It is important to see that God both considers and deals with society sins as well as individual sins. Not sufficiently is it pressed on attention, that he deals with the evils which are characteristic of aggregates of men - with sins of classes and of nations. It is in the necessary judgment of classes and nations as such that the innocent are wont to suffer with the guilty; and then the interest of the class must be seen to override the interests of the single individual. Society sins are much the same in every age. They are classed in this verse. They run riot when the religious restraint is weakened.

1. Religious deceptions.

2. Immoralities specially bearing on family life.

3. Untrustfulness in everyday relations. "False swearers."

4. Sweating the workman, and forcing down the wage of the labourer.

5. Taking advantage of the distressed to secure selfish advantage; the "widow, fatherless, and stranger."

How these sins corrupt society today may be unfolded according to the skill of the preacher. The prophets teach that whenever God manifests himself, he puts forth his power against society sins, and Malachi declares this to be one of the most marked characteristics of Messiah.

I. MESSIAH CUTS DOWN SOCIETY SINS AS BEING FALSE GROWTHS. The farmer will go into his meadows and cut down the coarse grass, which the cattle would not eat, and whose rank growth is crushing out the useful white clover. When a field is left uncultivated, and the good plants are left unnourished, there soon springs up a plentiful crop of weeds, groundsel, rag wort, and thistles, and if there is to be any reviving of profitable vegetation in that field, these rank growths must be cut down. Illustrate from our Lord's dealing with the society sentiment concerning rabbinism. With some society sins the same must be done now.

II. MESSIAH SEEKS TO CLEAR THE ROOTS OF SOCIETY SINS OUT OF THE SOIL. Cutting off is only a preliminary to rooting out. Presently the farmer ploughs up and harrows the soil, carefully gathering the roots for the burning. Malachi, in God's name, tried to get at the roots of the society evils of his day. He found them in the self-indulgence of the priesthood, and the self-seeking of the people. He prophesied that Messiah' would do the same work.

III. MESSIAH ENRICHES THE SOIL TO BEAR GOOD GROWTHS. We should never see Christ's work only on the negative side. It has two sides. To remove society sins is to give a chance for the nourishment of Christly-toned society virtues. - R.T.

God comes near to men when He manifests Himself to their spiritual consciousness. He may do this by His truth, by the circumstances which He causes to surround them, or by the direct action of His Spirit. He often comes near to men to enlighten, strengthen, help, and save. He will come near to the wicked to judge and punish them. Observe —

I. THIS THREATENING WAS UTTERED AGAINST WORKERS OF INIQUITY. Jerusalem abounded with evil-doers. The wizards deluded the people with their arts, the adulterers lurked in the twilight for their prey, false witnesses perjured themselves for a bribe, the covetous robbed the hireling of his wages and defrauded the widow, the stranger, and the fatherless; all fear of God had departed from their eyes. Against these His anger burned. The righteous had nothing to fear from His judgments. His nearness was their joy. But the wicked would be filled with terror as His presence flashed through all their sheltering deceits upon their souls. Workers of iniquity may deny the existence of the God of judgment, but —

(1)He is a witness of all their deeds.

(2)His displeasure is awakened against them.

(3)He sends His servants to declare His certain judgment upon them.

II. THIS THREATENING WAS UTTERED BY HIM WHO IS THE SOLE JUDGE OF ALL MEN. God alone has the right to threaten judgment on men. He alone can judge men truly.

"What's done we partly can compute,

But know not what's resisted." — Burns.He knows all. He is the Creator of men. The evil-doer has violated His laws. His judgment will be just, final, and certainly executed. God threatens before He strikes. His judgment will be individual. He will come near to every man, and, in the light of the Divine presence, the evil of every man's life will be made manifest to himself, and he will feel the justice of the sentence passed upon him. The bitterness of the doom of the lost will be their consciousness that they have merited it. God's judgment on a man's completed life will fix his destiny God's eternal supremacy, absolute knowledge, inflexible justice, and spotless holiness constitute Him judge of all. It is He who threatens the sinner.

III. THIS THREATENING WILL BE CERTAINLY FULFILLED. Obstinate evil workers may close their ears to this solemn threatening, may make themselves callous by sophistries, may harden themselves in a false security by foolish infatuations, may abuse the Divine mercy that is reluctant to punish, yet judgment will certainly come upon them, to their dismay and destruction.

