Eternal Purpose

God exists outside of time; therefore, His decrees are not a series of chronological decisions but a single, eternal "Plan A." What appears as a change to humans, such as "relenting" from judgment, is actually just God staying consistent with His unchanging character (e.g., always showing mercy to those who truly repent).

Response:

Yes, in the end, God is outside of time (see what I did there?). For God to be a "living God," He must experience a "before" and "after" alongside His creation. So, he can work within our reality and bounds of time, and yet also exist outside of it. I don’t pretend to understand it. If He is with us and hears our cries and responds to them, He must be somehow able to be in the present, as well as experience the past and what will become the future. 

If he can see and know all possibilities in the past, present, and future, it surely seems possible to me that he can have and execute an eternal “Plan A” while also change how He gets there, and still manage the infinite “butterfly effect” outcomes as a result of the change He’s made. Some might see this as not executing the plan because there is a deviation from it, which I can understand. But, we come to a place where God executes a perfect plan, every step known, and then not having any of His own influence or interaction. This doesn’t line up with a living God having an interactive relationship with His creation. 

We have free will. He has free will. What would be the point of either if there wasn’t some flexibility in the specifics of how the plan plays out? With truly infinite outcomes and streams of possibility, it’s mathematically possible to grasp in our minds for Him to allow divergence in response to one item and still manage to pull everything else together to accomplish His will and plan. Personally, I think that’s all the more reason to honor and praise Him for His amazing capability!

Sovereignty and Divine Simplicity

God's will is "pure act" and independent of external influence. If human actions could force God to change His mind, it would mean God is passible (a being's capacity to experience change, emotion, or suffering caused by an outside force) or dependent on His creatures for His internal state. God is not composed of parts—including distinct "mental states" or a sequence of thoughts. If God could change His mind, He would move from one state (thinking X) to a new state (thinking Y). This would imply God is a "composite" being subject to internal shifts, which is impossible for the "pure act" of God.

Response:

These positions (and ontological stability above) portray God as a cold, static, abstract principle rather than as a personal being.

It’s Just Anthropomorphism

Passages in Scripture that describe God as "repenting" or "changing His mind" are interpreted by many scholars as anthropomorphisms (a literary device used to describe God's actions in human terms so that finite beings can understand Him), rather than a literal description of His internal psychological state.

Response:

For an anthropomorphic expression to be true, it has to be grounded in some form of reality. For example, the analogy used throughout scripture of God having a strong/mighty/outstretched arm (Ex 6:6, 15:16, Isa 40:10-11, 53:1, Luke 1:51), is based on the reality of God’s strength and power. If “changing His mind” is a metaphor for a God who never changes His mind, the metaphor falls on its face. 

If every instance of God’s regret or change is a literary device to accommodate human weakness, the Bible would feel like a scripted play, rather than an expression of a God with free will in a genuine relationship. The position suggests that if God’s interactions are not "real" responses to human agency, then human interaction and prayer are essentially meaningless exercises in a predetermined and predestined dramatic movie.

Example 1: from Moses to Moses & Aaron (Exodus 3 & 4)

The preincarnate Jesus (the angel of the Lord, ref Ex 3:2), speaking and appearing to Moses in the burning, yet not consumed, bush… is telling Moses that he is going to be the person that is sent to Pharaoh to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.

Moses questions Jesus (Ex 3:11) - who am I to do this? Jesus comforts Moses, telling Moses that He will be with him and when it's done, all of the Israelites will worship Him there on that very mountain.

Moses asks Jesus how he should identify His name to the people - Jesus answers, I am that I am.

Jesus tells Moses to tell the elders that the God of their fathers visited him and is gonna get them out of this mess in Egypt. 

He tells Moses that he is gonna go with the elders to Pharaoh and explain to him that the Lord, God of the Hebrews has met with them, so Pharaoh needs to give them three days to journey into the wilderness so they can sacrifice to God. But, He foretells to Moses that Pharaoh won't let him go, not a chance. And then He explains that He will do some pretty rough stuff to Egypt. And that He will give the Israelites so much favor that every woman will take jewels and fancy clothes and the sons and daughters of Israel will carry away the spoils from Egyptians.

Moses complains. “They won't believe me, nor listen to me - they'll say the Lord hasn't appeared to me.”

To coach Moses along, He rehearses some miracles with Moses and explains that Moses will do these miracles to convince the Pharaoh and the Egyptians that God has spoken and demands Israel's release. "I am" turned his staff into a snake, Moses grabbed it’s tail on the ground, and it turned back into a rod. Moses placed his hand on his chest and when he pulled it away, it was filled with leprosy; he put it back on his chest and his hand was back to normal. Third, He tells him that if the first two don’t convince Pharaoh that he is to get water from the river, dump it on dry land, and it will turn to blood.

