56 what He does in relation to human actions; it would have the Creator responding to the creature’s erratic will when the Bible portrays it the other way around: man responding to the Father’s unchanging will. God does not make things up in the course of history in order to compensate for our indiscretions; He does nothing ad hoc. For example, to mete out justice against King Ahab for having stolen Naboth’s vineyard, false prophets of the Lord — unbeknownst to them — became the agents God’s vengeance against the king of Israel: Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” …Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, “I will entice him.” And the Lord said to him, “By what means?” And he said, “I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” And he [God] said, “You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.” Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you” (1 Kings 22:19–23). Even by disguising himself as a soldier, Ahab could not avoid the Father’s will, for “a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor” thereby killing him (1 Kings 22:34) according to the original decree of the Lord (see 1 Kings 21:19). God’s eternal purposes are sure and never changing (Heb. 6:17) as evidenced by His message to the prophet Malachi: “I the Lord do not change” (Mal. 3:6). The Apostle James ascribes to the “Father of Lights” “no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). Owing then to His immutable nature and unyielding will, our Heavenly Father will not change His mind: “God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29). Whatever the Lord decrees will transpire even though the Bible oftentimes uses (anthropopathic) language suggesting that God may alter His plan in response to historical circumstances. However, such language is necessary in order to accommodate our finite understanding (or ignorance) of the mysterious ways God accomplishes His eternal plan. For instance, in Exodus 32, when God proposed to Moses that He would kill the “stiff-necked” people of Israel whom He had just delivered
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=