Does God ever change His mind? (Jeremiah 18)

The old TV series, Open All Hours, is about a local shopkeeper’s comic machinations to sell rubbish to customers like the indecisive Mavis. When asked if she wants a tin of beans or a tin of lentils, she replies confidently, ‘Beans!’ and then a doubt flickers on her face and she says, ‘No, lentils.’ After a pause, she then reverts to her original choice, ‘No, it has to be beans… or should it be lentils…?’ Humorous as her dithering is, it is not a trait that we would welcome in God. Even worse is the idea that He might be fickle and go back on His promises. Yet the Bible records times when God ‘changed His mind’, such as when he brought the flood (Gen 6:5-6) or when He rejected Saul from being king (Gen 15:35). God turning from a positive disposition to a negative, however, is rare and who would not welcome a change of mind when God decides not to bring judgment (Jonah 3:10)?

When God changes His mind

The background to our passage is Judah’s enormous confidence that God’s promises and grace to them are unshakeable. This conviction, however, is accompanied by arrogance rather than humble wonder. God’s answer is that He is the sovereign Creator (the same word as potter) and He has every right to shape His creatures’ future as He pleases, just as the potter does with the clay (Jer 18:1-4). Nevertheless, God’s work is never arbitrary but relates to the quality of the clay and how it responds to His shaping (v.4). The two scenarios are applied to any nation, and this indicates that the Lord deals consistently and fairly with all the world, so that His chosen people should not expect preferential treatment (Jer 18:7-9). It is a sobering thought that God’s grace does not exempt us from His justice even if our salvation will not be lost. For Jeremiah’s audience, there is urgency in the message that their sinful lives have led to a change of plan from sure blessing to coming disaster. Yet even now repentance may avert catastrophe (Jer 18:11). For exiles looking back to a loss of homeland, this passage offers warning and hope. Warning because they could have had a different future if only they had repented, but also hope because turning to the Lord in exile makes restoration possible. It is a fearful responsibility to realise that our actions and choices have an impact on the future God will give us.

Judah’s response

Judah’s response interpreted by Jeremiah is a stubborn refusal to repent and an insistence on their own agenda (Jer 18:18). Their behaviour is unnatural and incomprehensible (Jer 18:14), but it explains the Lord’s subsequent actions (Jer 18:16-17). The people’s attitude to God is paralleled by their approach to His representative, Jeremiah, whom they ignore and want to eliminate (Jer 18:18). Although we may feel that the prophet’s angry tone is inappropriate – should he not be forgiving them? – his response echoes God’s judgment expressed in this chapter and earlier (Jer 18:21-23; e.g. Jer 14:12; 15:2, 7-9). As authors, Allender and Longman helpfully explain,

Biblical forgiveness is never unconditional and one-sided. It is not letting others go off scot-free, “forgiven,” and enabled to do harm again without any consequence. Instead, forgiveness is an invitation to reconciliation, not the blind, cheap granting of it.[1]

Patience and judgment

God’s repeated invitation to Judah for reconciliation has been rejected so many times that finally the Lord Himself decrees judgment. God’s response to our attitudes is never a ‘one strike and you are out’ approach. As in Israel and Judah’s case, the final decision was hundreds of years in the making, with God giving chance after chance for repentance. Thus, we should not fear that every sin we commit will irreversibly impact our future for the worst, but neither should we take a consistent path on the road to sin lightly. Despite judgment, God’s ultimate commitment will see His people through to a new beginning beyond exile. Nevertheless, it is like being saved but having one’s work burnt up in fire (1 Cor 3:12-15). May we not be satisfied to escape with our lives only but serve God with all that we have.

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[1] Dan B. Allender and Tremper Longman III, Bold Love (NavPress, 1992), 162. [Emphasis theirs]. They further point out that Jesus’ prayer asking God to forgive those who gave Him up to be crucified (Luke 23:34) was a forestalling of immediate judgment on them to allow the possibility of repentance and true reconciliation. The only ‘redemptive forgiveness’ in that passage is to the thief on the cross who responded to Jesus with repentance and faith. Ibid.

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