1. God's character ensures the fulfilment of this threatening.

2. History and human life are full of events that foreshadow its fulfilment.

3. The consciences of men in all countries have, in a measure, anticipated its fulfilment.

4. The Scriptures constantly reiterate this threatening, and declare that it shall be fulfilled.

5. The indication of God's administration over mankind requires its fulfilment. As Luthardt says: "Divine justice must have the last word. It has long suffered men — suffered sinners — to speak. But the last word will be its own; and this word must be a word of retaliation, for it is the word of a Judge."

IV. THIS THREATENING SHOULD AWAKEN REFLECTION, REPENTANCE, AND REFORMATION. The peril of the worker of evil is great and imminent. God's anger abides upon him. To the eye of his Judge his sins have no covering. God, who has loved him with infinite tenderness, must destroy him unless he repents. Repentance averts judgment. A reformed life, by the power of the Gospel of Christ, is the only means of escape from ruin. To those who turn from their iniquities God comes near to comfort, not to condemn.

(W. Osborne Lilley.)

There is no scene in history more full of moving pathos than that of Christ weeping over Jerusalem. The city was there right before His eyes in her matchless beauty. "He who has not seen the temple of Herod," said a contemporary rabbi, "does not know what beauty is." The Roman Pliny said, "By far the most glorious city not of Judaea only, but of the whole East, is Jerusalem." But as our Lord had seen through her religious ritual, so He sees through the splendour of her situation and her buildings the moral horror beneath. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, and ye would not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate." And so He pronounces over them that solemn prophecy of the degradation and destruction that were to come. True it is that the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem is also a prophecy of the moral end of all things. The destruction of Jerusalem is a type of that judgment with which God shall at last and in the end judge at their true moral value all human institutions. And the point is that Jerusalem was destroyed because she rejected Christ. That is an historical fact. I mean the temper which caused her final destruction was simply the same as the temper which caused her to reject Christ. She rejected Christ because of that narrow, self-satisfied Jewish pride which refused to allow her to admit the larger light. And it all happened naturally: you can read it in the pages of the modern historian — it all happened by natural laws, natural sequences. And yet it is — as in the mind of our Lord, so to the imagination of all time — the very type of what we mean by a Divine judgment upon a nation for her sin. I believe this in particular is our intellectual vocation and duty to-day, to realise that natural laws are God's methods, and that it is not the less but rather the more His working, because He works by ordinary sequences, and by what we call natural causes in the government of men as of the world. The old idea of a Divine judgment was of something arbitrary, violent, disconnected; a favourite type for judgment was an earthquake, because an earthquake is something which cannot be put into any connection with any works of men. God forbid that we should deny that there are judgments of this kind. If we admit evidence, which we ought to do, we must admit there have been miraculous acts of God, but this is not the normal way in which God acts. What we have to learn is that God is the God of order and of law, and that because He proceeds by natural law it is not less God, the moral Governor of the world, who is at work among us. A disease is a judgment, because it springs from our vices. We are continually confronted with it: we see it; perhaps at the particular moment we may see it with special emphasis. Diseases follow our vices, our lusts. The duty of four piety in this present day is to be taught by God to see into the hand of God, to search out what are the methods by which these things happen, to seek to stanch the sources of the evil, but always to recognise that as the source is moral so the only true and vital remedies. Our piety lies in recognising this. There are natural judgments that spring from moral causes; these are God's judgments. "Providence," a cynic remarks, "is to be observed generally on the side of the strongest battalions." Perfectly true! But the moral qualities of nations and of individuals have a remarkable power, as shown by history, to strengthen or to weaken the battalion in the long run. History is full of these things. We know the temper of the French aristocracy at the birth of the French Revolution. Carlyle has described it to us in a spirit which is really prophetic. We know their moral blindness, we know their selfishness, and we know the result. The French Revolution was no less a Divine judgment upon the aristocracy, upon the Church, because the instruments of it were very often reckless and godless and wicked men! There is no country which has for the traveller a greater pathos at the present day than Spain. And why? Because everywhere we see amid great natural beauty the traces of the Divine judgment. There is in the present nothing to stir any hope, any feeling of a prospect or of a future for that nation, but yet the very soil is strewn with the marks and the memory of great civilisation. We ask, "Why did she fall? " And the history is written, it was for moral qualities that she fell. They are discoverable; you can put your finger upon them and mark them in the pages of history. No doubt the world as it is at present presents to us no complete picture of the moral government of God, but at the end we know we shall see that God's government has detailed for each particular institution, as for each particular individual, a judgment according to righteousness and truth. When human history is wound up there shall be none who can fail to recognise that God is a God of judgment. But for the present it is not so. The eyes of those who believe in God are strained to see some indication of His moral government, and find it hard to trace them in the facts of the world. Prophets and psalmists call out, "How long, O Lord, how long! How long, holy and true?" but meanwhile the attitude of one who believes in the moral government of God is always the same. He looks out upon the world, and he expects God to govern not only individuals, but classes, nations, and institutions by natural laws, but with moral results. This he expects, and I ask you, Was there ever a time when there was greater need to remember this than there is now? In the government of nations, in their relations to one another, in the relations of classes, in the structure of society, in the dealing with institutions, there is a tendency to banish morals from politics and from commerce, and it seems as if, in spite of resistance, the tendency were augmenting. But look out upon our commerce. Think of it! The unblushing selfishness and unscrupulousness of the great companies and trusts, the unblushing prevalence of bribery under the name of commission, the scandalous lying and trickery in the details of retail trade! Well, then, if we believe in the moral government of God, we need not be prophets, we need not be able to discern with any certainty the tendency of things, or their outcome, but at least we anticipate and expect that in proportion to the deep and widespread character of this moral hollowness there will be judgment by natural law, a judgment of God. The chief way in which we can do any good socially, or look out with fresh eyes upon the great world outside us, is by attending to religion in our own souls, no doubt. There, too, let us think how God comes near to us in judgment. The penitent is ready to be punished. But you will say, "Of course, I know unrepented sin has to be punished, but then I am forgiven. Do you talk of punishing me, then?" Shall we never learn that lesson! Shall we always go on thinking and talking as if to be forgiven meant to be let off, as if Christ's atonement was suffering punishment in order that we might go scot-free? Christ made Himself the sacrifice for our sins in order that He might bring us nearer to God. We are indeed exempted from that which is the truest and deepest and most terrible punishment — the alienation from God, and all that that involves, the gnawing worm, the devouring fire, which sin is — from that, indeed, He delivers us in bringing us near to God, but from the punishment which lies in bearing the consequences of sin there is not one word in the New Testament which would lead you to suppose that you were to be exempted. On the contrary, He has brought you into that new relation to God in order that you may learn how to bear it. For judgment, whether on nations or on individuals, need not be final judgment. The great multitude of Divine judgments are His deepest and most effective corrective agencies. Oh! let us learn that lesson. There is the purpose of God the Father with regard to the world — a large purpose, an eternal purpose, a wise purpose. There is only one hindrance to that purpose of God, but it is deep and wide and terrible: it is the hindrance of sin in individuals, in classes, in nations. Sin may run to the point when it passes beyond the Divine law, but God will do His utmost, and among His most effective instruments are the instruments of judgments. Judgments are intended to purify. The first thought of judgment or of misfortune ought, to the Christian conscience, to be this, "It is given to cleanse me. God is visiting me. I am to be purified. He punishes me because He has a purpose for me. To feel the hand of God is to know that I am to be dealt with to my eternal enrichment and blessedness."

