[CHAPTER 3] — GOD DON’T NEVER CHANGE
The music of Willie Johnson
God don't never change
He's God, always will be God
“God Don’t Never Change” is the title track from a tribute compilation album that introduced me to Blind Willie Johnson. The song may be my favourite, both from that compilation album and also in terms of Johnson’s own recordings, where his voice seems to be at its gritty purest. I understand grittiness and purity seem like contradictory descriptors; be that as it may, I would invite you to offer a better descriptor. I think it suits the approach to language demonstrated in the song’s title.
If your brain is remotely like mine, I know what you may be thinking. This song is built on grammatical errors, including a “double negative”, making it confusing, and technically, it communicates the opposite meaning from what was probably intended. Sure. In reality, I am glad it is the way it is. It reminds me of a “distance” of language and culture between myself and Johnson. Like the way Johnson’s voice sounds on the recording, it has a purity in it that goes beyond simply playing by the rules.
So, God doesn’t change? What do we mean when we make such claims? For most Christian traditions, this claim is a foundational statement; classically, it is called the divine attribute of “Immutability”. This idea comes up a number of times throughout the Scriptures, most succinctly from the prophet Malachi, “I the Lord do not change”, and then from the author of the letter to the Hebrews, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”. Speaking of God’s unchanging nature and fixed character form the bedrock of any remote possibility for Christian hope. If you have a God who changes, what does it mean to say that God is a God who is faithful to his promises? It also grounds our morality. If Jesus taught us to love our enemies when he walked the earth and showed us what love is as he hung on a cross, what if he has grown out of that definition of love and now thinks it is necessary to pick up the sword?
Of course, there is a flip side to this God-not-changing idea. It also means that God has not changed in the past. That seems simple enough, but it often leads people in the Christian faith to a fork in the road. If you start reading a Bible from the beginning, you’ll notice after a few pages that it seems like God starts killing people, sometimes in large numbers and indiscriminately. Pretty soon after that, you will also start noticing that it appears that God starts commanding people to kill other people in certain circumstances and at certain times. Turning the page over to the New Testament, you encounter Jesus, who now appears to turn this whole killing thing upside down. Jesus, who claimed to be God in the flesh, not only appeared to teach a very different ethic, but he also lived it, dying for his enemies rather than killing them.
Possibly, I am being too flippant, but I think the generalization holds that people observe an image of God presented in Jesus and the rest of the New Testament that is in contrast to what they believe the “God of the Old Testament” is like. Given that God does not change, this brings people to a fork in the road; they need to decide if they will take seriously the claims about Jesus and hold to the ethics Jesus taught or choose a different path. From my anecdotal experience, if people are starting from a place that thinks killing people is necessary, they will use divine immutability to say that Jesus is down with the killing. It may sound crazy, but it is what I have seen people claim. I believe the people who say there is no “God of the Old Testament”; after all, there is only one God and that God does not change. At the same time, something is going on that, at least at face value, appears as though the character of God is changing as we move through the pages of our Bibles.
God in creation
God when Adam fell
God way up in heaven
God way down in hell
The God who does not change is the God who created all things. Such a claim was challenged by a second-century figure named Marcion, who had a solution to the apparent problem of an evil God; he claimed that the “God of the Old Testament” was not the Father of Jesus Christ but instead something else entirely. Maricon’s most thorough opponent was the church leader, Irenaeus, who gave us the idea that the one God works patiently with humanity in helping us mature and come to a better knowledge of the truth. This process means that we do not throw away the Scriptures, but we must be careful how we read them. Interestingly, Irenaeus’ advice is that we should read the old violent stories in what we might call a “non-literal” manner. Despite what Irenaeus read about the flood, Sodom and the Amalekites, he boldly claims that God “does not use violent means to obtain what He desires”.1
Those who are advocates for using violent means to achieve what they think God desires will often like to remind their non-violent opponents that the God we read about in the New Testament is also the God of the final judgement. Their understanding is that, in the end, God will mete out violent retribution on his enemies and for many people, this is what they understand “hell” to be. Many people would probably be surprised to hear that the words heaven and hell don’t appear in the same sentence anywhere within the Bible. Despite what is commonly believed, a faraway heaven is not the final destination for those who are “saved”; the Bible gives a much better story than that, one of New Creation and the restoration of all things. Hell, it turns out, is much more complicated.
What even is hell? Irenaeus spoke of hell as being a separation from God, a separation we choose for ourselves that brings death, darkness and the loss of all benefits. Whatever hell is, I think Johnson has it right. God is God everywhere, both in heaven and in hell. In fact, it’s probably good for us to think of heaven and hell not as destinations or locations but as something that names an experience. Some Christian traditions propose that the experiences of both heaven and hell are simply experiences of an unmitigated divine presence. “God is love” and “our God is a consuming fire”; the same fiery love would be experienced differently by those who hate love than those who embrace love.2 If this were the case, would make it make sense to view the flames as some kind of violent retribution? I think not, but many wish to cling to their violent conception of God; if true, then there is no reason we cannot use violent means ourselves. Violence and necessary evils too easily become no evil at all; after all, they were necessary.3 I would encourage people to consider deconstructing this mindset; in fact, If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down.
James R.Jr. Payton, Irenaeus on the Christian Faith: A Condensation of Against Heresies (Eugene, UNITED STATES: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011), 157. Irenaeus is another ancient Christian that is well worth reading.
Benjamin Myers, The Apostles’ Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism (Ashland, UNITED STATES: Lexham Press, 2018), 46. Myers traces this idea back to Isaac of Nineveh, and it remains a dominant view for Eastern Orthodox Christians.
There is a quote often attributed to C.S. Lewis, but I am unaware of its source: “Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good”. I suspect this does not go far enough. For more reflection on violence and necessary evils, I recommend listening to Chris Green’s conversation with Paul Anleitner.