James 1:16-21
If you want to spend the whole day outside, but if you also want to be in the shade all day long, you will probably not be able to stay in one place.
Throughout the day, as the sun continually moves across the sky, the shadow that it casts is also going to move. And you are going to have move with it, if you don’t want the sun to start shining directly on your head or into your eyes.
We know, of course, that the sun is actually standing still, and that it is the earth that is rotating as it orbits the sun. But from our vantage point on the earth, the sun is moving, even as the moon also moves across the nighttime sky.
During the course of a year, the stars and constellations also move – or seem to, from our vantage point. The heavenly lights are always moving.
From day to day, as the seasons come and go; and from hour to hour, as daytime and nighttime run their course, the lights in the sky also run their course. They are never in the same place.
The shadows that are cast by the sun, and to a limited extent also by the moon, likewise are always moving, and are never in the same place.
Is this the way God is? Is he always changing, always moving, never in the same place either literally or figuratively?
There are some theological theories out there that assert that God is in fact always changing, and always evolving.
Those who hold to these views reject the omniscience of God, and the immutability of God. They believe instead that God is always learning and growing, and as he learns and grows, he changes.
God not only affects the various temporal processes that are going on in the earth, but he is also affected by those processes. So, in the Old Testament era, he was mostly a God of judgment and violence. Now, in the New Testament era, he has changed to be mostly a God of love and mercy.
In the days of the ancient Hebrews, God punished sin. Now, as he makes himself known in the teachings and character of Christ, he forgives sin.
And what is considered to be sin is also always changing. God is becoming more indulgent, more tolerant, and more accepting, as the centuries pass.
God is, as it were, on his own journey, with the human race, into an unknown future. As the human race is ever evolving, so too is God ever evolving. As we are becoming something different from what we used to be, so too is God.
Revising your doctrine of God in this way is a relatively sophisticated way to accomplish what most people accomplish just by deciding that they think the Bible, or the Christian religion, are too old-fashioned and behind the times.
They don’t try to justify this through a complicated new theology. They just stop going to church. And they just stop trying to live according to what they were taught in Sunday School or catechism classes.
The old rules about sex being only for marriage are too restrictive. The old claims about Jesus as the only way to God are too exclusive. And so people simply stop believing those things.
They don’t think it through very deeply, but what this really means is that they, too, have concluded that God changes. God is more relaxed and less demanding than he used to be.
What he requires of us is less than what he required of people in the past. And what he does for us is less important than what he did for people in the past.
So, whether this is approached in a sophisticated way or in an unsophisticated way, God is, as it were, understood to be like the sun, the moon, and the stars: always moving, always changing. The shadows that he casts on the world, and on the human race, are always moving and shifting.
But St. James disagrees with all of this. He admonishes us in his Epistle:
“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 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.”
Indeed, God is not one of the ever-shifting lights in the sky. He is the Father of those lights – that is, their creator, who stands above them, and above all that he had made: knowing all, never changing, always watching.
In the days of the Old Testament he was also a God of forgiveness. And today he is also a God of wrath.
The Ten Commandments were not only written on paper, parchment, or papyrus, but were chiseled in stone – directly by God. There was no better way for him to make it clear that these laws will not change.
And when God promised Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, David, and all of ancient Israel throughout its history, that he would send a Messiah to redeem sinful man, that was a promise he kept. And he still keeps that promise, as he still sends that Messiah – his Son Jesus Christ – through his Word, to save each of us personally.
God does not change because God cannot change. He remains as a reliable source of all that is good, pure, and righteous. But you can change.
And you need to change. Don’t try to invent a new and innovative theology by which you imagine that you can change God. Instead, let God change you.
I’ll grant that much of what God requires and teaches goes against the grain of modern thinking. But that’s because modern thinking is wrong.
And today’s attitudes are not really all that modern anyway. Fallen man has been rebelling against God immutable law, and has been rejecting God’s gifts, for millennia.
Fallen man has been actively inviting God’s wrath upon himself since the time of Noah. But God has been actively rescuing his people, protecting them, and showing mercy to them, also since the time of Noah.
And God is still doing that now: as he refuses to change, but as he does change us. St. James tells us how God is doing this, and what is happening to us as he is doing this:
“Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”
By his Word God has brought us forth. That is, in Baptism, and in his Word generally, he has given us a new birth by his Spirit, a new nature, and a new life. Through the gospel of his only-begotten Son, we have now become his adopted sons and daughters, by faith in Christ.
And the new life of faith is a fruitful life, so that we are not always trying to figure out what we can get away with, but are instead always wanting to know what pleases God, and what is good for us according to God’s will.
God’s Word of truth is also God’s implanted Word. It’s inside of us. And therefore, we are enabled to believe the good promises that he makes to us, to speak the good words that he teaches us, and to perform the good works that he commands for us.
God does not change. And Jesus his Son does not change. The Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever.”
But we are always changing. We don’t just make a big shift, in conversion, and then stay there. Where there is life, there is growth. And in Christ there is life!
In Christ we are no longer spiritually dead, and in Christ we are no longer spiritually blind. St. Paul writes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians that
“when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
During the entirety of our life on earth, if we know Christ and his forgiveness for the errors of our past, then we also know his transforming grace for the opportunities of our future.
With his help we become ever more swift to hear, and to listen, so that we can better understand situations and people. With his help we become ever more slow to speak, so that when we do speak, we will speak with wisdom.
In the justification that Jesus gives, we are liberated from the fear of God’s righteous and deserved wrath against us, on account of our sins, because we know that Jesus suffered for us and in our place.
And we are increasingly liberated also from our own selfish, human wrath, which resides in our pride, and which we think we have the right to unleash against those who offend us and hurt us.
With God’s help we become ever more slow to wrath, as we are deepened and comforted in our certainty that all things are in his hands, and as we are reminded of what Jesus tells us:
“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”
God does not change. God in his holiness and righteousness does not change. God in his revulsion against sin and wickedness does not change.
But also, God in his mercy does not change. God in his patience and faithfulness does not change.
The Lord speaks to the evil world, to his chosen people, and to us, through the Prophet Malachi:
“‘I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien – because they do not fear Me,’ Says the Lord of hosts.”
“‘For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord of hosts.”
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow:
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside! Amen.