(Charles Gore.)

Jacob, Levi, Levites, MalachiJerusalemAdulterers, Alien, Aliens, Almighty, Armies, Aside, Child, Defraud, Deprive, Draw, Drawn, Earner, Falsehood, Falsely, Fatherless, Fear, Foreigner, Haste, Hire, Hired, Hireling, Hosts, Judging, Judgment, Justice, Laborers, Making, Married, Oaths, Oppress, Oppressors, Orphan, Payment, Perjurers, Quick, Quickly, Rights, Says, Servant, Sojourner, Sorcerers, Strange, Stranger, Swear, Swearers, Swift, Testify, Thrust, Turn, Turning, Untrue, Wage, Wages, Widow, Widows, Witness, Wonder-workers1. Of the messenger, majesty, and grace of Christ.
7. Of the rebellion,
8. sacrilege,
13. and infidelity of the people.
16. The promise of blessing to those who fear God.

Malachi 3:5

     1125   God, righteousness
     4155   divination
     5350   injustice, hated by God
     5360   justice, God
     5361   justice, human
     5404   masters
     5414   money, stewardship
     5440   perjury
     5448   poverty, attitudes to
     5522   servants, work conditions
     5561   suffering, nature of
     5562   suffering, innocent
     5603   wages
     5730   orphans
     5743   widows
     6237   sexual sin, nature of
     6242   adultery
     8242   ethics, personal
     8791   oppression, nature of
     8810   riches, dangers

Malachi 3:2-5

     1025   God, anger of
     8786   opposition, to sin and evil

The Lord Coming to his Temple
Westminster Abbey. November, 1874. Malachi iii. 1, 2. "The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple. . . . But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's sope." We believe that this prophecy was fulfilled at the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that it will be fulfilled again, in that great day when He shall judge the quick and the dead. But it is of neither of these events …
Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

