“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” (Heb 6:19-20 AV)
The immutability of God is a great study. The two previous verses to the ones above speak of God’s inability to change. In fact, it is an impossibility. God cannot change. He is, was, and always will be the same. The specific context is the security we have in Jesus Christ as opposed to a human priesthood. A human priesthood is notoriously unreliable. Think of Eli. Eli was a judge and a priest. He faithfully judged Israel, yet he could not govern his own family. His two sons were immoral, perverse, and greedy. Eli himself died an untimely and cruel death because of his own failures. A human priesthood is fraught with error because it is made up of sinful people. They can change and often do so. God cannot. God is perfect. What He was before He created anything is exactly what He is and always will be. This is the anchor to the soul that Paul speaks of here. It is the immutability of God and His counsel.
Change is difficult to adapt to. Especially in people and relationships. As a child, I had a father who was a bit on the angry side. It might have had a little to do with raising eleven children. Talk about the patience of Job! Add to the mere challenge of twelve people whom you have to govern the financial obligation that entails and the fact he had to hold down several jobs to do it, one can see how frustration could boil over to anger. I served under a pastor who was a powder keg ready to go off. Damage control was one of my official duties. Still, another couldn’t get a grip on exactly where he stood and where he was going. In short, I have lived and served under people were were not always consistent. This can be unnerving. You simply don’t know which person is going to show up. Is it Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? In parenting class, they teach you that consistency is so important in raising a child. Inconsistency is a good way of raising a nervous or volatile child. With consistency comes security. Predictability means a lot. Knowing how a parent will react or knowing ahead of time unchanging expectations brings security to the heart, mind, and soul. This is to what Paul is speaking.
We serve and worship a God who does not change. There are no surprises. If God reacted one way in the past, He will do so in the present and the future. We do not have to worry about a God who cannot control His spirit. We do not have a God who makes it up on the fly. His expectations never change. God is more predictable than the sunrise. He is and will be what He has always been. The key is learning all we can about Him. If we are insecure or full of anxiety, it is not because God cannot be found out. Ignorance is our foe, here. If we feel insecure it is because we lack truth, or the faith to trust the truth which we do know, that results in how we feel. Paul says the immutability of God should be an anchor to the soul. If our soul is adrift, it is not because God has moved or changed. We have allowed our anchor to be pulled back into a boat that we control. The waves of life are tossing us about and the ground beneath the waves is the only unchanging thing. If we want to boat of our souls to ride out the storms of life with little fear, then the anchor must be cast into the solid rock that does not change.
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