentially. In fact, the only 
true existential cause, the one whose power and causality places 
things outside of nothingness, is God. In him we live, move, 
and have our being, Acts 17, 28. So God is that existential 
cause, the one who makes things be absolutely and existentially. 
The created principle by which he makes them be is what we call 
SA, the act of existence, is that created principle by which 
he causes you to be as opposed to not. But then there are also 
causes that cause things to be, we might say, formally speaking. 
They don't give existence, but they do give manners of whatness. You thought I was going to say 
it in a more normal way than that, but I chose not to. Manners of 
whatness. I could even say variations of 
quiddity. which helps about two of you, 
I think, but the point is this, that causes can make things to 
be existentially, or they can make things to be what they are. 
So if I picked up this plastic water bottle, we could talk about 
its cause that makes it be as opposed to not be at all, or 
we could also talk about the cause that makes it to be cylindrical 
in shape and of such a consistency and what causes it to be crinkly? 
What is it about the nature and disposition of its matter that 
produces this sound when grasped? That sort of thing. When we talk 
about causes, we're talking about what makes things to be existentially 
or essentially or quantitatively. But this is what all causes have 
in common. All causes produce states of being. All causes produce 
states of being. Since God is wholly uncaused 
and self-sufficient in the plentitude of his being, He cannot be moved 
to further actuality. Every change, every mutation 
requires a newness of being acquired. If something has changed, we 
can say, from what and into what? Every change has a from what 
and an into what, and then it also has some power mechanism, 
a cause that accounts for the newness of being. Such movement 
in God would suggest some imperfection or absence of being and goodness 
in him. And the simple reason is this, 
that you can only change into what you aren't, not what you 
are. Change requires a newness of being. It also requires, as 
a precondition, a lacking of exactly and precisely what it 
is that you changed into. So I can change from standing 
to sitting, but I can't change from standing to standing. I 
can change from standing here to standing there, but I can't 
change from standing to standing. I can't change into what I am. 
For instance, I can't become human, I am that. I can't become someone who's 
standing up because I am that. We become what we aren't, we 
don't become what we are. Or if we become what we are, 
we become what we are in kind through an enrichment. In other 
words, still some kind of additional actuality of being. Hermann Bavink, 
in his Reform Dogmatics, distills the basics of divine immutability 
very succinctly. He says, every change is foreign 
to God. In Him, there is no change in 
time, for He is eternal, nor in location, for He is omnipresent, 
nor in essence, for He is pure being. John Owen, writing in 
the 17th century, puts it this way. God alone hath all being 
in Him. I'm going to butt in. You get 
to butt in when they're not here to stop you, so I butt into my 
quotes. God hath all being in him. He is the I am that I am, 
but for a thing to change, there is a requisite not being. Does 
this make sense? If you're going to gain being, 
you have to not have it to gain it. But if God is fullness of 
being, if there's no paucity or lack of being in God, if his 
name is I am that I am and he is the ising one, if there's 
no non-is that characterizes God, that is to say possibility 
for being what he isn't yet, if that isn't real in God, then 
any possibility of change is completely off the table at that 
point. God alone hath all being in Him, hence He gives Himself 
the name I Am, says Owen. He was eternally all and when 
all things else that were made are now are or shall be were 
nothing." His point is the world didn't add something to God, 
the world didn't change God, God didn't become when the world 
became. God is not in some kind of relationship 
where He makes the world be new and the world makes Him be new 
somehow. In this state of infinite and 
eternal being and goodness, antecedent unto any act of wisdom or power 
without himself to give existence unto other things, God was and 
is eternally in himself all that he will be and all that he can 
be unto eternity. God is being, not becoming. Back to Owen, for where there 
is infinite being and infinite goodness, there is an infinite 
blessedness and happiness, whereunto nothing can be added to God. 
Nothing can be added to God. God is always the same. All things 
that are make no addition unto God, no change in His state. His blessedness, happiness, self-satisfaction, 
as well as all of his other infinite perfections were absolutely the 
same before the creation of anything. That sentiment is widespread. 
We can almost say universal in the early generations of the 
Reformation. It's also quite universal in 
the medieval church and among church fathers, with very few 
exceptions and those usually leading to some kind of heresy 
or another. It's now not uncommon, and I 
won't name names in this event, but it is not uncommon to read 
even reformed authors, contemporary ones, speaking of God in creation, 
and when God says it was, you know, he saw all that he had 
made, and behold, it was very good, characterizing that as 
if the world brought a new state of joy to God that prior to having 
the world, God lacked. My kids went to a VBS once. And 
they came home, not at our church, a different church, and they 
came home from the VBS. I said, what'd you learn at VBS today? 
And they said, we learned that God made the world because he 
was lonely. If that was your church, okay, 
you know. And I said, no, because the idea 
was, and now God has a world to keep him company, and so God 
moved from a state of loneliness to companionship, and the world 
is actually a plus to God, a boon to God, a windfall. I mean, that's 
a bad VBS, but that's also in books of reform literature that 
have come out in the last 20 or 30 years. Let's consider the theological 
framework of divine immutability and then we'll look at a few 
particular texts. The doctrine of immutability is strongly supported 
by other Christian doctrines. I want to look at one in particular 
and then I'll just make a side reference to simplicity since 
we already talked about that. And I want to focus here especially 
on what's called God's aseity or sometimes his independence. 
