In this age, the Christian life is a waiting life. But we wait full of confidence that Christ will return and bring us into our eternal home.

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Shortly after my wife and I were engaged, we flew to visit my parents. We couldn’t reserve seats together, so we asked one of her seatmates to switch with me. “We just got engaged,” we explained. Her seatmates and the people in the rows behind her gave us knowing looks. “We remember those days,” they said wistfully. And then a number of them added, “They don’t last.” Kim and I were both surprised at their negativity. I thought, Not with that attitude, they don’t! But we held our tongues. They had let us sit together, after all.

Count the Cost

Whenever you’re about to embark on a new phase of life — getting married, starting a business, having children — you’ll find people who want to temper your enthusiasm with caution. They want to make sure that you’ve counted the cost.

Something similar happened just before I first left the United States for the mission field: Are you sure you want to head down this road? Are you ready for the hardships that might lie ahead? Their concerns were well-motivated. It’s foolish to embark on any commitment without first counting the cost.

And let’s face it: Missionary service is costly. Almost all missionaries struggle at points with isolation, distance from family and friends, and long years of language and culture acquisition. Many also undergo difficult bouts of sickness, rejection, or persecution. I’ve seen resilient people broken by tragedy or ground down by the slow accumulation of difficulties on the mission field. It is right, wise, and necessary to count the cost before embracing a life, or even just a short season, of serving as a missionary.

Depend on Grace

Counting the cost doesn’t mean that you expect to go and serve out of your own strength and capacity. Neither self-reliant nor self-sufficient, missionaries serve in dependence on the particular grace that God gives to them so that they may fulfill their callings.

Paul insists that we minister only to the extent that God’s “grace given to us” enables us to do so (Romans 12:6). Paul uses the phrase grace given to refer specifically to God’s generous appointment and empowering of his people for ministry (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 3:10; Ephesians 3:8; 4:7). Such grace includes the Spirit’s power to do the work of ministry (see Acts 4:33; 6:8).

It also includes the ability to cheerfully endure whatever hardships we encounter in ministry. When Paul tells the Romans to minister in accordance with the grace God gives, he mentions exercising mercy in accordance with the “cheerfulness” we’re given to do so (Romans 12:8). Elsewhere he describes “the grace of God . . . given” to the Macedonian churches that enabled them to give cheerfully for “the relief of the saints” even though they found themselves “in a severe test of affliction” (2 Corinthians 8:1–4). In fact, Paul doesn’t want people to give or to serve unless this cheerfulness is present (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Depending on the grace given to serve cheerfully doesn’t mean we’ll never experience real anguish in fulfilling our calling. Even Paul despaired of life at one point (2 Corinthians 1:8)! But God’s grace enabled him, even in his hardest seasons, to persevere with joy (Philippians 2:17).

So, counting the cost involves not only determining whether you love God enough to bear the difficulties of missionary service. It involves, additionally, asking whether God has given you the grace to maintain a cheerful hope in God despite difficulty. Can you still beg “earnestly for the favor of taking part” when you encounter severe tests of affliction (2 Corinthians 8:2, 4)?

There are plenty of ministries and life situations for which God hasn’t given me grace. Pursuing those situations could distract me from God and lead to temptation (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 7:7–9). So, has God given you grace for joyful missionary service? Answering that question requires honest self-reflection and the careful assessment of your local church.

Look to the Reward

Those considering missions should count the cost, but they shouldn’t stop there. They should also consider the reward. In one of his most difficult seasons, Paul wrote that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Whatever hardships we suffer for Christ are temporary. The reward he promises lasts forever.

Pursuing rewards can feel selfish to us, but it need not. It would have been inhuman to marry Kim and not be motivated by the reward of spending my life with her! Similarly, our eternal reward isn’t a private stack of gems to selfishly hoard. It’s eternal, blessed existence with the triune God.

It also includes the fellowship of the saints, some of whom we get to help usher to eternal life. Paul calls the Thessalonians his “crown of boasting” at the return of the Lord Jesus (1 Thessalonians 2:19). He says that the Philippians are “my joy and crown” (Philippians 4:1). One of the greatest rewards — the crown of victory — that motivated Paul in his missionary service was the salvation of those he had labored to win. He wanted to spend eternity with them, sharing their blessedness as God’s glory reflects brightly in them.

I recently spoke with a group of missionary candidates excited about the future. We spoke about the cost and what it means to have the grace to embark on overseas ministry. I hope they took that seriously. We also spoke about the reward. We talked about how it will forever outlast any difficulty incurred in reaching the lost and about how it infinitely outweighs any cost — as painful and heavy as it may be.

