God is not a man

Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

We read also, referring to Jesus Christ: John 14:6 6 Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

Again, we read in Malachi: (3:6) 6 "For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

With these three portions of Scripture we are confronted immediately with an astounding and multifaceted decree:

1. God speaks the truth, and the truth only;
2. access to God is through Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ only;
3. Jesus Christ is explicitly identified with the Godhead, and God, as The Truth; and,
4. these facts will not change because God is unchangeable.

These few sentences of the doctrine of God are extremely important for our proper understanding of the doctrine of Scripture. Essential, actually. God says He cannot lie, so He cannot. Jesus is the only way, the truth, and the life, so He is. God is immutable, so that settles it forever. There is nothing outside of God that can alter in the slightest the will and work of God – ever.

This is difficult for us to comprehend because neither you nor I are God. I know that sounds simplistic, but you and I are constantly acting as if we were God – amen? So, you can take this for a gentle reminder. As creatures, we are dependent, and interdependent, on a whole world full of other peoples and events created and orchestrated by God. We are constantly weighing options, considering uncertainties, changing our minds, and doubting decisions we have already made. Thankfully, God suffers from none of this, and even expresses His displeasure with all this sort of double mindedness in James, chapter one.

Understand that there is no such time as "before" God. There is nothing that can contribute to His being in any way. God is not a creation of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, but the cosmos so lovingly revered by Mr. Sagan is indeed the creation of almighty God.

When we see the photographs from the Hubbell telescope we are in awe of the vastness and the incredible beauty of the those areas of the universe that we had only supposed were even there! The great triune God, our loving heavenly Father, made it all, beloved – and He made it with the mere effort of speaking. The one and eternal God, who was, and is, and is to come; the Creator of the universe, is forever one, yet in three persons. This God who cannot lie is, therefore, forever truth, and everything that He is and does is truth.

Now, I have said all of that to say this: God therefore can speak only an infallible word.