Heb. 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, (yea) and for ever."
I have read all kinds of ridiculous mental gymnastics regarding this verse. "Christ never changes" is confidently affirmed until we get to Philippians 2 when He emptied Himself, or Luke 2 when He grew in wisdom, or John 4 when He was hungry and tired, or earlier in Hebrews when it says He learned obedience (chapter 5). Then the panic begins. How does the All-Mighty who created all things (Col. 1:16, John 1:3) get tired and hungry? How does the source of all wisdom (Job 28, 1 Cor. 1:24) need to learn wisdom? Or the Omniscient God need to learn anything? How is the God who cannot be tempted (James 1:13) tempted in all points like we are (Heb. 4:15)? What's more, Heb. 4:15 teaches that being tempted is what allows Jesus to be our perfect High Priest, which strongly implies that He wasn't able to be that High Priest until He was tempted, which clearly indicates that the temptation in some way changed Him.
If Hebrews 13 means that Jesus never changed in any way, then Paul is lying to us in Philippians 2. Emptying oneself is change. The Gospels, which speak to us of the omnipresent God as being in one place, the eternal God as being born and dying, the omniscient God as learning, and the omnipotent God as being tired, are all lies if Hebrews 13 means Jesus never changed. And here all the mental backflips begin. Maybe I'm just too simple minded but this doesn't seem that difficult to me. If my understanding of Hebrews 13:8 causes serious contradictions with the rest of revealed scripture, then my understanding of Hebrews 13:8 must be wrong. So, if Hebrews doesn't teach that Jesus never changed in any aspect at all, what is it teaching?
Let me ask you a question. Have you ever run into an old friend whom you haven't seen in 20-30 years and later told your spouse, "He hasn't changed at all!"? Of course he's changed! He lost most of his hair, what is left is gray, he weighs 80 pounds more than he did in high school and, when playing basketball, he can't get nearly as high off the court as he used to. He has changed, so why do you say he hasn't? His personality hasn't changed. His trustworthiness, his sense of humor, his loving nature hasn't changed. Or, for another example, if I were to become paralyzed from the waist down, would that necessarily change who I am? It would change my abilities quite a lot. No more running. The top shelf at the grocery store is now permanently out of reach, but those things shouldn't change whether or not I'm a good friend. The loss of physical abilities shouldn't change my devotion to God or love for His people. So, isn't it possible that Jesus could voluntarily undergo a reduction of abilities without it changing who He is? That He could even learn something from His experiences as a temptable man (Heb. 4:15) without it fundamentally altering His personality? We talk this way all the time about our friends, why can't we understand this simple concept when it refers to Jesus?
What is the purpose of Heb. 13:8? And of the plethora of passages that teach that God never changes? An example from my childhood might illustrate this idea. My dad was a great dad in most ways. Present and purposeful in our lives, he played with us, taught us about God, about work, and about being men. So, I mean no disrespect when I say he wasn't always easy to grow up under. For example, in two successive years we were doing the chore of clearing some brush from the property Mom and Dad still own. The first year, Dad told me to do it "this way". So, the next year we are doing the same job and I'm following the same instructions from the previous year when he begins to scream, "Why are you doing it that way? That is the stupidest way I can imagine anyone ever thinking to do that job?" I'm dumbfounded. He forgot what he had said, changed his mind about how it should be done without realizing it, and is now scolding me for doing this job his old way. There were times I was totally confused and didn't know how to proceed because Dad changed his instructions on a whim. We all could tell similar stories about bosses/spouses/parents who were inconsistent. And they could tell those stories on us as well.
And that is the importance of Jesus being "the same yesterday and to-day, (yea) and for ever." Could you imagine if God's instructions for serving Him changed without notice from year to year, or even month to month? If the priest was struck dead by a bolt of lightning for offering a lamb when God suddenly decided, without warning, that only a goat would do? We would all be cowering in fear, unsure of what would make our capricious god happy. Thanks be to God that He does not change, that His Son is the same forever! We can rely on His eternal nature. In this we can have peace.
Mal. 3:6 "For I, Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed."
Lucas Ward