God's osseity is from the Latin osse, which just means that God 
is of himself or from himself. It's kind of, if you ask the 
question, why God? The answer would be God. In fact, 
it wouldn't even be quite correct if you wanted to be really, if 
you wanted to be that guy and be precise about it. It wouldn't 
even be quite correct to say, if I said, why God? If you said, 
well, because, and I'd say, let me stop you right there. Because, 
are you telling me you found God's cause? I wouldn't, I just 
wanna, if somebody says, why God? I just say, God's why God. I just leave the because out 
of it. Because God isn't caused. The why is not answered by a 
causal principle. God has no causal principle. 
He is the universal causal principle. All things are from him, through 
him, and to him. But he himself has no causal principle. Nothing 
made him. Nothing caused him. There's no 
because. Now this does not mean that there's 
no reason for God. God is the reason for God. He's 
just not the causal reason for God. That's aseity in a nutshell. If you want another nickname 
for aseity, it just means of himself. So this is just God's 
of himselfity. Believe me, osseity sounds cooler 
than of himselfity. This is God's self-sufficiency, 
that God is the reason for God, that God doesn't depend on what 
is not God, that he is his own fullness of being. Herman Boving 
says, when God ascribes this osseity to himself in scripture, 
he makes himself known as absolute being, as the one who is in an 
absolute sense. By this perfection, he is at 
once essentially and absolutely distinct from all creatures. 
It's an important doctrine, God's aseity. No angel is ase, angels 
derive there is from God who gave it. They are not of themselves, 
they are rather from God or of God, but God is of himself. The English Puritan Stephen Charnock 
makes a point similar to this. He says, God is of himself from 
no other. I'll interrupt really quick. 
Every time a Puritan says God is of himself, they are confessing 
the doctrine of divine aseity. God is of himself from no other. 
Charnock says, God hath no original. I do like that statement. God 
hath no original. In other words, God is not the 
copy of or the derivation of some prototype. He is the original, 
but he doesn't have an original. God has no source. He is the 
source of things that have a source, but he himself has no source. 
God hath no original. He hath no defect because he 
was not made from nothing. He hath no increase because he 
had no beginning. He was before all things and 
therefore depends upon no other thing. That which had no beginning 
cannot begin to be in any respect, because then that would be exactly 
a beginning. If God is without beginning, 
then God cannot begin to be. Boving says it's evident from 
the word, this is evident from the word aseity. God is exclusively 
of Himself, not in the sense, Baving says, of being self-caused, 
but being from eternity to eternity who He is, being, not becoming. So what we mean by God's self-sufficiency 
is not that God made God. Maybe we should just get clear 
on this. We should get clear on this. God cannot cause Himself 
to be. because nothing can. And it's 
not because he lacks power, it's because absolute existential 
self-causation is absurd. It's, as the kids say, it's not 
a thing. It's not a thing. And here's the reason why. I 
mean, just saying it's not a thing, that just sounds like I'm pounding 
the pulpit and saying, just not so. And it isn't so, but there's 
a good reason why it's not so. And just stay with me for a moment. Making or causing, which is an 
operation, requires that the cause exist. Like, let me change it for you. 
Here's my bumper sticker version of it. If you aren't, you don't. I mean it for everything. If you don't exist, there's no 
you to do stuff like make things exist. This is why God cannot be self-caused. 
Self-causation is absurd. Self-causation is absurd. God 
is not, I'm even hesitant to use the language of God being 
like self-dependent or God only depends upon God. It's not even 
like that. Like I kind of depend upon myself 
in some respects, meaning parts of me depend upon other parts 
of me. Like I depend upon my heart to pump blood through my 
body. But what I'm really saying is one part that has a need is 
supplied by the other part that's got the supply. And so self-dependence 
in a composite being isn't nonsensical. It does make sense. And we might 
even call that self-sufficiency, but even self-sufficient, do 
I do this? I'm looking at the time. Yeah, why not? This is 
what you paid, you know, this is what you paid for. Even self-sufficiency 
isn't quite it exactly, if we're being technical about it, because 
self-sufficiency means to make under, you hear the fic and self-sufficiency 
there's the maid and then there's the sub that god makes under 
i can do this like i can bear down and take care of myself 
like eat dinner comb my hair brush my teeth and i can i can 
actually depend upon myself in some ways the parts that need 
help Get help from the other parts that can supply it. And 
in that respect, I'm self-sufficient, I suppose. I mean, my wife would 
dispute how self-sufficient I am, but there are bits of it anyway. But that's because parts are 
depending upon other parts that are also intrinsic to me, hence 
self-sufficiency. God doesn't even depend upon 
God. When I said earlier that God does not depend on what is 
not God to be God, I was not suggesting necessarily that God 
depends upon himself. What we should say about God 
is God just is. In fact, that's actually how 
the Bible describes it. God just is, he is his own is. It's not 
even a dependency thing, if I can put it that way. In two passages 
I want to look at just very briefly in the book of Job to kind of 
bring this out. In Job chapter 22, his friend, 
think scare quotes around that, Eliphaz, challenges him with 
a question. In Job 22, two and three, Eliphaz 
says, can a man be profitable to God? though he who is wise 
may be profitable to himself. And then he asked this, is it 
any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous or gain 
to him if you make your ways blameless? In other words, can 
you help God? Can you give God what God lacks? 
