Does our repentance bring about a change in God? Today, R.C. Sproul examines passages in Scripture that appear to describe God as relenting from the judgment He threatens against sinners.
But doesn’t the Bible say that God repents? Certainly says that in the Old Testament, where God comes along and says, “All right, because of your wickedness, I’m going to destroy the city.” All of a sudden, a couple of good guys in the city, they get together and they say, “Lord, give us one more chance.” And they run out, and they go on a massive campaign of evangelism and a call to repentance. And suddenly the city repents.
How about Jonah? This was the whole complaint of Jonah. God says, “Jonah, I want you to go into this pagan land, and I want you to tell these people to repent, or I’m going to destroy it.” What’s Jonah’s attitude? “I’m going to Tarshish. Catch yourself another boy. I know You’re going to bring to pass what You want to bring to pass anyway. So why should I get involved in all this?”
But anyway, he goes. And then what happens? He tells the people, “God’s going to annihilate you. He’s going to burn you.” And so, they repent in sackcloth and ashes. And what does Jonah do? He really gets mad. He says, “I knew it, God. I knew You were going to forgive those people all along, see. And You had me out there. I looked like a fool. I told them that You were going to kill them and You were going to judge them. And then you go ahead and give them mercy.” Because God repented of the evil that He would do to these people.
And what does the Bible say when it talks about that? First of all, it’s using what we call anthropomorphic language. The Bible is using human terms to describe God and describing God from a human perspective when it talks about God repenting. But if we mean that in the literal sense of the word, we could only conclude that God had sinned, and God Himself needs a Savior. The Bible’s clearly not teaching that. What does it mean? That God has removed the threat of judgment.
He has said, “I will judge you.” But is it not legitimate to suppose that it is God’s consistent pattern when He gives a warning of judgment to give it conditionally? That is what is understood when He gives the warning, is that “I will consume you.” What? “If you do not repent.” Does He have to say that every time before that message is clear? And so, when He has that judgment, the sword hanging over the people, and the people do repent, and God withholds the judgment, has God really changed—the eternal, indivisible, immutable being of this universe—like a chameleon? No. The mind of God does not change. It is constant.
