Tchula Presbyterian Church.

What does it mean when in 1 Samuel and other places of Scripture that God repents or regrets doing something.  Well, the simple answer is: not the same thing as when we repent or regret something we have done.

We need to consider the facts, that we do know and are confident Scripture teaches clearly.  1) God knows all things, He is omniscient, and foreknows all things before creation in eternity past, because He has decreed all that will occur (Psalm 139) and 2) God does not change (Malachi 3:5, James 1:17).

With those clear Scriptures declaring to us what is true, now we may look into such passages as 1 Samuel 15:11, 35b which are more difficult to interpret or understand (This is the principle of interpretation commonly referred to as Scripture interprets Scripture, where hard passages to interpret/understand are interpreted using other easier-to-understand Scriptures which are clear).

Did God know that Saul would not obey Him?  Yes, before the foundation of the world.  Does that mean that God cannot have sorrow over those who sin against Him?  No.  He does have sorrow.  And yet that sorrow (or other ‘emotions’ that He has do not dictate or dominate what He does.  God is not passive).  You see that here.  God knows that Saul will not obey, yet He doesn’t change His plan.  He easily could have.  He’s not surprised at what Saul does, He is sovereign over him after all.  There is a bigger purpose, while God even knows that it will lead to His sorrow.  He still plans it the same way.  For what we know, for His glory.  A finite example might be if I spanked my son, then he runs away from home because he was spanked. I may feel sorrow over the situation because he ran away, but not because I spanked my son.  If the situation happened the same way again, I would still spank my son.  It was the right thing to do.  That is a finite example.  But maybe it helps you understand.

Basically what is being said is the following: We know God does not change, He is not ruled by passions/emotions as man is.  Nor doe God change or change His mind.  That being said, all of God’s attributes cannot be completely and thoroughly understood by man; therefore, by way of anthropomorphism, words like ‘repent’ and ‘relent’ and ‘regret’ and ‘changed’ were used by the biblical writers to express what God’s actions appeared like from the perspective of fallen man.

As Scripture is God’s Word to His people, it is like God is talking to us like we are babies.  Babies or little children can’t understand all the words you use as adults.  So you communicate to them with a ‘dumbed-down’ language that they can or might be able to understand at least in part or have some clue as to what is going on based on their own experience.  So when God is said to ‘repent’ what we need to remember is that God does not repent like we do (He is not human, He is God, all knowing, unchanging), but what He is being described as doing is ’something like repenting’ or ’something like having regret’.

I think two passages are quite clear as we close.  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 fulfill it?”  And from the same chapter itself: 1 Samuel 15:29, “And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for He is not a man, that He should have regret.”  I think that says a great deal being in the same chapter.  That God through Samuel doesn’t want you to get the wrong idea.  This isn’t a ‘regret’ like man, but it something like it where God knows all and does not change.