Can you be God's benefactor? I did. I gave you my little lesson 
on fic, fec, fac, so now I get to do things with it. A benefactor. You hear that? You see the F-A-C 
in there, right? Fac, the factor. A factor is 
a maker. A factum is a made thing, but 
a factor is a maker. And then bene is good. And a 
benefactor is someone who makes good for. Usually, we think of 
it in terms of money, but a benefactor is someone who makes good for 
others. God is a benefactor. He's the 
universal benefactor. From him we receive life, breath, 
and all things, Acts 17, 25. So he's the benefactor. The question is, God is a benefactor, 
granted. Does God have benefactors? Do you get what I'm after with 
this? I'm not asking, is God, in this case, the benefactor. 
What I'm asking is, are there benefactors that benefit God? And even the word benefit means 
that which is made good. A benefit is that same root, 
actually, is that which is made good. God's a benefactor, but 
he's not a beneficiary. A beneficiary is someone who 
has good made for him. A benefactor is someone who makes 
good for another. God is a benefactor, but not 
a beneficiary. And so I'm sure with all this 
Latin that Eliphaz didn't know, he asked this question, can a 
man be profitable to God? Is there any pleasure to the 
Almighty if you're righteous or gain to him if you make your 
ways blameless? In other words, does your obedience 
and does your worship and everything else that you do for God, does 
it actually put God into a better place? Are you his benefactor? It's a rhetorical question. The 
answer is supposed to be no. Why it works in the book of Job. 
I suggest this to you anyway. Job does, probably in his lower 
moments, suggest that his righteousness, which is, I think, real, does, 
in a certain sense, oblige God to give him an answer. And if 
you want the worst of the worst of it, the second half of chapter 
31, right where the words of Job are ended, they end Well, 
there are other words later on that are very good, but those 
ones end, I think, rather poorly, in which Job says that he would 
declare his righteousness to God, he would wear it on his 
head like a crown, and appear before him, the scene is a courtroom, 
and he's effectively subpoenaing God into his own courtroom to 
give witness to him, and his leverage is, I'm righteous. I'm righteous." And Eliphaz sniffs 
the problem here. You're kind of making it sound 
like this is a quid pro quo with God. You help God, now time for 
God to help you. And are you thinking God's like 
that? Because that's not... Well, the thing is, Job, it's 
like so many people. Job's theology is better than 
his words sometimes, because there are places in Job where 
it's very clear that he believes in God's aseity, self-sufficiency, 
and immutability, but then when he makes this argument about 
how his own righteousness will be the argument by which he calls 
God to give an answer, it sounds almost like he's treating God 
like a beneficiary who then owes a debt of gratitude. God owes 
no debt of gratitude. Job 35, Eliphaz, not one of the 
three friends, the young man who was sitting on the side of 
the circle, also not one whose words are anywhere rebuked in 
the book of Job. Job does not rebuke him. God 
does not rebuke him. The three friends do not rebuke him. Job rebukes 
Mrs. Job. The three friends rebuke 
Job. God rebukes Job. Elihu rebukes Job. God rebukes 
Job and the three friends. Elihu rebukes Job and the three 
friends. No one rebukes Elihu. That is 
important. It is important. Not even God. 
I think he's the set-up act. I think he's sort of the preacher 
of wisdom, who's in a certain sense warming Job up for the 
big show, which is chapter 38 and following, when God appears 
in the whirlwind before him. Which is only to say, you don't 
have to spit the seeds out. It's always hard with Job's friends. 
Like, how much theology do I take from them? Because I just read 
Eliphaz. Well, listen to Elihu, or Elihu, chapter 35, verses 
six and seven. Well, I know, I need to frame 
it. He says, look at the heavens 
and sea and behold the clouds, they're higher than you. Okay, 
this is an, so maybe I'll put it like this. There's a kind 
of relative transcendence of the clouds over you and I like 
to ask the question, what have you done for the clouds lately? Weird question, I know. What 
have the clouds done for you lately? Shade. Rain, the clouds benefit you, 
but they're not really in a relationship where you can return the favor. 
There's not a kind of give and take quid pro quo with the clouds. They just give to you and then 
they sail on and you don't give anything back to them. He's using 
this as a kind of metaphor for your relationship with God. And 
then when we come to the one who's absolutely transcendent, 
not just relatively transcendent like the clouds, what does he 
give you? Well, everything, life, breath, 
and all things. What do you give him? Listen 
to these words, verse 6. If you sin, what do you accomplish 
against Him? And if your transgressions are 
multiplied, what do you do to Him? More literally translated, 
what do you make to be in Him? For instance, can you make God 
feel pain? That would be to produce a state 
of being in God that was not actually in God prior to your 
producing it in God, then there would be something in God that 
is real in which God was in a state of being produced by you. God is not in that kind of relationship 
with us. It doesn't mean that he doesn't care about sin or 
isn't opposed to it, but our sin doesn't actually detract 
from his goodness or his blessedness. It opposes it in the sphere of 
our existence, but it does not detract or take away from it. 