Getting on the Plane

Embarking on a life of missionary service is a bit like starting out in marriage.

If someone on the airplane had asked me why I wanted to marry Kim even though marriage includes hardship, I would have said, “Sure, we might face difficulties, but they’re nothing next to the joys of being with her!” When the reward is great enough, we don’t fear the cost.

I don’t want people to go to the mission field who haven’t been given the grace to be there. But I also don’t want to send people a similar message to the one the people on the airplane communicated to Kim and me, something along the lines of, “I remember how those exciting first steps to the field felt. It won’t last.” The excitement may come and go, but for those whom God has gifted, the reward — and even many parts of the journey to that reward — will be far better than those first few steps.

And the reward will last forever.

What awakens faith in a dead soul? John Piper opens John 3:1–18 to show that God creates life through the word of the gospel.

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How would we use our time if Christ were coming back tonight? Pastor John gives ten transforming ways to live while waiting for the second coming.

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Early morning has become my favorite scenario. My cozy chair in the family room. Sleepy dogs on the couch. Coffee in a mug and more waiting in the pot. Bible open. Expecting to hear from the Lord and ready to reply. What could be more homely and humble? How could I be doing anything wrong in that time? Yet pride, the deadliest of the deadly sins, can snake its way even into Bible reading.

Here are three phrases I say while meditating on Scripture that reveal my distorting pride.

1. ‘I already know that.’

This is the pride of complacency. It tempts me to think I’ve exhausted a passage of Scripture. I already got out the marrow, so why gnaw on these bones?

It’s embarrassing to read the hubris in the sentence I just typed. The greatest theologians and spiritual masters throughout the centuries know there’s always more in a passage for the Holy Spirit to reveal. About AD 600, Gregory noted how “Scripture grows with the reader.” A child can meet Jesus in the Gospels. Yet the wisest theologians can excavate treasure in these inspired accounts for the rest of their lives. If a passage seems tired or stale to me, the problem is not that I, in my brilliance, have already mined every gem. Rather, I need to press deeper in surrender, prayer, and availability to Jesus through the sacred text. He always has more to say.

Recently my thoughts were racing in the middle of the night. I needed a passage I knew so well I could say it even amidst “monkey mind.” As I began reciting Psalm 23, I wondered, “How is this overused scripture really going to help me now?”

The Spirit likes a challenge. Not thirty seconds later, I was struck by the phrase “for his name’s sake” as if I’d never seen it before (Psalm 23:3). The Father leads me in paths of righteousness for his own purposes — for his glory, for his reputation. So I can rest now, in all assurance of what God has undertaken to do in my life, because he wants to say, “Just look at what I made of this guy!” The word is ever new.

2. ‘This is for them.’

I succumb to the pride of projection when a thrill comes through me that the word has really nailed someone else. When Paul gives a list of sinful behaviors, I can use it to aloofly condemn what others do that I (seemingly) do not.

For example, if I’m reading the first chapter of Romans, I can get caught up in outrage against those people whose “foolish hearts were darkened” as they “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Romans 1:21, 25). They succumbed to “dishonorable passions” and committed “shameless acts” of sexual immorality (Romans 1:26–27). I can spitefully ponder how the media and entertainment industry normalize such behavior. I can scorn the education system that denigrates life-giving morality. I can crow about all the ways this scripture exposes their rebellion.

Of course, mature Christians do know how to see and grieve the sins of others. But when I take Romans 1 as only for others, I fail to consider the other symptoms of failing to acknowledge God and give him thanks. Paul lists envy, strife, deceit, gossip, heartlessness, and insolence as sins that also express our evil (Romans 1:29–31). No passage is ever just for those outside the faith or outside my theological tribe.

Jesus exposed this pride of projection during his most famous sermon with this penetrating question: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3). The pride of thinking I’m a better kind of person will poison my Bible reading. I’ll miss connecting to the depth of a passage and get sidelined from an intimate meeting with Jesus. Every time I read, study, pray, or ponder Scripture, I’ve got to take the right posture. I can’t let the Pharisee in me say, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11). I’ve got to start with the position of the tax collector: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

3. ‘This doesn’t really mean that.’