But Moses still isn’t convinced. He complains. “I can't do this - I'm not eloquent, I'm slow of speech, slow of tongue.” Jesus says, “who do you think made your mouth? Who makes the dumb or deaf or seeing or blind? Didn't I, the Lord? So, I'll be with you and your mouth and will teach you what to say.”

Here's the change. Moses continues to whine, begging God to please send someone else. God gets angry (Ex 4:14) at Moses, but concedes and says, “Aaron, the Levite, he’s your brother, right? I know he speaks well. So, he'll come to meet you... You're gonna speak to him and put words in his mouth. And I'll be with both you and him and will teach you guys what to do. And Aaron will be your spokesperson to the people - he'll be your mouth to them, and you'll be My mouth to him.” <paraphrase>

While it doesn’t explicitly state in this passage that God "changed His mind," the sequence of events shows us that Moses reacted negatively toward God’s plan, whining and complaining. Moses continued to push back, even with immense demonstrations of power to help encourage him. And we see God’s response to this situation - He gets frustrated with Moses and then adds Aaron to the plan. 

I’m not arguing God didn’t know or couldn’t see the future - that Moses would be difficult and that God would need to include his brother Aaron in this endeavor. But we are walked through the exchange and interaction in a timeline that shows a back and forth with response on both sides. Here I posit that God had a plan that required a deviation in response to a relational interaction between two living beings, in the moment. 

Example 2: Moses intercedes for Israel (Ex 32:14)

The Israelites arrive at Mount Sinai after about 45 days of huffing on foot from Egypt. When they arrived, God called Moses up to Mount Sinai four times for revelations and messages to give to the Israelites, likely spanning a week or two in contextual duration. Then Moses has a big, fancy “covenant meal” with 70 elders on the side of the mountain. 

Moses then waits patiently at the base of the mountain for six days with Joshua in front of the cloud of glory hovering over the mountain before God calls him up again on the seventh day. Moses goes up on Mount Sinai and is receiving instructions from God. He was up there for a long time - 40 days and 40 nights. There’s no indication that he knew he would be gone for 40 days - we’re simply told that God said, “Come up to Me on the mountain and remain there.” It's pretty open ended. 

The Israelites are frustrated. They get out of Egypt to walk a lot of miles into the wilderness to sit at the base of a mountain with a strange cloud over it. And now they have to just sit and wait while the important, spiritual people interact with God and give them a bunch of rules and instructions. When you think about it like this, it’s not all that surprising that they were not completely sold on the idea, especially coming from living their entire lives under oppression in slavery. It’s easy to throw stones and say they were ungrateful, but would I really be any different? Tough to say. 

Anyway, while Moses is up there for 40 days, they get restless - complaining again that they want to go back to what they thought were the good ole days in Egypt. So, they gathered some of their gold spoils from Egypt and then made a golden calf to worship and make sacrifices to. God’s angry. Really angry. He tells Moses to leave so that he can destroy them (v10), and he’ll make Moses (and his descendants) into a great nation. 

Here’s the change. Moses “seeks God’s favor” (more on this later in Example 8) in 32:11, arguing that God should not destroy the Israelites by reminding God of His own promises and pointing out the bad look it has for Him to free the Israelites from Egypt only to kill them all after getting them out. Ex 32:14 resolves to say that, “Then the Lord relented and did not bring on His people the disaster He had threatened.” 

The Hebrew word, nacham (h5162), that is used here and in other similar passages we’re examining in the other examples here means: to be sorry, to console oneself; and its primitive root origin means: properly, to sigh, i.e. breathe strongly; by implication, to be sorry, i.e. (in a favorable sense) to pity, console or (reflexively) rue; or (unfavorably) to avenge (oneself)

In the context of destroying the Israelites that were at the base of Mount Sinai, God didn’t tell Moses He’d destroy them all. God warned Moses to get out. But would God abandon His faithful servant, Joshua, too? Would God do this knowing what we know about Joshua’s heart, integrity, and faith from the story that did play out? God knew Joshua’s heart - God knows everyone’s heart. It seems rather doubtful. And what about Caleb? 

In destroying large groups of people, we can see God’s mercy that He offered to Abraham w/r/t Sodom - God offered to save the city if there were just 10 righteous people. And God directly saved the righteous few - four three members of Lot’s family. Ultimately, Lot’s wife’s heart’s longing for things (and people/friends?) that she had in Sodom caused her to disobey a direct order from the angel, so she was turned into a pillar of salt. 

