GOD UNCHANGING
PURPOSE:
To grasp the fact and significance of God’s immutability.
DISCUSSION:
1. What problem does Packer describe on page 75? To what extent do you identify with this problem?
2. Answer Packer’s question: “How can this sense of remoteness from the biblical experience of God be overcome?
3. State six aspects of God which do not change.
4. Contrast the life of God with the life of his creatures.
5. Contrast the stability of the Creator’s character with that of men and women.
6. How do the two disclosures of God’s name in Exodus supplement each other?
7. Contrast the words of God and the words of men and women.
8. What are some things God does today which he also did in the Bible times? (For each item you list: ) Why does he do it?
9. Why does God never need to repent? How does Packer explain the verses which speak of God’s repenting? What effect should our awareness of “the immutability of God’s decrees” have on us?
10. Why can Packer say that Jesus Christ’s being “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” is “the strong consolation of all God’s people?”
11. On what grounds is the sense of distance between us and believers in Bible times removed? What realities are the same for us as for them? How should this thought comfort us? challenge us?
Optional: Read each of these verses aloud: Psalm 93:2; Jeremiah 10:10; Romans 1:22-23; 1 Timothy 6:16; Psalm 90:2; Psalm 102:26-27; Isaiah 48:12. What main impression do you get from hearing them read together?
SUMMARY:
What does it mean to say the God is immutable? Why is this important to you?
