God Is Not Static

One thing that I do not understand about the hyper-Reformed is this contradiction in their theology.  One the one hand, they maintain that God is impassible — God does not change and, even more troubling to me, God does not grieve.  But on the other hand, they often proclaim that God’s wrath burns white hot at me because of my sin.

Well, I’m not the first to proclaim the very opposite, but I’ll reaffirm it here: God Is Not Unchanging.  And the corollary, God is not impassible.

The biblical narrative is clear that God changes God’s mind — in fact, it happens explicitly several times in the Hebrew Scriptures — and God indeed grieves.  But, most significantly, in Jesus, God took the initiative to change the entire dynamic in the divine-human relationship.  The Christ event was nothing less that a 180-degree change in God.  (Okay, maybe not 180 — maybe more like 94°.)

N.B., This post is part of a series exploring apophatic statements about God.