In light of this, God could have carried out his warning of destroying the “stiff necked” Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai that were partaking in the chaos, while protecting and saving those who were not (or maybe not as stiff) from the other tribes. Alternatively, God could have spared a few of the stiffnecked group that were needed to still fulfill His previous unconditional (Noahic, Abrahamic) promises - e.g. saving/finding some righteous people from all 12 tribes. 

God told Moses that He would do something. As part of God’s immutable and perfect characteristics, He cannot lie. As opposed to looking at it from the view of a test for Moses, it’s possible that God could have both followed through on His warning to Moses about the “stiff necked” Israelites and simultaneously fulfilled His previous promises. Moses’ pleading with God mentioned some of those promises (as if God needed reminding), but also pointed out the irony of saving them all from Egypt simply to destroy them and having to start over to wait for a new beach of sand (ref Gen 22:17, Gen 32:12) that would inevitably also disappoint Him.  

God’s contemplation of destroying the Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai is consistent with His righteous and just character. They broke rule #1 - not to love or worship other Gods. Another of God’s attributes is that He is just - He is perfectly just. While we may not like the reality of what sin does to us, we do have to acknowledge it… and hopefully take it as an opportunity to reflect more on His grace and goodness expressed through Jesus. 

But not destroying them, despite their unrighteous behavior, is also consistent with His character, being capable of unending mercy. Interestingly, that generation of Israelites ended up suffering and dying in the desert because they didn’t have the character and heart that Joshua and Caleb had to get into the promised land. So one might argue that that means that God actually fulfilled His claim that He would destroy them in Ex 32:10. However, at minimum, Moses was able to convince God to postpone His judgment. God warned Moses to leave to avoid his own destruction; He wouldn’t have had to leave if it wasn’t going to happen soon. Therefore, the situation still remains as an argument for God “changing His mind.” 

And as for the promises He made to this group of Israelites… they were conditional, if-then promises - the initiation of the law based covenant to His chosen people. The overwhelming majority of God’s promises (Everett Storms spent over 1.5 yr counting 7,487 of them) are conditional, either faith-based or obedience-based. Very few of God’s promises are unconditional, generally grouped to five covenant categories - Noahic (Gen 9:11), Abrahamic/Isaacic/Jacobean (Gen 12:1-3, Gen 15:18-21, Gen 17:6-8, Gen 22:17, Gen 26:3-4, Gen 28:13-15, Gen 35:11-12), Davidic (2 Sam 7:16, Psalm 89, Jeremiah 33, Isaiah 55:3, Psalm 2, Psalm 72), New Covenant (Jer 31:33-34), and Eschatological promises (God’s last things, aka end times, list, like the return of Jesus, resurrection of the dead, final judgment, messianic kingdom, and the new heavens and earth creation). So, He would not be breaking those promises if He took the actions he warned Moses of in chapter 32.

Example 3: Korah’s Sedition (Num 16)

The Israelites had just been condemned to wander the desert for 40 yrs to wait for the 1st generation to die before entering the promised land. Korah (a Levite) leads a rebellion (along with Dathan and Abiram of Reuben tribe), inciting a group of 250 people to start an insurgency against Aaron and Moses. They had beef with Moses as the leader and Aaron as high priest. Korah perceived that Moses and Aaron put themselves high and mighty above him and the other Levites (as well as everyone else). Korah wanted to be in charge. Dathan and Abiram were also frustrated that Moses and Aaron led them to the desert wilderness to sit for 40 years, away from Egypt, which they now thought was pretty great compared to the desert. They and their 250 followers blamed Moses and Aaron for their plight - classic deflection. They wanted to be in the land of milk and honey and were frustrated that they left one (Egypt) to be stuck in the desert.

In response to this brewing coup, Moses and Aaron instructed the three leaders and 250 insurgents to bring their censers with incense to the tabernacle the following day, sharing that God would choose His favored leader in front of everyone. 

The group of 250 showed up at the tabernacle, but Korah had also gathered his other followers from the congregation to watch. God was pretty angry with this and (v20) told Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from this apparently large group of Korah’s supporters from the congregation. God was going to destroy them all. 

Moses and Aaron immediately fell on their faces (v22) to beg for God's mercy on the congregational followers - not to punish all of them for a small group’s sin. He asked God not to punish the whole lot for the sins of a few.

Here’s the change. God didn’t destroy all the followers in the congregation. Instead, He destroys Korah, Dathan, and Abiram along with their entire families who stood by them in support; they were buried alive with all their possessions as the ground opened up a pit that swallowed them into the earth. Then God sent a fire to consume their 250 followers that were still holding the incense censors. But the remaining gathered congregational followers were spared. 

