But You Remain

What this episode covers

We can all get a bit nostalgic about returning to time when we didn’t have a care in the world. For many of us, that’s a time in childhood where we felt a sense of security. For some of us that time was a very brief window before the hardships of reality crept into our lives. An essential aspect of our reality is that we are in constant flux, alongside other creatures and creation that is constantly changing. We have a desire to return to a time when change was slow and there were longer periods of rest. As kids we might have found those times mind numbingly boring, but as adults we long for that kind of peaceful naivete. The author of Hebrews has been making the case for the superiority of Christ over angels. His next consideration is the unchangeable nature of the Son. While we live in a world that is in constant change—God is unchanging. If God is God, then he cannot change—for any change could only diminish his being.We will come back to this. But, it is precisely the fact that the Son is unchangeable that makes him so compelling. We desire to understand what we have never known by personal experience. In a world that is filled with continual transition and impermanence, we are tempted to formulate our own plan for peace and security. As long as that plan is of our own making, it can only lead us outside of God’s perfect will. The future of the saints is permanently secure because the Son is perpetually sovereign. Read Hebrews 1:4-14. The Immutability of the Son (10-12) This next quote is the longest reference in the chapter, and it is taken from Ps 102:25-27. The inspired heading to this psalm provides the context: “A prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.” So the psalmist begins with a description of his desperate situation. He is in distress (2). His heart is so troubled he forgets to eat his bread (4). He groans out loud (5). “I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink” (9). The theme of the psalmists lament is the weakness and mortality of his sinfulness. But, what lifts him out of his despair? The knowledge that the Lord is “enthroned forever” (12). And that this same Lord “regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer” (17). God doesn’t force himself to listen to the prayers of the afflicted. He’s not put off by their groaning and longing for peace. The psalmist looks forward to a time when God would rescue his people and they would have the freedom to gather together for worship (18-22). All of that sets up the conclusion that the author of Hebrews quotes. The Lord has created the heavens and the earth, but they will wear out and pass away unlike the Lord. It’s another example of the Creator-creature distinction. When everything in this world is fading away, God remains the same. He is constant when everything else is in flux. And this is specifically true of the Son. The Doctrine of Divine Immutability In volume two of his systematic theology, Herman Bavinck tracks the historical argument of Divine Immutability. “From the presence of motion in the universe Aristotle inferred the existence of a ‘first mover,’ an ‘everlasting immovable being,’ who is one and eternal, necessary, immutable, free from all composition, devoid of potentiality, matter, change; and who is pure act, pure form, unadulterated essence, absolute form, ‘the very nature of a thing, primary substance.’ Philo called God ‘unchangeable, self-consistent, invariable, steadfast, firm, fixed, unadulterable.’ And with this assessment Christian theology concurred. God, according to Irenaeus, is always the same, self-identical. In Augustine, God’s immutability flows directly from the fact that he is supreme and perfect being: ‘It is instinctual for every rational creature to think that there is an altogether unchangeable and incorruptible God.’ This concept of an eternal and unchangeable being cannot be obtained by the senses, for

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