January 19. "Prove Me Now Herewith" (Mal. Iii. 10).
"Prove me now herewith" (Mal. iii. 10). We once heard a simple old colored man say something that we have never forgotten. "When God tests You it is a good time for you to test Him by putting His promises to the proof, and claiming from Him just as much as your trials have rendered necessary." There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

The Unchanging Lord
'I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.' MALACHI iii. 6. The scriptural revelations of the divine Name are always the basis of intensely practical admonition. The Bible does not think it worth while to proclaim the Name of God without building on the proclamation promises or commandments. There is no 'mere theology' in Scripture; and it does not speak of 'attributes,' nor give dry abstractions of infinitude, eternity, omniscience, unchangeableness, but lays stress …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

A Dialogue with God
'Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts. But ye say, Wherein shall we return?'--MALACHI iii. 7 (R.V.). In previous sermons we have considered God's indictment of man's sin met by man's plea of 'not guilty,' and God's threatenings brushed aside by man's question. Here we have the climax of self-revealing and patient love in God's wooing voice to draw the wanderer back, met by man's refusing answer. These three divine utterances taken together cover the whole ground of …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Last Word of Prophecy
'Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. 2. But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: 3. And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Stout Words,' and their Confutation
'Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord: yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against Thee? 14. Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts? 15. And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. 16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it; and a …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Lord Coming to his Temple
The LORD , whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple; even the messenger of the covenant in whom ye delight: Behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like a fuller's soap, -- and he shall purify the sons of Levi -- that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. W hereunto shall we liken the people of this generation? and to what are they like? (Luke 7:31) …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Immutability of God
"Great God, how infinite art thou, What worthless worms are we!" But while the subject humbles the mind it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. He may be a naturalist, boasting of his ability to dissect a beetle, anatomize a fly, or arrange insects and animals in classes with well nigh unutterable names; he may be a geologist, able to discourse of the megatherium and the plesiosaurus, and all kinds of extinct …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855

God's Jewels.
(Schools.) MALACHI III. 17. "They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels." There is a legend of old time which tells us how a certain Jewish Rabbi returned to his home after a long absence. His first question was--"Where are my boys?" for his wife had greeted him alone. Then, instead of answering her husband's question, the wife asked his advice. She told him that some years before someone had lent her something very precious, and she would know whether after …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

The Unchangeableness of God
The next attribute is God's unchangeableness. I am Jehovah, I change not.' Mal 3:3. I. God is unchangeable in his nature. II. In his decree. I. Unchangeable in his nature. 1. There is no eclipse of his brightness. 2. No period put to his being. [1] No eclipse of his brightness. His essence shines with a fixed lustre. With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' James 1:17. Thou art the same.' Psa 102:27. All created things are full of vicissitudes. Princes and emperors are subject to …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

All Manner of Precious Stones
Gerhard Ter Steegen Mal. iii. 17 There it is fair, Where thousand, thousand flames for evermore In God's high palace glow, No more they light the dark and misty shore, As long ago: They burn, a crown of every radiant stone, For ever and for ever round the throne, Christ's diadem. Eternal lamps that never can be dim, Fed by the golden oil that flows to them For ever from the Heart whence flowed the Blood, They shine with light of every precious gem, Light of the joy of God. Past, pain and sorrow, …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

They Shall He Mine, Saith the Lord. Mal 3:16-18
…
John Newton—Olney Hymns

The Fellowship of those who Fear the Lord. --Malachi iii. 16-18; iv. 1
The fellowship of those who fear the Lord.--Malachi iii. 16-18; iv. 1. When those who fear'd the Lord of old Met oft, and spoke with one accord, A book was written, and enroll'd Their faithful names before the Lord. They shall be mine, Jehovah said, And as a signet on my hand, A crown of glory for my head, Among my chosen jewels stand. And I will spare them in that day, Even as a father spares his son, When all the proud are swept away, The wicked, root and branch, undone. Then shall my righteousness …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