The censors from these men were collected from the ashes and formed into plates to cover the altar as a sign and memorial that no men but from the seed of Aaron, thorugh his son Eleazar, should come near the altar to offer incense before the Lord.

Example 4: Complaints of Destroying the Insurgents (Num 16:41-50)

The very next day from the story above, the Israelites started complaining (again) about Moses and Aaron, blaming them for killing “people of the Lord.”

God’s glory appeared over the tabernacle, so Moses and Aaron approached it to see what God wanted to say. God is frustrated and again tells Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the portion of the congregation so He can consume them. 

Moses and Aaron again fall on their faces, begging God for mercy over the people. Moses told Aaron to burn incense and take it into the people to make atonement for the people. By the time Aaron got out there, God had already started a plague among them to kill them off. 

Here’s the change. Aaron bravely stood between the dead and the living with incense burning as Moses continued to pray for mercy in the tabernacle. But, we’re told in v49 that as Aaron stood there waving incense, God stopped the plague. In the end, only 14,700 people had died from the plague. Who knows how many more were spared from this group among the ~3 million Israelites. 

I will certainly concede that God stopped the plague. But this was done through the intervention of Moses and Aaron and ultimately was enough of a change in circumstances for God to warrant a change in His execution of the plan. Was it consistent with God to impart this punishment? Yes. But it was also consistent with God to grant them His abounding mercy the day before. 

Chapter 17 goes on with the story of the budding rod to prove again to the Israelites that Aaron’s line and tribe of Levi is the chosen priest line by God. God extends His grace out of this situation, trying to stop further whining, complaining, and jealousy amongst the people. He even instructed that the budded rod was to be placed inside the ark along with the commandments tablets as a permanent reminder to the people to help prevent further uprisings. God’s grace and mercy abound.

Example 5: Mercy on Nineveh (Jonah 3)

After ignoring God’s instructions and experiencing some discipline in the belly of a large fish, Jonah eventually goes to Nineveh, a city of 120,000 people. God had revealed to him that the city was going to be destroyed in 40 days. 

Jonah toured the town and warned them of God’s destruction in 40 days. Nineveh heard the message, and they changed their ways quickly and sincerely. Even the king and nobles made a proclamation that everyone should put on sackcloth and sit in ashes without food or water as part of a mourning process. They cried out to God for help. 

Here’s the change. In Jonah 3:9-10 God sees their works/actions and them turning away (repenting, changing) from the evil things that they were doing. He “relented of the evil that He had said He would do to them; and He didn’t do it” - no more destruction for Nineveh!

Objection:

Many in opposition to my view will argue that God didn’t change His mind, because they believe that the destruction of Nineveh was a conditional threat - a warning to provoke repentance and turn their hearts toward God, so He would not have to follow through on His warning. Therefore, if it was a conditional warning to Nineveh, God didn’t change His mind when they repented - He simply observed that the Ninevites had met the criteria of His warning and avoided calamity. 

The main basis of the claim that God’s warning was conditional is because He told them it would happen in 40 days. The argument is, essentially, why else would He give them warning and define the timing for which the destruction would come? 

Reframing:

There’s no denying that it is consistent with God’s character to choose to warn people of their pending doom and destruction if they don’t change their evil ways. God does this a lot throughout scripture. The problem is, there’s no direct or explicit indication of a conditional threat being expressed to Jonah in either Chapter 1 or the beginning of Chapter 3 when God tells Jonah what to say to the people in Nineveh. There was only a warning of destruction in 40 days (Jonah 3:4). It’s not identified as an if-then (or if-else) clause.

I acknowledge that this is both possible and consistent with God’s character and other examples for God to have been issuing a conditional warning to Nineveh. But, since we don’t have an explicit indication that this was a conditional warning, it’s merely a hypothesis and one possibility. Similarly, we’re left with the possibility that God mercifully changed His mind upon seeing their corporately repentant hearts.

In Chapter 7, God shows Amos visions of Israel’s crops being devoured by a plague of grasshoppers. Here’s change #1. Amos begs God to show mercy, asking Him “by whom shall Jacob arise?” Verse 3 says the Lord relents of this destruction. Then God shows Amos a vision of destruction of a part of Israel by fire, but Amos again begs for God's mercy. Here’s change #2. God changes His mind again, “the Lord relented concerning this. ‘This also shall not be,’ said the Lord God.” (7:4-6)

It’s possible that God could have overwhelmingly destroyed the majority of Israelites that were breaking His promise and simultaneously saved a remnant to follow through on His unconditional promises to do things through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This would have also fulfilled God’s statement/claim to overtake Israel. But, Amos appealed to God’s immense mercy, and God delivered it once again.

