Beeke and Smalley: Repentance in God is only a change of his outward conduct, according to his infallible foresight and immutable will.

We may summarize our conclusions as follows. The Bible asserts that God repents, but it also denies that he repents, because he is not a man. Therefore, the language of divine repentance is analogical and anthropomorphic.

We may not ignore it, for repentance reflects an important truth about God: he changes the course of his actions toward people when they sin or repent of sin. Sin and repentance change our relationship to God. On the other hand, we must not apply to God the human instability or passion suggested by repentance, for the eternal God does not change, and neither do his plans.

Edward Leigh said that God’s repentance is “not affective but effective,” not an inward change in his thoughts and feelings but an outward change in his acts. Charnock said, “Repentance in God is only a change of his outward conduct, according to his infallible foresight and immutable will.”

Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 715–716.

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Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

The giving of the law did not effect a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but merely introduced a change in its external form. The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. Many of the Israelites, indeed, looked upon the law in a purely legalistic spirit and sought to base their claim to salvation on a scrupulous fulfillment of it as a body of external precepts. But in the case of those who understood its real nature, who felt the inwardness and spirituality of the law, it served to deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only from the grace of God . L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 498–499.

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The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...

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