If you're righteous, what do you give him? And here's the 
key thing in aseity, or what does he receive from your hand? 
And then he says, but your wickedness affects a man such as you and 
your righteousness a son of man. It does matter. Your wickedness 
does actually hurt some people and your righteousness does help 
some people. It's just not God. And he's not saying God doesn't 
care about these things, but he doesn't care about them the 
way you and I care about them. The way you and I care about 
them is because we are the recipients of them. God cares about them 
because he made man in his image, and he made man to be upright, 
and man has sought out many devices, as Ecclesiastes says. The reason 
that God cares is because he's perfect and the just judge of 
all things, but his care is, how can I put it this way, his 
care is not the product of your agency. He cares because he's 
good. He cares because he's altogether 
righteous. He doesn't care because he needed 
you to make it so. Because then you would be the 
cause of a state of being in God. Caring, doesn't mean he 
doesn't care. It just means you're not the 
one who made it, so. Calvin expands on this passage 
in his sermon this way, this Elihu passage. He says, but we 
must apply this doctrine to the present intent of Elihu, which 
is that God is not like mortal men, this is key, which are moved 
and touched. God does not like mortal men 
moved and touched by others. And why? He says, why are men 
this way? Why? Because they have need of 
another's help and cannot set light by or disregard other men's 
force. In other words, we need, like 
I need to be stirred up by the actions of others upon me. I 
need help because I'm not purely actual and boundless in being, 
and I do need to be stirred up to care. God doesn't because 
he doesn't lack care. This is Calvin's point. He finishes 
it this way. Thus you see what the cause is that we be moved 
and carried to and fro. We are moved by others. We are 
changed by others. We undergo changes and others 
cause them. Calvin concludes this one thought, 
but there must no such dotages enter into our head concerning 
God. I like that old English translation 
of whatever his French was, dotages. So anyway, part of this session 
is to just get that false dotage, false thoughts out of your head. Lest we conclude that this is 
just the bad counsel of Job's friends, God appears, as I mentioned, 
in the whirlwind and speaks to Job. And in Job 41, verse 11, 
God says this to him. Who has preceded me that I should 
repay him? Everything under heaven is mine. 
So this is the point. Older, it could say anticipated 
me. We might use it more idiomatically. 
We might say, who has gotten the upper hand on God? Or who 
has anticipated him such that I should repay? To whom is God 
in debt? I often illustrate this with 
my experience working many years of a graveyard shift and I had 
two jobs, a graveyard shift and then I would go to work at the 
university. And if the university campus was closed, my other graveyard 
shift never closed for anything. And so there'd be a snow day 
and I'd know that instead of going to campus, I would be driving 
home And my township required that at the end of snowfall, 
I had 24 hours to completely clear the sidewalk adjacent to 
my property. I just was on a strange property and had a long sidewalk, 
and I did not have a snowblower. I just had a shovel and a sun. 
That was my plan. But also it was a good workout, 
so I would anticipate something. I had two strange driveways, 
and I had something like four hours of shoveling in front of 
me after working all night. And on occasion, I would come 
home, and I would see my sidewalk completely plowed and cleared 
after having worked all night, because my neighbor Steve, with 
his gigantic Troy-built blower, would just come and clear my 
sidewalk for me in 15 minutes. And it seemed that I owed I owed 
him something. And on a few occasions, I walked 
into the house and I would smell cookies baking. I'd think, I 
just got home from work, cookies are baking, and my wife, they're 
for Steve. You're gonna be taking them over 
there as soon as they cool. And I would walk over to Steve's 
house and I'd knock on the door and I'd give him a plate of cookies 
from my wife and this is what I would give him. Thank you, 
Steve. an expression of gratitude. Seems right. In fact, it'd be 
kind of surly and ingracious of me if I just took what Steve 
gave and did not discharge a debt of gratitude. Steve produced 
good for me. He was my benefactor, and I was 
his beneficiary, and he changed my morning by doing my work for 
me. And then I owed him a debt of 
gratitude, and I went and I said, thank you. You know those verses 
in the Bible where God says, thank you? No? Right, they're not there. God never says thank you to anyone 
in scripture. He manifests his moral approval or pleasure upon 
the righteous, no doubt, but God never says thank you. And 
the reason is, a little bit on thank you, this is for free, 
but this is how thank you works. Thank you is a very small-time 
discharge of a debt of gratitude when someone gives to you something 
that you need. And even something as small as 
holding a door or putting food on a plate for you, to get out 
of this room, I'm going to need access. And if someone gives 
me the access I need, a.k.a. holding the door for you, then 
you have supplied for me something in which I was in need, and I 
say to you, thank you, because you have now given to me the 
good that I needed that I was going to have to go and get for 
myself. I mean, it might be a small thing, but thank you is always 
an expression of gratitude for some benefit received. But God has no benefactor, and 
he receives no good, and the reason he receives no good is 
not because he doesn't want anything from you, it's because he doesn't 
lack anything. Look at 41 verse 11, everything 
under heaven is mine. His absolute universal proprietorship, 
his ownership of everything means that the breath by which you 
give him praise is already his breath. The glory that you attribute 
to him is not new glory he lacked, it's just his ancient eternal 
glory now being given expression by you. But his glory isn't brighter 
because you glorify it. And his joy and his happiness 
in himself is not made happier because you came along and plucked 
up his spirits. Rather, God is all sufficient 
in himself, lacking no state of being, being itself subsisting. There's nothing into which he 
might change and no cause that might change him. In Scripture, 
there are several passages that stipulate this directly. Stephen 
Charnock says, he who has not being from another cannot but 
always be what he is. God is the first being, an independent 
being. He was not produced of himself 
or by any other, but by nature always hath been and therefore 
cannot by himself or by any other be changed from what he is in 
his own nature. There are a couple texts, I've mentioned two of 
them already. The first, Malachi 3.6, I the 
Lord do not change, just says it on the face of it. James 1.17 
also says it quite clearly that every good and perfect gift comes 
down from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation 
or shadow due to turning. I want to be careful on this. 