The pride of my theological system can cause me to distort what a passage clearly says. In my overconfidence, I may miss what the Lord wants to say to me that day as I read and pray. I’ve learned how to look straight at a verse and declare, with no small degree of scholarly pride, “It doesn’t really mean that.” Sometimes, indeed, our study will adjust or deepen our interpretation of a seemingly straightforward passage. But other times, “It doesn’t really mean that” is another way of saying that the passage doesn’t readily fit into my well-defended, closed system.

Of course, systems of theology are necessary. As a pastor, I willingly went under oath to a particular confession of faith. But a systematic theology is not Scripture. No confession, no catechism, no individual or denominational theological expression can account for everything in Scripture. I might not have admitted that years ago. It was too threatening to my certainties. But the word breaks through my limiting principles. No, I haven’t given up systematic theology. But when reading God’s word, I try to allow a passage to create tension with my neat system. I don’t try to soften the edges of a verse just to make it fit.

For instance, I’ve heard people say that John 3:16 doesn’t really mean God so loved the world. It means God so loved the elect. However, I can’t find any use of the Greek word for world that doesn’t mean either the whole natural order of the cosmos or the world of humanity that is hostile to God. There’s nowhere that world means just the chosen. So the borders of my Presbyterian system get knocked back by a plain reading of Scripture. That’s unsettling. Yet I find much intimacy with God and humility in me arising when I pray honestly with these tensions.

Turning it the other way, suppose my theological system is more Arminian, in which God foreknows but does not predestine those bound for heaven or hell. I insist on free human choice. But then I read 1 Peter 2:8: “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” I’ve got to start scrubbing out God’s decree implied within the word destined and awkwardly make it about a person’s will.

Suppressing the real tensions that arise in our reading of God’s holy word flattens our prayers, dampens our joy in worship, and fosters our sense of superiority over other believers.

Pride is so insidious a sin that it sneaks even into our personal Bible study. I’m embarrassed to be so arrogant. But dragging that pride into the light dissipates its power and opens us to more life-changing encounters with the triune God through his word.

Do you ever regret that God saved you?

Israel did.

They spent generations crying out to God for liberation. Then they finally heard God command Pharaoh to let his people go and watched as he sent ten plagues of persuasion. In jubilee, they traveled through the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, where they covenanted themselves to their Redeemer. Here we expect the happily-ever-after to begin. Instead, we see Israel come down from her high tower, walk past the slain dragon, and start objecting to her King, distrusting him, regretting that he had come for her at all. All this at the beginning of the honeymoon.

One complaint follows another. She doesn’t have water; she grumbles. She doesn’t have food; she grumbles. She doesn’t have the right kind of food; she grumbles. More than that, she weeps. She has an unshakable, intense desire for meat, not Wonderbread. Was she really saved from slavery to become a vegetarian?

That’s when she begins to remember.

The people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” (Numbers 11:4–6)

Her last relationship was abusive, but at least she was well fed. She misses those days — the ones before God came to her rescue. Moses and the Lord hear “the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses was displeased” (Numbers 11:10). The people question aloud, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt” (Numbers 11:18).

Israel is inconsolable. Moses is overwhelmed. The Lord is hotly offended.

They want meat? They will have it. God promises: You shall have it “until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, ‘Why did we come out of Egypt?’” (Numbers 11:20).

The Lord causes a great wind to blow quail into the camp. All day, all night, and all the next day, they collect vast amounts of the bird. “While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague” (Numbers 11:33). They rejected the Lord for food. Some would only take a few bites before judged. The graveyard is named “Kibroth-hattaavah,” The Grave of Cravings.

The Apostate’s Hunger

Let us learn from these people, “that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6). How did so many of them fall so soon from the mountaintop of salvation? We can trace the steps of descent into apostasy.

1. Grow bored with daily bread.

I remember a man who walked away from his profession of faith because he did not know what to do with his Friday nights. He could only endure so many board games and Bible studies — where was the excitement? He admitted to being unenthralled by the lives of the Christians around him. This life seemed rather bland, manna-like — where was the meat? Where were the onions?

Many who walk away from Christ begin by growing bored with daily bread. Some unbelievers insist that if God would show them some sign, they would believe. Israel saw signs every morning, and the effect wasn’t belief but boredom. Bread appearing with the dew again? Does the Divine plan to diversify his menu? Can we get some seafood or hamburgers added to the rotation?

So too professing believers near and far grow tempted to despise the ordinary means of grace. Feasting upon God’s miracle word every morning — again? How many times must I travel through the Bible, go to church, take the Lord’s Supper, or put my legs to sleep while praying? Those in danger of falling away come to silently despise that which sustains them in this world. Seldom do they wake up and refuse God and his word at once — rather, they yawningly neglect this great salvation day by day, tiring of that which fascinates the angels.

