Psalms 102:27

Even in the case of our own soul, when we say that it cannot die, we do not predicate weakness of it, but we proclaim its capacity of immortality. And similarly when we confess the immutability, impassibility and immortality of God, we cannot attribute to the divine nature change, passion or death. Suppose they insist that God can do whatever he will, you must reply to them that he wishes to do nothing that it is not his nature to do. He is good by nature; therefore he does not wish anything evil. He is just by nature; therefore he does not wish anything unjust. He is true by nature; therefore he considers falsehood abominable. He is by nature immutable; therefore he does not admit of change. If he does not admit of change, he is always in the same state and condition. This he himself asserts through the prophet: "I am the Lord; I change not." And the blessed David says, "You are the same, and your years shall have no end." If he is the same, he undergoes no change. If he is naturally superior to change and mutation, he has not become mortal from immortal or passible from impassible, for had this been possible he would not have taken on him our nature. But since he has an immortal nature, he took a body capable of suffering, and with the body a human soul. Both of these he kept unstained from the defilements of sin and gave his soul for the sake of the souls that had sinned and his body for the sake of the bodies that had died. And since the body that was assumed is described as the body of the very only-begotten Son of God, he refers the passion of the body to himself.

Perhaps by the heavens we here may understand, without being far-fetched, the righteous themselves, the saints of God, abiding in whom God has thundered in His commandments, lightened in His miracles, watered the earth with the wisdom of truth, for "The heavens have declared the glory of God." But shall they perish? Shall they in any sense perish? In what sense? As a garment. What is, as a garment? As to the body. For the body is the garment of the soul; since our Lord called it a garment, when He said, "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" [Matthew 6:25] How then does the garment perish? "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." [2 Corinthians 4:16] They then shall perish: but as to the body: "But You shall endure."...Such heavens therefore shall perish; not, however, for ever; they shall perish, that they may be changed. Does not the Psalm say this? Read the following: "They shall all wax old as does a garment; and as a vesture shall Thou change them, and they shall be changed." You hear of the garment, of the vesture, and do you understand anything but the body? We may therefore hope for the change of our bodies also, but from Him who was before us, and abides after us...."But You are the same, and Your years shall not fail" [Psalm 102:27]. But what are we to those years with these beggarly years? And what are they? Yet we ought not to despair. He had already said in His great and exceeding Wisdom, "I Am That I Am;" and yet He says to console us, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob:" [Exodus 3:6] and we are Abraham's seed: [Galatians 3:29] even we, although abject, although dust and ashes, trust in Him. We are servants: but for our sakes our Lord took the garb of a servant: [Philippians 2:7] for us who are mortal the Immortal One deigned to die, for our sakes He showed His example of resurrection. Let us therefore hope that we may reach these lasting years, in which days are not spent in a revolution of the Sun, but what is abides even as it is, because it alone truly Is.