There are variations in the gifts that come down. sometimes sickness, 
sometimes health, sometimes poverty, sometimes wealth, there are ebbs 
and flows in the quantity and the quality of God's distribution 
of gifts in his wise and fatherly distribution. There is an unevenness 
over a lifetime in the gifts he gives us. What we should not 
do is conclude that when there's a change in the gifts, you know, 
when you lose your health and you're sick, that there's a change 
in the giver. That would be a false inference. 
I was healthy, God loved me, I'm sick, what happened? Nothing. Every good and perfect gift comes 
down from the Father of lights, but with him, there is no variation 
or shadow due to turning. God does not change, his gifts 
may, the giver doesn't. That's the important thing for 
our faith. A text I want to just look at briefly to kind of head 
off a modern misconception on this is Psalm 102, verses 23 
to 28, Psalm 102. There is, as you're turning there, 
just to mention, there is a kind of trend out there, even in some 
Reformed circles, that suggests that divine immutability only 
means that God cannot be changed by another. That others cannot 
change God, but that doesn't mean that God cannot sovereignly 
change himself. So God may sovereignly decide 
to mutate himself somehow, but it's okay because he's good, 
he's powerful, and as long as we don't have others changing 
God, it's all good. But that is a kind of self-mutation, 
and so God would not be immutable, he'd be self-mutated on that 
account. And I wanna propose that that 
is not the traditional doctrine of divine immutability. A more 
scandalous version of that says that God is changed by creatures 
as long as he chooses to have the creatures change him. As 
long as he sovereignly chooses that the creature be the agent 
that mutates him, then we're all Calvinists still, because 
we got sovereignty, you know, making the jagged pill go down 
kind of easy. But it's not a good pill. Psalm 102. The psalmist 
says, he's weakened me in my way, he's shortened my days. 
I said, oh Lord, don't take me away in the midst of my days. 
Your years are throughout all generations. Of old, you laid 
the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the work of your 
hands. They will perish, but you will endure or remain. Yes, 
they will grow old like a garment. Now watch this last line of verse 
26. Like a cloak, you will change them and they will be changed. 
So he's talking about the changes in the heavens, which are the 
least changing of all things. Even mountains on earth change 
before like phases of the moon do. An earth mover could take 
out a mountain, but the phases of the moon are going to remain. 
But he says even the heavens change, and the one who changes 
them is God. So in the verse 26, this is what 
we have. Things changed by God. Hold that in your mind. Look 
at verse 27. But you are the same, or you are he, and your years have no end. And 
verse 27 is a contrast, a juxtaposition to verse 26. Verse 26 is, things 
change by God. Verse 27, in contrast to things 
changed by God, God. Does that make sense? I think 
the newer approach to immutability that says, no, immutability just 
means things can't change God. It doesn't mean God can't change 
God. Here's a verse that says, God is not among the things God 
changes. God is not among the things God changes. I think the 
older doctrine of absolute immutability remains strong. Stephen Charnock 
says, if God doth change, it must be to either a greater perfection 
than he had before or to a less, and if to a greater, he was not 
perfect and so was not God, and if to a worse, he will not be 
perfect and so be no longer God after that change. I've heard 
objections to this, but I haven't heard good reasons for the objections. 