2. Long for worldly meat.

Next, the restless heart hungers for more, for different. At first, they simply wanted to be free from the old slavery. Sin left them empty and confused. The more they indulged, the less pleasure they received. They discovered the cheat. They wanted a new country, a new life, a better way.

Christianity becomes that next way. They hear of Christ and receive the word with joy — they believe, This is it. But as they travel with him, they notice his path is narrower than expected, more uphill than desired. Their carnal friends won’t follow. Prayer goes (seemingly) unheard. And what do these Bible verses mean, anyway? They glance back at life in Egypt — absence makes the heart grow fonder. Yes, it held death and captivity and other miseries, but then again, Egypt provided some perks. What about those melons and onions and garlic?

What happened? Perhaps they wanted freedom from Egypt, but not on God’s terms. Their plan: Get freedom from their harsh worldly master and figure the rest out later. So they signed up for Christianity to make their felt-unhappiness disappear. And it did for a time. But then this new Master doesn’t provide all they want as they want it when they want it. They don’t really relish holiness or the church or this God. Or something bad happens in his service. Or something happens to a loved one. They start to fixate on their perceived lack and compare it to their former life or the lives of former friends. Lost are the memories of cruelty and plagues and grateful songs sung by the Red Sea. Visions of steak occupy their thoughts.

Was not Egypt better than this?

3. Give grumbling a place.

Once daily bread is despised and old thrills remembered, grumbling begins. The eye fixates on what it wants, not all it has; on all it demands, not all it needs. And so the heart sickens with discontent. They miss Egypt. Like a husband being told that his wife misses an old boyfriend, the Lord rightly calls it rejecting him.

Satan’s favorite songs are the grumblings of the saints. Once his bondage is preferred to the Lord’s freedom, he will have the victory known by moans and mutterings, criticisms and cavils. From one degree of ingratitude to another. First the water, then the food, then the kind of food. The dissatisfaction goes public. They grow harder to please. Every disappointment seems to echo. Satan’s fallen world is preferred to God’s heaven. An apostate is born.

Where Else Would We Go?

Are you tempted to regret God’s salvation? More pointedly, are you tempted to forsake Christ?

It is even more egregious for those on this side of the cross to long for Egypt. We do not turn from the covenant made at Sinai; we turn from the covenant made at the cross. We turn from Christ. Can you see him there, bleeding for your transgressions, suffering for your sins, and conceive of a reason to leave him? Should we tire of partaking of the Bread of Life broken for us — tire of remembering him, living for him, longing for him?

Should other meats captivate our palate? Should we begin to grumble about this great salvation purchased at the very cost of the blood of Jesus? Is he not enough for us? Is there something missing from God’s blessings in Christ that could make us turn back? If he’s already proved his love by giving his Son, will he not also with him graciously give us all things? He offers fullness of joy and forever pleasures; could you do better elsewhere?

Should we leave Christ because we don’t know what to do on Friday nights? Should we leave Christ because we haven’t yet found a spouse? Should we leave Christ because our family does not approve of him, or our friends no longer invite us to their parties? Should we leave Christ because we are ashamed to speak of him to our neighbors? Should we leave Christ because following him is dangerous? Should we leave Christ and return to the vomit-stained life he rescued us from? Should we look at the cross and regret that he came to deliver us from this passing world? Many have. The cemetery has only grown in the centuries since those first cravers of Israel despised the Lord’s salvation and fell through deadly discontent.

No. Let us resolve — God keeping us! — not to give up Christ for anything this world can offer. We have considered the cost, and we’ll pick up our cross and follow him wherever he leads. We know in whom we have believed. We consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. We ask, “Where else shall we go?” He has the words of eternal life — he is eternal life.

He is our portion; we need no other. He is our God; we want no other. He is our life; we have no other.

Why is the writer of Hebrews so enthralled with an often weak and wavering church? He sees her calling, her splendor, and her majestic Savior.

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How do the Corinthian church’s riches in word and knowledge serve to confirm the testimony of Christ? Their beautiful speech shows a beautiful Savior.

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ABSTRACT: “The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth.” In light of the whole counsel of Scripture, Genesis 6:6 and passages like it raise a challenging interpretive question: What could regret or repentance mean for a sovereign, immutable God? Readers of Scripture find help from three core theological principles: (1) The living God is the perfect God. (2) There is an absolute distinction between God and creation. (3) God reveals himself to creatures in ways they can understand. Together, these principles help us interpret passages about God’s regret without imagining God to be like man.