Example 7: “God does not lie or relent (change His mind), as if He’s a human” (1 Sam 15:29, Num 23:19)

You’re probably confused. I was too. On the surface, the subject passages seem to be irrefutable text in direct opposition to my position, but I feel a closer look at the context of these statements reveals why these actually help bolster my position. 

OK, wow. At face value, this surely dismantles everything I’m trying to say. These were passages I struggled with for a long time (years) as I wrestled with where to land on this theological position. I'm presenting here direct quotes in scripture that contradict my proposed view. But, that would leave us with an apparent inconsistency in the Bible, because I’ve shared some verses that refute this very statement - God did indeed relent (same Hebrew word used) in some situations. Surely, there has to be another explanation than a direct, face-value conflict in the Bible. We have to dive deeper than the surface text on the page to see the context of this apparent silver bullet against my proposed position. We also need to understand it (which is what took me so long) to resolve the apparent conflict in scripture. Let’s dive in. 

Saul's story in 1 Sam 15:

After Saul was chosen to be king, he was very successful. His initial humility and reluctance of being chosen to be king faded, and he started growing less and less dependent on God as he grew in fame, internalizing God’s blessings on Israel as his own successes. Pride took over, as is often the case with human weakness. Eventually, Saul started to do things his own way instead of doing what God instructed through Samuel. The breaking point we see in scripture is after the invasion of Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15. Saul didn’t follow God’s instructions to destroy all the people and all their possessions. Instead, he captured King Agag and brought him back along with a lot of prized animals. Saul and the troops only destroyed the spoils he and his invaders saw as “worthless,” keeping the nice stuff to bring home. At this point, God saw the turn in Saul’s heart and regretted (v11) that He set up Saul to be king, because Saul was no longer following His commands. Apparently, God perceived that this was the beginning of the end for Saul. Based on how things played out, He got it right. 

Saul’s excuse was that he and the invaders saved the best of the animals to sacrifice for God (v17-21). Samuel points out that obeying God is better than making sacrifices to God, even with the choicest animals. He tells Saul that rebellion is equivalent to witchcraft, and stubbornness equates to iniquity and idolatry (v22-23).

Saul admits that he gave into the people who wanted to save the good animals, because he feared them. He then asks Samuel to worship God with him (v24), but Samuel refuses. Saul caught the hem of Samuel’s robe as he was leaving and it tore. Saul further begged Samuel to come with him to worship God and to ask for forgiveness. Samuel told him that God tears Israel from him that day, symbolically demonstrated in how Saul had just torn his robe, giving it to someone that is better than him. 

Here’s the interesting part. (v29) Samuel says “He who is the Glory of Israel [God] does not lie or relent (“change his mind” in NIV translation); for he is not a man (human being), that He should relent (change his mind).”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this phrase thought. And it’s not the first time Samuel did either. This calls back to Numbers 23:19, where the prophet Balaam is prophesying to the king of the Moabites. 

Great, so what? 

Balaam's Prophecy in Num 23

Let’s set up what’s happening here. Balak, king of the Moabites, sees the huge population of Israel roaming around near his domain and is worried that they will destroy his kingdom, because he’s heard of the great things that the God of Israel has done for them, including the parting of the Red Sea. According to Jewish tradition, king Balak was strongly interested in supernatural things like sorcery and divinations. So, he wanted to get in on some of that action with Israel’s God. 

Balak schemed to lure one of God’s prophets (Balaam) in to convince his god (God) to bless the Moabites… so that the Moabites would be successful in overtaking the Israelites. This is a bold move. But we have to consider that Balak didn’t really understand God or the contextual blessing that was over the Israelites as His chosen people. It seems a bit silly to think that a god who has demonstrated him/herself as great and powerful as God had done with the Israelites would change sides on a whim to instead bless their enemies (Moabites) at the request of some random priest (Balaam). But, this was Balak’s big plan.

So Balak lures Balaam in - Balaam stumbles a bit at carrying out God’s instructions, but ultimately seeks God, asking for permission. Thanks to the fear and response of his donkey, he is spared from dying by the angel’s sword twice. Nonetheless, he keeps his heart in check long enough to honor God in repeating exactly what God tells him to say to Balak. Balak takes Balaam three places and builds seven altars at each location for Balaam to sacrifice a ram and bull for God at each alter at each place. Each time and place, Balaam responds by expressing God’s blessing over the Israelites, rather than placing a blessing over Balak’s people. This is pretty frustrating to Balak. He’s invested a lot of hopes and dreams into this scheme to overtake the Israelites, and he’s pretty aggravated. 