Some will say, well, I don't agree that all change is for 
the better or for the worse. But if what God changed into was 
good, And if it were a change, it'd have to be a new good, then 
we would have to say that God was less than fully perfect hitherto 
or prior to receiving that new good. What divine immutability 
does not mean? And then we'll transition to 
its close cousin impassibility for our last few minutes. What 
immutability does not mean? It does not mean that God is 
uninvolved with the world. It means that he doesn't have 
to undergo changes in order to get involved. Like I was scheduled 
to be involved in this conference. And so here I am. And I had to 
undergo some changes in order to achieve this involvement, 
at least this particular kind of involvement. Namely, I had 
to undergo a locomotive change from Philadelphia to the Fraser 
Valley. I had to get from there to here, 
my involvement required some kind of mutation, not a big time 
mutation, just a mutation in place, but I had to change places 
in order to be involved so that my involvement ordinarily requires 
a whole series of mutations in order for the involvement to 
be achieved. You get that? And people think, God doesn't 
change, but to be involved you have to undergo change. Not necessarily. Think of it this way. If you're 
already perfectly and absolutely involved, let me break a second. How involved is God in the world? How about this? In him we live, 
move, and have our being. I actually can't even quite describe 
that. That's involvement of a level of intimacy and exactness and 
universality that I cannot even comprehend. God is not uninvolved. The world wouldn't exist if he 
wasn't immediately making it to. Like that's involvement at 
the existential level. God is involved at the level 
of is, the most fundamental. God doesn't move from uninvolvement 
to involvement, therefore he doesn't need mutation in order 
to get involved. He's not uninvolved. You only 
need to undergo change to get involved if, in fact, you're 
somehow not involved previously. It also doesn't mean that God 
is lifeless. Karl Barth once said that an absolutely immutable 
God would be death. To be immobile and immutable 
is to be dead, and if God is immobile and immutable, God is 
dead, said Barth. But that's because Barth bought 
into Henri Bergson's Vitale L'Anne, in which movement and change 
are signs of life in finite beings, but they are not the essence 
of life. They are only signs of life in finite entities. For 
God to move or change and to therefore enter into new states 
of being and actuality would only prove life in God if he 
were a finite being who was acquiring his life bit by bit one moment 
after the next. Tom Winehand, he says, And the changes that it does 
undergo is mainly from outside causes, wind and rain. God is 
unchangeable, not because he's inert or static like a rock, 
but for just the opposite reason. He is so dynamic, so active, 
that no change can make him more active. He is act, pure and simple. Change into what? because there's 
no good state of being that he isn't. Therefore, unchangeable. Not lifeless, lifefulness. I made that word up, but it works. 
Lifefulness. That's why he doesn't change. 
All right, a final consideration in our final minutes. This also 
means, by implication, that God is not passionate about you or 
about anything. And perhaps counterintuitively, 
that is also why he is most loving and most caring. Most loving 
and most caring. And in fact, if he were passionate 
in his love or care for the world, I would submit that that would 
be a less than complete care. Now, I gotta build up to this. 
So a few things on God without passions. The doctrine of impassibility 
means God is without passions. Our confession says that he's 
without passions. God neither undergoes affective 
changes nor feels the actions of creatures upon himself. obviously 
closely allied to immutability. Wynandi summarizes the doctrine 
this way. Impassibility is that divine 
attribute whereby God has said not to experience inner emotional 
changes of state, whether enacted freely from within or effected 
by his relationship to and interaction with human beings in the created 
order. In other words, Wynandi's saying God doesn't produce passions 
in himself and things outside of God do not produce passions 
in him. Now, this obviously will strike 
people as strange. I mean, even listen to the language 
of our confession. He's without passions, and then the same article 
goes on, most loving, most gracious, merciful, long-suffering, and 
abundant in goodness. So passionless and most loving, 
and then going on, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and 
sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and with 
all, most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin. 
So how can you have God most loving, hating all sin, and totally 
passionless? just seems like what we should 
say is exactly the opposite, that he's extremely passionate 
about those he loves and about the sin that he hates. I actually wanna propose that 
this most loving, though, is because of the manner of its 
impassibility. The underlying concern of impassibility 
is to safeguard the fullness and perfection of God's being. 
Now, good motives don't always make good theology, but this 
one does have good motives, and it is good theology. God is not 
the one whose greatness is beyond measure or who is most absolute 
if he in any way depends upon a cause. Yet every passable being 
subject to passions depends for some features of its being on 
whatever rouses it to new states of affection, positive or negative 
affections. So let's define a few terms. 