Whether this is True: "God was Made Man"?
Objection 1: It would seem that this is false: "God was made man." For since man signifies a substance, to be made man is to be made simply. But this is false: "God was made simply." Therefore this is false: "God was made man." Objection 2: Further, to be made man is to be changed. But God cannot be the subject of change, according to Malachi 3:6: "I am the Lord, and I change not." Hence this is false: "God was made man." Objection 3: Further, man as predicated of Christ stands for the Person of …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether it was Fitting for Christ to Ascend into Heaven?
Objection 1: It would seem that it was not fitting for Christ to ascend into heaven. For the Philosopher says (De Coelo ii) that "things which are in a state of perfection possess their good without movement." But Christ was in a state of perfection, since He is the Sovereign Good in respect of His Divine Nature, and sovereignly glorified in respect of His human nature. Consequently, He has His good without movement. But ascension is movement. Therefore it was not fitting for Christ to ascend. Objection …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether that Fire Will Engulf the Wicked?
Objection 1: It would seem that that fire will not engulf the wicked. For a gloss on Malachi 3:3, "He shall purify the sons of Levi," says that "it is a fire consuming the wicked and refining the good"; and a gloss on 1 Cor. 3:13, "Fire shall try every man's work," says: "We read that there will be a twofold fire, one that will cleanse the elect and will precede the judgment, another that will torture the wicked." Now the latter is the fire of hell that shall engulf the wicked, while the former is …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Sunday-School Hymns.
SHEPHERD OF TENDER YOUTH. [Greek: Stomion polon adaon] We are assured by repeated references in the patristic writings that the primitive years of the Christian Church were not only years of suffering but years of song. That the despised and often persecuted "Nazarenes," scattered in little colonies throughout the Roman Empire, did not forget to mingle tones of praise and rejoicing with their prayers could readily be believed from the much-quoted letter of a pagan lawyer, written about as long …
Theron Brown—The Story of the Hymns and Tunes

In the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles.
(October, a.d. 29.) ^D John VII. 11-52. ^d 11 The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he? [It was now eighteen months since Jesus had visited Jerusalem, at which time he had healed the impotent man at Bethesda. His fame and prolonged obscurity made his enemies anxious for him to again expose himself in their midst. John here used the word "Jews" as a designation for the Jerusalemites, who, as enemies of Christ, were to be distinguished from the multitudes who were in doubt …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Never Changing One.
"JESUS Christ the same yesterday, and to-day and forever" (Heb. xiii:8). Blessed truth and precious assurance for us poor, weak creatures, yea, among all His creatures the most changing; He changeth not. "For I am the Lord, I change not" (Mal. iii:6). "Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall all perish, but Thou shalt endure: yea all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed; …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The Sinner Sentenced.
1, 2.The sinner called upon to hear his sentence.--3. God's law does now in general pronounce a curse.--4. It pronounces death.--5. And being turned into hell.--6. The judgement day shall come.--7, 8. The solemnity of that grand process described according to scriptural representations of it.--9. With a particular illustration of the sentence, "Depart, accursed," &c.--10. The execution wilt certainly and immediately follow.--11. The sinner warned to prepare for enduring it. The reflection of a sinner …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant
"I give thee for a covenant of the people."--ISA. xlii. 6, xlix. 8. "The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in."--MAL. iii. 1. "Jesus was made Surety of a better covenant."--HEB. vii. 22. "The Mediator of the Better Covenant, established upon better promises . . . The Mediator of the New Covenant. . . Ye are come to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant."--HEB. viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24. WE have here four titles given to our Lord Jesus in …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

Troubles of Lingering at the Crossing
TROUBLES OF LINGERING AT THE CROSSING Some time ago I consecrated to God for entire sanctification and thought I was sanctified. Then I began to doubting whether I was wholly sanctified; so I consecrated again. This I have done a number of times; in fact, so many times that I don't know what to do. Can you help me any in this difficulty? I am in doubts about my consecration. I am as consecrated as I know how to be, yet there is a feeling of unreality and uncertainty about it that is distressing, …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

His Schools and Schoolmasters.
(LUKE 1.) "Oh to have watched thee through the vineyards wander, Pluck the ripe ears, and into evening roam!-- Followed, and known that in the twilight yonder Legions of angels shone about thy home!" F. W. H. MYERS. Home-Life--Preparing for his Life-Work--The Vow of Separation--A Child of the Desert Zacharias and Elisabeth had probably almost ceased to pray for a child, or to urge the matter. It seemed useless to pray further. There had been no heaven-sent sign to assure them that there was any …
F. B. Meyer—John the Baptist

Whether God is Altogether Immutable?
Objection 1: It seems that God is not altogether immutable. For whatever moves itself is in some way mutable. But, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit viii, 20), "The Creator Spirit moves Himself neither by time, nor by place." Therefore God is in some way mutable. Objection 2: Further, it is said of Wisdom, that "it is more mobile than all things active [Vulg.'mobilior']" (Wis. 7:24). But God is wisdom itself; therefore God is movable. Objection 3: Further, to approach and to recede signify movement. …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

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