The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth. (Genesis 6:6)

Many scriptural texts stop us short. Arresting our attention, they force us to read them again. And again. And again. “Did God really say . . . ?” Such declarations challenge readers to think carefully over what God says and, in an expression of humble dependence, ask him to give understanding (2 Timothy 2:7).

The many texts ascribing regret, repentance, or change to God provide just such a challenge, particularly when read alongside the scriptural witness to God’s absolute sovereignty over all things. The first such text in the biblical narrative throws the perceived problem into stark relief. In Genesis 6, God regrets that he created mankind and does an almost wholesale reversal of his initial act of creation (Genesis 6:5–7). We will return to this example later in the essay. For now, it suffices to acknowledge the fact that Scripture frequently attests to changes in God in response to his creatures.¹

How are we to read such passages, especially in light of divine testimony indicating that God neither regrets his decisions nor changes?² Answering this hermeneutical question requires layers of close theological work: attention to multiple scriptural texts and their implications; attendance to contemporary questions and positions; recognition and careful deployment of particular theological principles, especially those related to the nature of divine revelation and its recipients. In short, the question presents a bracing challenge for thoughtful readers who want to give due weight to the whole testimony of Scripture.

The aim of the present essay is not to offer a comprehensive analysis of the scriptural texts that present readers with the possibility of repentance in God. It does not present an analysis of the (post?) modern mind and the difficulties that contemporary ways of thinking bring to the table. Nor does it aspire to present an account of Scripture and Scripture’s readers. Its aims are far more modest. It merely lays out a set of dogmatic principles or rules to guide readers as they seek to prayerfully read and interpret Scripture, including texts that ascribe regret or repentance to God.³ In the following, we first explore a set of principles related to God’s self-revelation before asking how those principles inform our interpretation of difficult passages such as Genesis 6:6.

Three Core Principles

Classical accounts in the Western Christian tradition interpret passages such as Genesis 6:6 according to an array of core principles that aim to heed the whole witness of Scripture. These principles reflect a manner of thinking that prioritizes a certain order in the framework of theology: first God, then all else relative to God.⁴

We do not typically think in such a mode, being instead prone to its opposite: defining God by means of all that relates to him in his going forth in creation and redemption. This is particularly evident in common ways of thinking about God’s repentance. A straightforward reading of texts like Genesis 6:5–7 reveals a God who, like us, changes his mind in response to others. We naturally reflect our creaturely mode of being, defined as it is by constant change, onto the Creator. But natural inclinations do not always lead to biblically faithful conclusions. Because of our natural bent, understanding texts that make God appear like us in some fashion requires a hermeneutic governed by the doctrine of God in himself, a robust understanding of the distinction between Creator and creature, and a recognition of the way God speaks in Scripture.

The present section examines each of these in a limited fashion, beginning with the doctrine of divine perfection.

Divine Perfection

The doctrine of divine perfection affirms that in himself the triune God is perfect without qualification. He is replete, having no lack. “I am God,” he declares through the psalmist. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you. . . . Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” (Psalm 50:7, 12–13). He is eternal, without beginning or end. “I am the first and I am the last,” says the Lord of hosts (Isaiah 44:6; cf. 41:4). He is the triune God, the forever glorious Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (see John 17:5). He is the supreme and perfect God over all, the “blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:15–16).⁵ As the replete, eternal, supreme, and triune God, he does not change. Rightly creatures confess him to be immutable, for God “remains forever like himself in his celestial and happy repose.”⁶ God’s self-revelation as the immutable one indicates that in his being he is absolutely perfect.

Ascribed to God, perfection means that nothing beyond him is necessary for him to be complete. And, crucially, nothing can add to or detract from his existence. The perfection of God is his threefold life of utter plenitude as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Writing of God’s triune perfection, John Webster states,

The perfect life of the Holy Trinity is the all-encompassing and first reality from whose completeness all else derives. God’s perfection is the fullness and inexhaustibility in which the triune God is and acts as the one he is. His perfection is not mere absence of derivation or restriction; it is his positive plenitude. God’s perfection is his identity as this one, an identity which is unqualified and wholly realized: “I am who I am” — what the scholastic divines called the perfectio integralis in which God’s life is complete in itself. That completeness is fullness of life, the effortless activity in which God confirms his excellence as Father, Son and Spirit. God lives from himself, he is perfect movement, the eternally fresh act of self-iteration. This act is the “processions” or personal relations which constitute God’s absolute vitality: the Father who begets the Son and breathes the Spirit, the Son who is eternally begotten, the Spirit who proceeds — all this is the positive wholeness and richness of God’s life in himself.⁷