In Summary, God Doesn't Lie and Break His Promises, Like Men:

The passage of interest in this story is part of God’s second prophetic response at the second offering location. Balaam shares the second word/prophecy from the Lord wth Balak (v19-24), saying, “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen wickedness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, And the shout of a King is among them. God brings them out of Egypt; He has strength like a wild ox. For there is no sorcery (enchantment) against Jacob, Nor any divination (fortune-telling) against Israel. It now must be said of Jacob And of Israel, ‘Oh, what God has done! Look, a people rises like a lioness, and lifts itself up like a lion; it shall not lie down until it devours the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.”

If we focus on the parts emphasized above, God is sharing that He doesn’t see iniquity or wickedness in Israel at the moment to warrant their destruction, which is what Balak is asking Balaam to do - to curse Israel. So, essentially, we are seeing that God’s blessing and covering over Israel is because they are remaining righteous. Here we have God honoring one of His many conditional blessings. 

So, if we hone in on the phrase in v19 about God not changing His mind… the context of this phrase is with respect to the conditional blessing that He’s placed on Israel, based on context of the rest of the passage. God doesn’t lie or break promises like men. He’s not saying that He never changes His mind in any context - He’s saying that He doesn’t change His mind with respect to honoring His promises. If Israel remains righteous, He will bless them. If not, He will discipline them. 

Israel Sins and Receives Punishment:

Case in point: just two chapters later in Numbers 25, some Moabite women, led by a Midianite princess named Cozbi (likely ultimately orchestrated by king Balak), plotted against Israel to bring in a bunch of prostitutes to lure the Israelites (men, let’s be honest) into worshipping their god, Baal of Peor. Pitifully, an outbreak of sexual promiscuity is all it took to convince a bunch of people that worshiping this other god was a good idea. God was not fond of this outbreak of treachery among His people, and He ended up sending a plague into Israel that killed 24,000 people. It was stopped because a blood atonement was made by Aaron’s grandson, Phinehas the priest, as he zealously thrust a spear through Cozbi and her Israeli conspirator, Zimri, to put an end to the faction. 

The word, relent, in Num 23:19 and 1 Saum 15:29 is the translation of same Hebrew word, nacham, used in the other passages and examples above - where it explicitly says that God did relent (Ex 32:14 in Example 2, Jonah 3:9-10 in Example 5), which resulted in a change of action or direction from what He had previously stated would happen - where God did indeed “change His mind.” This apparent inconsistency is not an inconsistency at all if we consider the context - God not lying or not delivering on one of His promises. The precursor statement that God “does not lie” in these two passages helps clue us in to the context of when God does not relent - God doesn’t go against the promises that He said He would do. He does not lie, as a human does. He doesn’t break a promise. 

Back to Saul:

Now, let's circle back to Saul in 1 Sam 15. We have the same situation with Saul - God is claiming that He doesn’t relent - he will maintain His decision to remove Saul from kingship in v29. Again we have the precursor phrase of “[He] will not lie.” Helping to clue us into the full context. God’s promises to Saul were almost entirely conditional. During a previous interaction in 1 Sam 13:13, Samuel warned Saul that if he had been obedient, the “Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.” And, before that in 1 Sam 12:14, the promise given was that if both the people and their king feared the Lord, served Him, and obeyed His voice, they would "continue following the Lord" (implied as stay under His protection and favor). The context of Saul’s success as king was based on maintaining a pure heart and following God’s instructions. Saul failed, and so the blessings over him were removed. This is the context of 1 Sam 15:29. The precursor statement that God “does not lie” in these two passages helps clue us in to the context of when God does not relent - God doesn’t go against the promises that He said He would do. He does not lie, as a human does. He doesn’t break a promise.

In his retort to this topic, Billy Graham helps me make my point with another example about King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20, 2 Chron 32). 

Think of King Hezekiah in the Old Testament. He was one of the best kings the people ever had—but the Bible tells us that toward the end of his life he became proud and ignored God. As a result God judged him for his disobedience, and sent troubles on him and his people. But then Hezekiah repented of his pride, and God blessed him. (See 2 Chronicles 32:24–26.) God wasn’t changing His mind; He was instead fulfilling His promises.

Indeed, it’s the same situation. God doesn’t break His promises or His word. He is perfect. He does not lie. His character doesn’t change. 

Example 8: Manasseh (and Moses!) softens the face of Jehovah (2 Chron 33, 2 Kings 21)

This isn’t an explicit example of God changing His mind. Rather, it's an example of God’s immutable character, specifically His bountiful mercy, which ties back to Moses' plea for mercy in Example 2. 

