Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The God who can not Change

As I type the title for these few short comments ,I realize I could follow this thought into so many different areas.The God of creation;the God of Abraham ,Isaac and Jacob;the God of Moses and the prophets ;the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in other words the God of the Bible, is not the God of "the Shack" of the televangelist or the purpose driven,church growth crowd.He is the God Who can not change.

I want however to zero in on one aspect of the God we worship and in so doing may offend some preachers and teachers whom I highly respect.

The issue I want to touch on is cessationism.

Some of the greatest Bible teachers of our day have taken the unfortunate (and unbiblical)stand that we are no longer to expect God to move in the supernatural and miraculous ways He did in the past.
But how can the God who CAN not change;change?

Some say that now we have the Bible we no longer need the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit to be at work in the church.But hang on ,whole chapters in the scriptures are written to instruct how the gifts are to be used;if the gifts were to cease once the canon of scripture was complete ,why would God bother to make those passages part of the canon.

I am convinced that the supernatural workings of God are for today.People are in just as much need today as they were 2,000 yrs ago.

Of course not everything supernatural is of God after all He has given clear and concise instruction on how to discern what is of God ,what is of the devil and what is of the flesh.

Those who would relegate the gifts of the Spirit to another dispensation arbitrarily draw a line right through the middle of the Bible's teachings on those gifts.Most cessationists do not dispute that some are called and gifted to preach or to give or to lead and yet they have decided gifts of healing or prophesy or tongues or interpretation of tongues are no longer valid. Who gave them the authority to decide whats in and whats out?!

Some cessationists go so far as to suggest we are not to expect God to do anything except grant us regeneration in response to repentance and faith.
One preacher regularly remarks ;"When we pray. who changes God or us?"Well that's not the point .Of course we want to change and of course God can not change but when we pray we want things to change. We serve an interventionist God . If there is one thing clear when we read the word of God Almighty it is that He is ;well;ALMIGHTY!

God is still a miracle working God .He still POWERFULLY answers prayer. He is still gracing supernatural and spiritual gifts to His church and He is still the God who can not change!

Heb 13 :8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,today and forever.

4 comments:

  1. The crux of all of this Glenn really is what is "the perfect" isn't it?

    To me, that is not the Bible, the maturity of the church or the death of the Apostles.......

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  2. Hi Matthew

    You are right.1Cor.13:10a When that which is perfect has come. vs 12For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. The perfect comes when we see Him face to face.and the love chapter is surrounded by 2 chapters instructing on the correct use of spiritual gifts.Some gifted Bible teachers seem to miss that.As always it's important to believe what we read and not read what we believe.

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  3. exactly. how can an unchangeable God change? do we also apply this to keeping the 7th day sabbath or His feasts? he did say forever a lot in the old testament. is the teaching that Jesus is our sabbath rest enough? that's what we hear in the churches over here in texas. btw, epic game library is my son. i am the lindsay that commented yesterday on piper/warren. :)

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  4. Hi Lindsay
    Jesus is indeed the fulfillment of all the Old Testament and he is our Sabbath Rest but Paul made it pretty clear in Romans and other places that what day we worship is pretty well irrelevant ...as long as we worship in Spirit and truth.And of course we need to worship every day.

    Thanks for your comments

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