A consequence of the doctrine of divine perfection is aseity, a theological concept that summarizes the scriptural teaching that God lives from himself (a se) and in himself (in se).⁸ “Besides me,” God declares, “there is no god” (Isaiah 44:6). He does not exist with necessary reference to the “gods,” deriving his existence as it were from a genus of which he is one instance of a species.⁹ No, he is the only God. “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me” (Isaiah 43:10). God is not and cannot be defined by reference to what is not God.¹⁰

God’s perfect existence a se has an important consequence for the question at hand: Does God change? The answer drawn from the doctrine of perfection is a definitive no. Why is this the case? Change in any being indicates some form of movement, such as a loss or gain, departure or arrival, unknown to known. Movement indicates un-actualized potential, that is, the possibility for development or declension. But God is perfect; therefore, he does not and cannot change. No potential or possibility can exist for him. As Thomas Aquinas argues, “Since God is infinite, comprehending in Himself all the plenitude of perfection of all being, He cannot acquire anything new.”¹¹ Being from himself means that he does not draw his divinity from some external source. Nor can he increase or decrease in magnitude or “divine-ness.” He does not replenish or add to himself in any way. His self-existence is his perfection, what Webster calls “the eternal lively plenitude of the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, and the Spirit who proceeds from both.”¹²

Perfection includes all that is attributed to God — knowledge, wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, and so on.¹³ Already consequences for how we interpret a text about God repenting begin to emerge. If God’s perfection includes his knowledge, and if repentance or regret, according to the way we understand it as humans, demands a change in what is known or understood (a movement from potential to actualization), then applying the term to God requires us to attribute some measure of imperfection to God. But as we have seen, Scripture as a whole does not allow this, which requires us to significantly qualify what God means when he ascribes repentance to himself.

We will apply the principle of divine perfection to the question of God’s repentance in a subsequent section. Before doing so, however, we must treat another important principle that safeguards theological reason: the distinction between the Creator and his creatures.

The Creator-Creature Distinction

The perfect God, replete in his eternal, joyful existence, creates. This fact alone is enough to stun our minds and draw us to reverential, joyful, fearful awe (see Psalm 8). Exploring what it means when we confess God as “Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is visible and invisible” also leads to restraint when explaining what Scripture means when it ascribes regret and repentance to God.

The doctrine of creation teaches that all that exists does so by virtue of the one creative act of God in accordance with his will (Genesis 1:1; Revelation 4:11). God is “the universal cause of all being.”¹⁴ Set against the backdrop of divine perfection, that which God brings into being does not include himself. He simply is, eternal and without cause.¹⁵ And he causes the existence of all else. Between him and creation there is no commonality of being. “You were,” confesses Augustine, “the rest was nothing. Out of nothing you made heaven and earth.”¹⁶ In our thinking (and the exegesis that informs that thinking), we must hold to an absolute distinction between God and all that is not God.¹⁷

The relationship that exists between God and creation is therefore unique. There is nothing like it within the order of creation itself. Within creation, all things are to varying degrees related to and dependent on another. We cannot live without the food produced from the ground. That food depends on the rays of the sun and the cycles of seasons. Those seasons depend on the rotation and location of the earth relative to other objects in space. Creation itself exists entirely in dependence on God (Psalm 104:27–30; Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:2–3). But God’s perfect existence remains unchanged and, crucially, unaffected by the creation of the heavens and the earth.¹⁸

Once again, we are pressed to begin applying the principle to the question of whether God changes with respect to his creation. The absolute distinction between God and creatures implies that God does not change (he remains immutable) with respect to his very mutable creatures. Reflecting on the impermanence of the heavens and earth, the psalmist confesses their absolute contrast to God their Creator:

They will perish, but you will remain;
     they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
but you are the same, and your years have no end. (Psalm 102:26–27)

The heavens and earth change and pass away, but there is no corresponding mutability in God. He remains himself, the same, forever.¹⁹

This means that God’s perfection — in all its fullness — remains undiminished both with respect to the initial act of creation and its ongoing preservation. As God keeps all things in being, as he continues to direct them to their ordered end, he himself does not undergo development or augmentation. He is not who he is because of what takes place through his works. Rather, he is who he is eternally; he shows who he is to his creatures through his works. If he is to remain true to his own perfect nature, then he will not change in his external works.²⁰ If he were to change, that would indicate an imperfection in his being, making him dependent on creatures to realize his own perfection.²¹

In his explanation of God’s unchanging nature, Francis Turretin (1623–1687) argues that the biblical position is to ascribe “every kind of immutability” to God “both as to nature and as to will.”²² After he proves the doctrine from Scripture, he explains that creation, being from God, produces no change in him.²³ He later draws the conclusion (from creation and the unchanging nature of God) that his immutability extends to his providential governing of all creation.