Manasseh takes over as king at the age of 12 from his father, Hezekiah, which appears to be a premature transition due to Hezekiah again growing prideful and boastful, unfortunately dying before Manasseh had been raised into maturity. Unsurprisingly, Manasseh struggled and made lots of bad decisions.

Manasseh brought back idol worship, fire sacrifices of newborns to Moloch, witchcraft, and managed to seduce the people of Israel into doing these same things. He also killed a bunch of people and put an idol in the Temple - God’s temple. Not a good look for God’s chosen people. 

The account within 2 Chron 33 adds a big part of Manasseh’s story that’s missing from the 2 Kings 21 passage. In v10-11, God allowed Assyria to invade and overtake Israel. They took Manasseh prisoner, putting a hook in his nose and secured him with bronze shackles. Manasseh was in major distress and he conceded to seek God’s favor and mercy, humbling himself and praying desperately for help. 

Verse 12 says (NIV), “In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors.” NLT uses the phrase “sought the Lord his God,” KJV “besought the Lord his God,” NASB “appeased the Lord his God,” ESV “entreated the favor of,” etc. 

The original Hebrew phrase here is ḥillāh ’et-pənê (transliterated as, chalah eth panim). This is an idiom, but literally means “to stroke or soften the face.” He was doing this to Jehovah God!

Put yourself in God’s shoes here. Imagine your child, full of regret, coming to sit on your lap in a time of righteous fatherly (or motherly) anger after a time of defiance. Your child is looking up to you while you’re staring off in the distance, and begins to gently rub your cheek. Imagine your clenched jaw subsiding… melting in fatherly love and compassion as the helpless, pitiful, repentant hands stroke your cheek while tearful eyes of remorse are looking into your eyes, begging for connection. Those little eyes see the pain and frustration in your face caused by their mistake. I can easily imagine this scenario with wet eyes as I type this, thinking of some times my kids have done this very thing to me (figuratively, not literally). I think it’s an awesome perspective to remember God as our perfect heavenly Father, filled with love and compassion for His children, even when we really blow it. 

This same Hebrew phrase is used in Ex 32:11, the situation in Example 2 where Moses softened the face of God to prevent Him from destroying the Israelites after the golden calf incident. And it’s used again in 1 Kings 13:6 where the King Jeroboam I asked an unnamed man of God from Judah to soften the face of the Lord to restore his withered hand. 

In this context, we can perfectly understand the righteous Father being moved by compassion for His children, “changing His mind” about the punishment He righteously has in mind for them, granting them mercy in spite of what they deserve. The perfect Heavenly Father can certainly manage this and simultaneously be the infallible, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, immutable God.

Example 9: A Woman Gets Some Bread Crumbs (Matt 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30)

Jesus and His disciples had just journeyed 40 miles to Tyre, having fled the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee after ruffling the feathers of a bunch of religious leaders. Jesus was trying to keep a low profile, but a determined Syrophoenician (Gentile) woman finds him and starts making a ruckus, begging Him to heal her demon possessed daughter. 

Jesus ignores her initially, but the disciples confront Him, urging Him to respond to avoid drawing more attention to their whereabouts. Jesus refuses her, telling her “‘First let the children (Jews) eat all they want,’ he told her, ‘for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs (Gentiles).’” This analogy Gentiles as dogs is referenced a few other times in scripture. 

This woman is feisty; I'm a fan. She quips back “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Here’s the change. Jesus responds, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted; the demon has left your daughter.”

We see an example of Jesus’ compassion to help someone truly faithful in distress, after initially refusing to help her. Initially, Jesus had no intention of helping a Gentile. But, had faith to understand that she didn’t need the meal's demonstration of His power - she knew just a bread crumb that had fallen off the table was more than enough power to do something as impressive as rid an evil spirit from her daughter. Jesus was moved... and changed His course of action, because of her faith. 

Example 10: Wining at the Wedding (John 2:1-11)

In this famous passage, Jesus performs his first recorded miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana.

Jesus is there with the first few of His disciples. Personally, I imagine that Jesus is struggling a bit with the situation, big picture, possibly being the last big social event he’ll be able to attend where He’s not the center of attention, correcting and confronting the religious elite, having an expectation to perform miracles, and having thousands of people constantly following and pestering Him with questions and needs. (I imagine mothers can identify with this scenario.) Alternatively, maybe Jesus was preoccupied with preparing these first few disciples for what was to come. Or maybe He was just in the middle of a conversation, listening a great story and didn't want to be interrupted. I'm excited to find out more in heaven when we get there. 