First, understanding passions. Maybe we mean something different 
by this term. Passions are affective states of being like joy, fear, 
compassion, anger, pain. The lexical or sort of dictionary 
meaning of the term comes from the Latin, patio, or pati, P-A-T-I, 
and it means to suffer, to submit, to undergo, or to experience. In other words, to be on the 
receiving end of something that happens to you. When you go to 
a doctor's office, you sign in on a patient's list. Patient, 
meaning the entity who is there for undergoing. literally what 
it means, and it's actually the right word, and we're still using 
it the right way. I don't think people know why that's the right 
word, but it is actually the right word. Now, if you go in 
to see the doctor, and the doctor just talks to you but doesn't 
do anything. I had one of these appointments a few months ago 
where I felt like I self-diagnosed, gave all the possible remedies 
and what to do, and the doctor just said, sounds good. And then 
I got a bill. And it seemed wrong to me that 
I got this bill, and I'm looking for a new doctor, actually. Because 
the doctor is supposed to perform, let me just Latinize here for 
a second, operatio. He's to perform operatio, and 
then when I receive operatio from the agent, the doctor, the 
reception of the operation in the patient is given the name 
passio. So passio is the operation of 
the agent insofar as it's received in the patient. And so he's the 
agent who operates, and then I'm the patient, the entity who 
undergoes the operation and receives, hopefully, the medicinal form 
of health from his healing arts as he operates. And then they 
send me a bill for it later on. I've shared this many times, 
but it'll irk me until the end of my days, I think. I drove 
by this billboard for five years driving to work for a healthcare 
company that said, we treat people, not patients. But the reason 
it drove me crazy is because it's metaphysically impossible. To be treated is literally to 
be the entity that undergoes. Patient. I don't think the Madison 
Avenue people knew that, who came up with the slogan. I think 
what they meant is, we love you as people. You're not just a 
sick body to me, you're a someone. That's, that sounds nice. Like 
how are you at medicine? But it's not, what they meant 
is we're a healthcare company that takes, like we want to know 
the names of your kids and how you're doing and how work is 
and that's, I like the, you know, I like the old bedside manner 
as much as the next guy. But what I really like is the 
operator who has the healing arts to apply them so that I 
can receive the patio of health From him in which case then I 
just want to say that's not true you do if you treat them They 
are patients what it really meant though translated another way 
is we're a health care company that doesn't actually do anything 
for you Which is I think not the effect 
they were going for but that's the effect it had on me a passion 
is that which is undergone or received and George Coubertin, 
a little bit of definition, George Coubertin says it's the change 
received from an agent considered as taking place in the patient. 
Aquinas says passion is the effect of the agent on the patient. 
Here's the key. Every passion is a caused state 
of being into which one is moved by the activity of some agent. That's why, you can see now, 
that is why our confession says God is without passions. Passions 
are caused states of being that are made to exist in patients 
through the agency of operators who produce states of being in 
them through activity. and God has no states of being 
in him that are produced through the activity of another, because 
all that is in God is God. We've already agreed, I think, 
that God does not depend on what is not God to be God. There is 
no state of being in God that is not actually just God's self. 
Otherwise, there'd be something in God, not God, making God be 
somehow. And that is bad. We know that. 
That's bad. Passions can be good or bad. 
Not all passions are necessarily painful. You can also undergo 
effects that are pleasurable. Even the term suffering doesn't 
necessarily, it now has negative connotations broadly, but historically 
didn't necessarily have negative connotations. It's from the Latin 
compound, sub ferre, ferre in Latin. We still use this word 
actually, we just have anglicized it a bit, ferry. The verb to 
ferry, like he ferried his comrade across the battlefield. What 
does that word mean? You know, to carry. Yeah, he 
ferried him. You get on a ferry to carry your 
car across a waterway. And then to subferrer is to carry 
under or to bear under something you're carrying. And then English 
has just smoothed out subferrer into suffer. Suffer is just an 
anglicizing of subferrer. And the question, so is all suffering 
bad? No, it depends on the cargo. In other words, it depends on 
what you're carrying under. So you can suffer good, actually. So for instance, we often describe 
romance this way. We say of someone who is falling 
in love, that they're falling in love. We might even say that they are 
smitten. Sound nice. We might even call 
the object that moves them their crush And I All of this is supposed 
to be joyful so I I Just a little I wake up in the morning and 
I think to I mean I have other things that going on in my head But 
I think to myself don't fall avoid being smitten and don't 
get crushed It's a rule I live by Except if it's love Do it to me, you know, like and 
you know what? Um a lovely wife Or a lovely 
husband if I can say that Can do that to you the loveliness 
of the other person moves you it And you know even for the 
falling in love stage early on when it almost has like a physiological 
register you feel funny even That's suffering And it's the 
good kind. You can also suffer the bad kind. 
Someone kicks you in the shins, and then you undergo a kick in 
the shins, and then the passion is whatever results in you from 
the kick. So the physical passion would 
be the throbbing pain in your shin. The moral passion would 
be your moral disappointment in me. The emotional passion 
would be the anger you now felt toward me. And then the cause, 
the agent that made you in pain and angry would be the guy who 
kicked you. All right, so like if I kick Sam in the shins and 
then Sam was holding his shin and saying, oh James, then you 
know, Sam, what happened? I'm in pain, what caused it? 
Dalzell did. Are you angry? Yes, who? Dalzell 
for kicking me in the shins. And I would have been the agent 
and he'd be the patient and that's another way of suffering. The 
bad kind. The point is this. God's love is not produced in 
him by the loveliness of those he loves. That's not true of 
me, like with my wife. I don't love my wife impassively, 
I love my wife passively. My love, the feeling of love 
that I have for her was actually produced in me by her loveliness. 