He is most wise (foreseeing all things and for all) and most powerful (with whom nothing is impossible) and the best (who as he created the world at first with the highest goodness, so he cannot but conserve and govern it when created by the same).²⁴

Working from God toward the creation, Turretin extrapolates the doctrinal logic and ascribes to God an absolute and unerring providence based on his perfect, unchanging nature. He who made all things, who is himself not made, remains utterly distinct from and therefore absolutely sovereign over the entirety of creation.²⁵

When Scripture describes God as relenting from his purpose or regretting his decisions, faithful theological reason preserves the absolute distinction between God and creation and therefore guards against a facile interpretation of what Scripture means by relent or regret. Speaking properly of God means translating those texts in a manner that necessarily transforms the creaturely idiom. When employing such human terms to describe the works of God, we do not assume that they apply in the same way to him as they do to us. We must discipline our reasoning, constantly challenging our natural fallen tendency to think that God is just like us. This method of theological reasoning coheres with the fact that in Scripture God accommodates himself to creaturely understanding.

The Manner of Divine Revelation

God is perfect. In his being and his ways, he is beyond the grasp of finite and fallen (decidedly imperfect, even in the redeemed state) creatures. Furthermore, in himself he is not a part, not even the best part, of the creaturely order of existence. When he speaks and reveals himself to creatures, therefore, he does so in such a way that he brings himself down to creaturely understanding (what has historically been called accommodation²⁶).

God speaks to man. To some he speaks “face to face” (Exodus 33:11). But he does not do so “man to man,” that is, as equal communicants on a common plane. Rather, God speaks in earthly terms to creatures. Because his aim in revealing himself is that we might know him, he communicates with us in a manner commensurate with our creaturely nature and facilities.²⁷ God’s self-revelation to human creatures, because it is self-revelation, remains true to his being. As revelation, it truly makes him known. Because it is his self-revelation to creatures — that is, those whose entire existence is hemmed in by the boundaries of created being — God accommodates himself.²⁸

Careful interpretation of Scripture, especially in the many instances where it attributes creaturely qualities to God, will therefore hesitate before suggesting a univocity or equivalence of meaning between what God reveals of himself in creaturely terms and his own being.²⁹ Rather, confessing “the infinite qualitative distinction between creator and creation” mitigates the temptation to consider God as one of us.³⁰ In Scripture, God stoops. Rightly understanding what he intends to communicate in his stooping requires creatures to let go of the pernicious tendency to define reality only by what we can see, instead asking God to raise our eyes, so to speak, and fill them with divine light.

Perfection, Creation, Analogy

God’s perfection in his own inner life serves as the fundamental principle to guide theological discourse, including interpretation of passages concerned with God’s acts of repentance. Moving from the eternal triune life of God to his outward work of creation, the principle of divine perfection remains, illuminating the nature of God’s relation to creatures as one that produces no essential change in God. In his interaction with his creatures — in creation or judgment or redemption or perfection — he remains entirely unchanged. Therefore, when we come across texts in Scripture that say God “repents” or “regrets,” we interpret them analogically, recognizing that while they communicate meaningful truth about God, they do not mean he is like man (see Numbers 23:19).

Back to Repentance

Establishing doctrinal principles and rules is one thing. It is another to bring them to bear on a given passage of Scripture. How then can Christians faithfully interpret Genesis 6:5–7 in light of the three theological guardrails related to God’s perfection, his absolute distinction from creation, and his manner of speaking to creatures?

