Can we change God's mind? (1)

 

⁹ “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

¹¹ But Moses sought the favour of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people…

¹⁴ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

Exodus 32:9-14

Can we change God’s mind?

That’s not as simple a question as it might seem. If, as Christians believe, God is perfect and almighty, surely his purposes are established from all eternity? How dare we imagine that sinful creatures like us can do any such thing?

From the early days of the church, indeed, God was held to be “immutable”– that’s just a technical term for “unchangeable” - on the grounds that if something can be changed it can’t have been perfect in the first place: how can you improve on perfection?

All very logical. But if that is the case, what’s the point of praying? “Ah”, says a very spiritually-minded Christian, “but that’s not what prayer is about! It’s not trying to change God’s mind; it’s about growing a deeper relationship with him!” There’s truth in that, to be sure. But also there’s no getting away from the fact that in the Bible God is portrayed as “relenting” (even “repenting”, if we go with the KJV), which is really just another way of saying “changing his mind”.

Exodus 32 is a dramatic example of this.

The people of Israel, delivered from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses, have met with God at Mount Sinai. After receiving the “ten commandments”, God summons Moses up the mountain, where he “enters the cloud” and stays “for forty days and forty nights” (Exodus 24:13-18). Uknown to him, the people down below seem to have virtually panicked at his prolonged absence – and they persuade his brother Aaron to build an idol in the form of a golden calf which they can worship as their god.

God, of course, sees this, and tells Moses to get himself down the mountain while he prepares to destroy his fickle people. But – and this the truly remarkable part - Moses refuses to tamely accept this. There follows a conversation in which you could almost say that Moses calls the shots…

When God says to Moses “Now leave me alone” (verse 10), it’s as if he is telling him to “clear off and stop bothering me, so I can get on with the business of pouring out my anger on the people and destroying them” (putting it in down to earth modern speech). It’s almost as if he – yes, God himself! - is afraid that Moses, the man of prayer, might persuade him to change his mind.

But Moses won’t be put off. He appeals to God to think of his reputation – “If you destroy your own people, who you brought out of the land of Egypt, think what joy that will give to your enemies!” And so we read in verse 14: “Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened”.

People sometimes speak of the power of prayer. Well, it’s hard to imagine a clearer example than this! What are we today to make of this slightly bizarre story?

A key need is to recognise that the language of the Bible is extremely varied, especially when portraying God. God is infinite, way beyond our grasp or comprehension, so we need to have him described for us in earthy ways, through metaphors and figures of speech.

A simple example is that God has no physical body (he “is spirit”, John 4:24), yet the Bible repeatedly describes him as having hands (which means he does things) or eyes (he sees everything) or a face (he can express both pleasure and displeasure). According to Exodus 19:4 he “carried you on eagles’ wings” which, taken literally, is just not true, but is a graphic way of conveying the glorious manner in which he delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

The same principle applies to the conversation between God and Moses here in Exodus 32. On first reading, it might seem to portray an angry, rather tetchy God who is determined to destroy his wayward people, but who is then persuaded out of it by a human being who manages to hit a raw nerve in his nature. But we instinctively feel that, of course, it is far, far deeper than that - that it is in fact a way of making us tremble at the just anger of God, and then marvel at the power of the pleading of a holy human being.

Did God literally “change his mind” on that occasion? To our human perception the answer is yes. But the deeper meaning is that God has given to us human beings the dignity of playing a significant part in the outworking of his purposes. Yes, our feeble prayers can and do make a difference to the unfolding of history!

There are other examples in the Old Testament of the unchanging God actually… well, seeming to change. A particularly striking one is 2 Kings 20:1-11. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tells the sick King Hezekiah to “put your house in order, because you are going to die”. Hezekiah “weeps bitterly” and prays a heart-broken prayer; whereupon within hours or even minutes he is given a reprieve: “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears: I will heal you”.

Such examples, to be sure, are rare; but surely they are there for a reason?

But back to our earlier question: what are we today to make of the event of Exodus 32? Please join me next time as we try to draw some very practical lessons…

Father, I often struggle in the matter of prayer, especially when I compare my feeble efforts with things I read in your word. Please help me to persevere in faith, so that one day I will see how wonderfully you have answered them. Amen.