The way she looked, yeah, she's attractive. The things that she 
spoke about the kind of person that she was the beauty of the 
inner person all of these things Move me to desire. That's what 
love love desires, you know, love love seeks unity That love 
that love that's a passion is a love that is produced by its 
object but if God loved that way then the cause of God's love 
would actually be in the creature and Do you follow me on this? The cause of God's love would 
be in the creature and then several doctrines that we cherish that 
are biblical would actually fall to the side. For instance, in Ephesians chapter 
2, we're told of God's perfect love, that He 
loves us, and that that love, that great love with which He 
loved us, chapter two, verse four, we're told in verse eight, 
for by grace you've been saved through faith. One translation 
says this is not of your own doing, but it's the gift of God, 
but actually, more literally, this is not exhumon. This is 
not of you. This is not the great love with 
which He loved you. It's not of you. This is not 
from your doing. But God's great love is the reason, 
by grace. Here's the point, though. If 
God loved you passionately, it would no longer be grace. Do 
you follow me on this? There is a kind of gracious love 
that shows love to that which is unlovely, and even humans 
can exhibit this in certain relationships, that's true. But if I told my 
wife, for instance, you know what, my love for you, it's all 
of grace. They call that a bad date. Like 
that's, that is not a, just take me home. I love you all of grace. I don't love her all of grace. 
It's her loveliness that actually moved me and drew her, drew me 
to her and continues to do so. It's not all of grace. Actually 
it is of her, from her, that I love. My love for her is in 
very many respects caused by her. God's love for you is not 
caused by you. It's purely beneficent, and it's 
pure grace, and it's pure generosity, because it's a love that gives 
good. It's not a love that seeks good. 
In my wife, I'm seeking good that she has that I lack, called 
her loveliness, and that draws me to her. But in God, God is 
not seeking what he lacks when he places his love on the objects 
of his choice. He is rather giving love. if 
it were a passionate love, there would have to be a cause outside 
of God for that love, and sola gratia would have to be false. 
Does this make sense? I think we need to think a little 
more about how some of our doctrines in our confession, like in chapter 
2, like God without passions is actually vital for maintaining 
our doctrine of sola gratia when it comes to salvation. If we 
give up, if we give that up and we start thinking in terms of 
passionate love and God made the world because he was lonely 
and things like this, then God becomes the beneficiary of his 
own creation. God owes a thank you and it's 
not all of grace and it's not pure beneficence. Now God is 
actually being moved and compelled by objects outside of himself 
to be the God that he is and to do what he does. And at that 
point, he's not the one, again, from whom, through whom, and 
to whom are all things. Well, I think this is also, on 
a final note, why we could also say that God's love is most free, 
most free. Most free because not necessitated 
by its object when he loves us. My love for my wife and my kids 
is not most free. And that doesn't mean that it's 
stingy. It may be that for other reasons, sin mainly. It's not 
most free because in a certain sense, I can't help myself. There's a good that they possess 
that I seek and my love seeks unity with that good because 
I'm needy. So my love for my wife and my 
children is not most free. It may have free, there may be 
certain aspects in which it's free from certain kinds of bondage, 
but God is most free, and in part because he doesn't depend 
upon some lovely object for the love he has for that object. 
But only if he loves you with impassable love. One other thought, 
just in conclusion. It also means that God's love 
is unbounded, that God's love is not a caused state of being. 
Passions are finite, mutable, temporal, caused states of being. and they may produce an intensity 
of feeling, but they can never actually transcend that way of 
being. Cause, mutable, temporal. If 
I said that God loved you passionately, that would actually understate 
the sheer dynamic intensity that he loves you with the infinite 
fullness of his being placed upon you according to his own 
good purposes from all of eternity in Christ Jesus. And if I called 
that passionate, that would make it far too un-intense. This is pure, unbounded, dynamic 
intensity, but only if it remains an impassable love as we confess. Well, let's go to Him in prayer. 
Thank Him for His love. Our God in heaven, we thank you 
for the great love with which you loved us. And we thank you 
that it was not of ourselves, that we are not the reason that 
you loved us, but it's your own bowels of compassion and mercy 
and kindness, sheer beneficence and gratuity and grace that you 
do show us this love. And for this, we say to you, 
thank you. And we bless your name who gives to all but receives 
from none and is such a perfect and wonderful benefactor. Lord, 
we bless you for life, breath, all things. And most importantly, 
that one thing that unites us to you and reconciles us to you 
in light of our sin, your own son who loved us, who gave himself 
for us, who obeyed for us, died for us, is raised for us, intercedes 
for us, is coming again to get us. We bless you and thank you 
for him above all. Lord, teach us the meaning of 
our confessions and the deep and rich theology that is contained 
in them, not just to know right answers, but to know you, the 
God about whom they speak. We pray this in Christ's name, 
amen. We're gonna have our dinner break now, 
and I'll go ahead and pray for those of us who are gonna stay 
here for dinner, but we do reconvene at 7 p.m. And I'm looking forward 
to seeing everybody again. So let us pray. Our gracious 
God and Holy Father, as we consider this love that you have for us, 
it truly is amazing. Behold what manner of love the 
Father has given to us, that we should be called the sons 
of God. What a blessed reality, what a wonderful truth. We thank 
you for the gospel of our salvation and for what you have done in 
and through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank 
you for our brothers ministering to us today. Thank you for the 
brethren here at Free Reformed and for their kindness and the 
use of the building. Thank you for this food. We pray 
for your blessing upon us that you would nourish and strengthen 
us as we eat. May it be for your glory. May 
we enjoy fellowship amongst the saints. And may you bring us 
together again that we may worship you. And we ask this through 
Christ our Lord. Amen.