Following the genealogy of Adam’s faithful descendants, Genesis 6 opens on a world of unrighteousness. Beholding the wickedness of mankind and knowing “that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5), the Lord declares that he regrets having made mankind and that he intends to destroy them on account of their wickedness (Genesis 6:6–7). On its surface, the text seems to indicate a change in God’s intentions. Turning back a page or two reveals the depth of the apparent problem. At the height of the sixth day in the creation account, God creates mankind (Genesis 1:26) and then, seeing all that he made, declares it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). In Genesis 6, he sees that the people he made are the opposite of very good, being “only evil.” The variance between Genesis 1 and Genesis 6 introduces what appears to be a clear example of divine repentance.³¹ God, having made man, now regrets his actions.

Adhering to the dogmatic principles outlined above requires care in what we say here. First, though God speaks of this event in a manner understandable to creatures, that does not by itself indicate that God himself undergoes the change we typically associate with regret. The ascription of regret to God is analogical. In other words, while God does speak truly, what it means for him to regret an action is not the same as what it means for humans.

Second, when humans regret or repent of some previous action, it entails a change according to knowledge and intent. But God’s knowledge and will, being essential to his being, are not subject either to ignorance or change. “All causes of change,” argues Turretin, “are removed from him,” including “error of mind” and “inconstancy of will.”³² If the act of creation itself constitutes no change on the part of the perfect Creator (the principle of the Creator-creature distinction), neither can changes within the history of creation produce a change in him.³³

There are certainly changes in creation. God creates mankind, yet they turn to wickedness. God establishes Saul as king, yet Saul later rejects God. God threatens punishment on a wicked city, yet later that city repents. But such instances do not indicate a change within the immutable God himself (the principle of divine perfection). Rather, Scripture speaks of God’s regret with regard to changes that take place on the side of creation. Turretin again proves illuminating:

Repentance is attributed to God after the manner of men (anthrōpopathōs) but must be understood after the manner of God (theoprepōs): not with respect to his counsel, but to the event; not in reference to his will, but to the thing willed; not to affection and internal grief, but to the effect and external work.³⁴

The change in events like Genesis 6 occurs on the part of creatures. God knew what would occur during the days of Noah and Saul and Jonah. It comes as no surprise to him that the people he created upright turn to wickedness (see Ecclesiastes 7:29). These events occur according to his immutable will, which establishes his eternal decree both to punish evildoers and to forgive repentant sinners. Our perfect and unchanging God, Creator of all things, “does not repent of any action he has taken, and his purpose with regard to absolutely everything is as fixed as his foreknowledge of it is utterly certain.”³⁵

Clothed with Our Affections

The work of theology serves the church by returning again and again to the Scriptures, demanding that we continually mortify the tendency to conceptualize our God and his work in creaturely (and therefore idolatrous) terms. It aims to lead the church in humble, chastened obedience to the first and second commandments, preserving her allegiance to the living God and disabusing her of idols. The ubiquity of anthropomorphizing language for God in Holy Scripture only heightens the need to submit human language and concepts to the full scope and weight of God’s self-testimony, thus restraining the people of God from remaking him in our own image.

But why then does God speak in such a manner? Why describe himself in terms like unto us? He does so for our good. He desires for us to know him truly, to love and rejoice in him and walk in his ways according to his loving intent for us. He also has compassion on us. He knows our frame, the feeble limits of our capacities, the difficulties we face in thinking rightly about him, and the disastrous consequences of sin upon our intellects and affections. In our infirm and rebellious condition, the knowledge of the Holy One for which we were made is beyond us.

And so, because of his great love for us, he speaks to us about himself in ways that we can understand so that we, by his gracious condescension, might fulfill our end. In a delightful turn of phrase, Augustine describes this kindness of the Lord in Scripture as a “habit of making something like children’s toys out of things that occur in creation . . . to get us step by step to seek . . . the things that are above and forsake the things that are below.”³⁶ He does not intend to hide himself from us. Nor does he demand of us the impossible task of feeling our way toward him in our own power and by our own means. Instead, he reveals himself in terms we can grasp.³⁷

Why specifically does he describe himself as repenting or relenting? Why does he, in the words of Calvin, “[clothe] himself with our affections”?³⁸ Again, his intent is a gracious one. He desires not that we should consider him to be just like us, but that we may come to recognize the full horror of sin, how it is utterly abhorrent and opposed to the One before whose glory the seraphim hide their faces and cry out in reverence, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3). He stoops because he desires that we would see clearly the antithesis between the upright nature he gave us and our utter corruption.³⁹ He describes himself as a regretting God so that we, in obedience to his command to repent and in fulfillment of our intended purpose to know him, might walk in the fear of the Lord.

Is being born again just a religious title? John Piper opens John 3:1–18 to show that the new birth is a miracle of God, not a label we claim.

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