OCTOBER 24, 2016

Why Does God Regret and Repent in the Bible?

Interview with John Piper

Topic: The Sovereignty of God

Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. Ryan, a podcast listener, writes in to say: Hello
Tony and Pastor John! I am a frequent listener of the podcast from Northern Ireland, and I find
all of the resources at desiringGod.org to be extremely helpful and insightful in my walk with
Christ. My question is about God regretting his decisions. Two times the Bible says that God
regretted something he had done in the past (Genesis 6:67; 1 Samuel 15:11). And in at least 15
places the Bible says he regretted, or that he might regret, something he was about to do in the
future (Exodus 32:1214; 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Chronicles 21:15; Psalms 106:45; Jeremiah
4:28;18:8; 26:3, 13, 19; 42:10; Joel 2:1314; Amos 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:910; 4:2). I stumble over the
idea of a sovereign God regretting something, as though he would do it a different way if given
another chance. What would you say to Ryan?
This is a huge and important issue. Back in the mid-1990s, I was embroiled in disputes over
what is called Open Theism, which argues that God is open to the future in the sense that he
does not have exhaustive knowledge of what is coming in the future. And so, he is open-ended.
I regard that position as profoundly wrong, unbiblical, dishonoring to the Lord, and
undermining to the gospel and to Gods purposes in the world.
So, you can see why I was embroiled in this controversy. One of the arguments used by open
theists is that there are passages in the Bible where God regrets or repents as the old King
James says what he has done and, therefore, must not have been able to foresee what
would come of his decisions. Otherwise, he would not have done them if he really regrets
them.
Ryan, in asking this question, has mentioned two of these: Genesis 6:67 and 1 Samuel 15:11.
So what I am going to do is take just one of those, 1 Samuel 15:11, because I think if we can
show how one is explained, then other passages in the Bible fall into place as well. When Saul
disobeys Samuel, God says, I regret or, King James, I repent that I have made Saul king,
for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. That is
1 Samuel 15:11. So, some have argued, as I said, that, since God repents or regrets making him
king, therefore, if he had it to do over again, he wouldnt because he couldnt see what was
coming. Else, why would he repent or regret if he knew in advance the consequence of his
decision and chose to do it anyway?
Now, I dont think that is a compelling argument against Gods foreknowledge his complete,
exhaustive foreknowledge of what was going to come of Saul and for several reasons. I will
just mention a couple. One has to do with the complexity of Gods emotional life. And the other
has to do with the context in 1 Samuel 15 where I think the writer explicitly does something
to keep us from drawing a wrong conclusion about Gods foreknowledge.
So, the first problem with that view is that it assumes God could not or would not lament over
a state of affairs that he himself chose to bring about. But that assumption, I think, is not true
to experience and not true to the Bible. And more importantly, Gods heart is capable of
complex combinations of emotions infinitely more remarkable than ours. He may well be
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capable of lamenting over something he chose to bring about. And God may be capable of
looking back on the very act of bringing something about and lamenting that act in one regard,
while affirming it as best in another regard. Here is an example from my experience. See if this
helps.
If I spank my son for blatant disobedience and he runs away from home because I spanked
him, I may feel some remorse over the spanking not in the sense that I disapprove of what I
did, but in the sense that I feel some sorrow that the spanking was necessary and part of a
wise way of dealing with my son in this situation, and great sorrow that he ran away. If I had
to do it over again, I would still spank him. It was the right thing to do, even knowing that one
consequence would be alienation for a season. I approve the spanking from one angle, and at
the same time I regret the spanking from another angle. If such a combination of emotions is
possible for me in my finite decisions, it is not hard for me to imagine that Gods infinite mind
the infinite complexity of Gods emotional life would be capable of something similar or
even more complex.
But most important is the context of 1 Samuel 15, not just my effort to imagine Gods
emotional life. Verse 11: I regret or repent that I have made Saul king. Then, as if to
clarify and protect us from misusing verse 11, he says in verse 29 so, this would be 18
verses later The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret [or repent], for he is not a man,
that he should have regret [or repent]. Now, the point of the verse seems to be that, even
though there is a sense in which God does repent it says so in verse 11: he did there is
another sense in which he does not repent in verse 29. Its the same word in Hebrew. He does
repent. No, he doesnt repent.
And the difference would naturally be that Gods repentance happens in spite of perfect
foreknowledge and that is what it means to be God while most human repentance
happens because we lack foreknowledge. Gods way of repenting is unique to God. God is not
man that he should repent, the writer says, meaning God is not man that he should repent as a
man repents in his ignorance of the future.
For God to say, I feel sorrow that I made Saul king is not the same thing as saying, I would
not make him king if I had to do it over. Oh yes, he would. God is able to feel sorrow for an act
in view of foreknown evil foreknown pain and sorrow and misery and yet go ahead and
do it for wise reasons. And so, later when he looks back on the act, he can feel that very
sorrow for the act that he knew was leading to the sad conditions, like Sauls disobedience.
One of the great implications of all of this is that when God makes a promise to us, he does it
with complete foreknowledge of all the future circumstances and is, therefore, never caught
off guard by anything. And so, his promises will stand according to his infinite wisdom.

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John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than
50 books, including A Peculiar Glory.

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