All we really know is that Jesus’ mother, Mary, hints that Jesus should do something about the fact that they were out of wine at the wedding, but Jesus responds in frustration, asking why she’s involving Him in this matter. She says to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you,” and I personally imagine a dismissive motherly wave of the hand at Jesus’ refusal to help. I imagine Mary, here, as a familiar, strong, Greek matriarch…

Here’s the change. We all know the story. Jesus tells the servants to go fill the ceremonial water vats used for purifying people, and then draw from the vats and give it to the governor. Suddenly, it’s wine. And it’s the good wine too, not the typical cheap stuff saved for the end of a week long feast!

Don’t worry, I’ll not rest heavily that this is a clear, explicit example of God “changing His mind." I fully acknowledge this has more value as entertainment than use as an exemplary model of supporting evidence. And yes, I realize the meme context is about a husband, not a son - there are ZERO implications from me here. It was just a moment to giggle at what some strong maternal motivation might be able to accomplish. 

Maybe Jesus did intend to help from the beginning but didn’t want attention drawn. Lots of other scenarios are perfectly possible, some of which may not support my position. I’m open to that… as long as you’re open to the possibility that He really didn’t intend to help, but changed His mind.

That topic is potentially a year-long sermon series in itself, so let's try to put those worms back in. 

I’m also not implying that there’s a log and quota where God keeps track of your time spent praying and reading the Bible, unwilling to act without you meeting a threshold. And I’m not attempting to put restrictions or boundaries on God’s grace and abilities, just trying to bring some perspective into the situation. Jesus talks about needing significant time in prayer and fasting in order to have the spiritual influence and authority required to cast out demons (Matt 17, Mark 9). While this isn’t in reference to changing God’s mind, it is about coordinating with and aligning your heart, spirit, and abilities to Kingdom purposes and plans, removing the “me” and replacing it with “Him.” Again - God is God, and I’m not putting limits on Him as if he couldn’t respond to first-time, big asks. He’s way bigger than that, and I certainly want people to experience His goodness!

Summary

With the clarifications and explanations I’ve presented, I hope to have successfully made a case for God being willing and able to interact with us in the moment, willing to hear and act upon our experiences and requests for His movement in our lives. And I hope that it’s clear how and why He might “change His mind” in response to His interactions with us, within the bounds of His promises and master plan and will for our lives. 

I leave you with Paul’s amazing blessing to the Ephesians (3:16-20). I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Disclaimer

Unlike God, I am fallible. I’m still learning and expanding my understanding of God as best I can. And I’m only as far as I am today. These are my current views and understanding as of the time of authoring this, and I wholeheartedly reserve the right to change my mind 😉 later on as I further grasp new understanding and revelation of His perfect nature and Word. 

If you have counter discussion points, let’s have a coffee and discuss. 

This topic is not presented as a “salvation issue,” so I hope we can all maintain some perspective on picking out errors or my potentially completely false assertions. I’m willing to learn and grow. Let’s call this a theological discussion, not the final answer.

God who?

…a quick link here from the intro.  

If you’re asking, “Who is this ‘God’ that you’re referring to,” or “When you say ‘God,’ which ‘god’ are you talking about?” 

Well, this is who! 

God is the Creator of everything we know, beyond time and space of the material universe.  He is commonly known as the God of the Jews - the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is identified as YHWH (Yahweh) - “I am”, which over time has morphed into the English word, Jehovah. He is the God that revealed Himself in person to humanity as Jesus (Greek)/Yehoshua (Hebrew)/Joshua (English) - literally meaning “Yahweh is Salvation." Jesus is the savior for all humanity who chose to die for all of us so that we could acquire the righteousness that is required in order to be in God’s presence for all eternity. Sin separates us from God. But Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice as the only truly perfect, spotless lamb made atonement through His blood being shed for our sins. 

God is the triune God - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit - three persons, but unified together - equal in power, nature, and character. God reveals Himself through Creation itself and in the inspired text of the Bible.

Are you Saved? 

Not sure if you're saved? Do you want be assured for heaven in the next life as if you're already there? Just pray this with me right now...

Dear God, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe that Jesus Christ is Your Son, that He died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

That's it! You're done! Welcome to Christ's family! If you're not sure what to do now and looking for next steps,  feel free to reach out to my church, https://coastalchurch.tv/ . Just click on the link and find the big "CONNECT" button to send your information. Someone will reach out to you very soon with information on some resources. And if you're not near the Alabama Gulf Coast, our team will absolutely help you find a church near you if you're not sure where to go! Just ask and let us know where you're at 😊