‘Behold, the Lamb of God’s
ide o amnos tou
theou
College Study
22nd teaching
1.28.2013
The ‘Omni’ Doctrines:
“God’s Omnipotence”
Turn to Jeremiah
32:16-27
We’re going to examine the three doctrines of God known as
Omnipotence, Omnipresence and Omniscience. I’m going to refer to these triple
doctrines as the Omni-doctrines. There’s a fourth doctrine known as
Omnibenevolence, but we’ll address that later on as God’s goodness. Tonight,
though, we’re going to begin this three part series by addressing Omnipotence.
Now we saw the doctrine of Omnipotence in the passage we
just read. But Omnipotence is a very religious-sounding word, and often with
religious words we seem to lose what exactly the word means. We don’t want a
mystical, kind of vague understanding of the teachings of God, so tonight we
need to address just what this religious-sounding word means, where it came
from, what it means in the Bible and so on. We need to nail down what this
means.
Again, our goal in this college study is to know God and
thereby to love God, and to be able to share the truths of God with others. So
we need to have this concrete. We need to know what we’re talking about, and
there’s a specific danger of not knowing what you’re talking about when it
comes to religious-sounding words. It tends to get subjective, all fuzzy and
mystical, and so you have folks walking around saying that this or that is true
for them but maybe not true for you. No, it’s all or nothing. It’s true or
un-true. Truth or truth-not.
Thomas Aquinas,
13th century priest and theologian, wrote that while “all confess
that God is omnipotent… it seems difficult to explain in what God’s omnipotence
precisely consists.” In other words, a thinker like Aquinas found it difficult
to explain Omnipotence,
its definition and its extent.
So we want to hit FOUR points tonight, so we can get this
down correctly:
1. The definition of Omnipotence
2. The extent of Omnipotence
3. The Biblical basis of
Omnipotence
4. The Personal Value of
Omnipotence
1.
The definition of Omnipotence
As we just read in Jeremiah, the LORD God Almighty has said
“Is there anything too hard for me?”
He has asked if there be anything too difficult, too dangerous, too hard for
Him to accomplish. The implied answer is, Heck no.
This is where the doctrine of Omnipotence comes in.
Omnipotence comes from the Latin word Omnipotens,
which means “all-powerful”. In our English Bibles, the common translation is “almighty”.
In Revelation 19:6, the word
Omnipotent appears in the phrase “for the
Lord God omnipotent reigneth”. The English is translated of course from the
original Hebrew and Greek texts.
Literally, Omnipotence means that God has unlimited power.
There is nothing which is too hard for God to do. Case in point found in Genesis 17:1-8.
Abram,
later renamed Abraham, had his faith tested tremendously. God had told Abraham
that he was become the father of a numerous people, which of course meant that
Abraham needed children. But here, Abraham is ninety-nine years old and
childless. His wife too is really up there. They’re two old people. And yet God
said to them all these promises of descendants, while pre-staging the promises
with the statement “I am Almighty God”.
In the original Hebrew, the word for Almighty is the word shaddai. It literally means Most Powerful. That’s where we
get the name of God El Shaddai, which
means Almighty God.
So God was saying to Abraham “I’ve made these promises, but
I will keep them. Why? Because I am able to. Nothing is too hard for me. I am
Almighty God.” The basis for believing God’s promise was the fact of God’s
Omnipotence.
*In the New Testament, the Greek word pantokrator describes this teaching of God’s Omnipotence. See Revelation 1:8. The Almighty, that’s
the word pantokrator. It literally
means He who holds sway over all things,
the ruler of all, almighty.
So while the English word Omnipotence is never used by the
Bible, it certainly has its own counterparts in Hebrew and in Greek, shaddai and pantokrator. These words form the teaching of God’s all-powerfulness,
His Omnipotence.
Now we know what Omnipotence is: all-powerful and almighty. But we must couple
the definition with our next point…
2.
The extent of Omnipotence
Critics and atheists sometimes believe they have found
God’s omnipotence to be contradictory and self-defeating. There’s an old
question known as the Omnipotence Paradox, that goes: “Can God make a rock too big that even He
cannot lift it? If He can, then the Rock is now cannot be lifted, limiting
God’s power. But if He cannot, then God is still not all-powerful because He
cannot create that rock.”
So is there a contradiction in omnipotence? What is the
extent of God’s power, and if it has an extent, doesn’t that imply that it has
a limit?
After all the Bible says in Matthew 19:26 that “with God
all things are possible.” But if all things are possible for God, how can
His own Word also say that He cannot do certain things. Hebrews 6:18 says it is impossible for God to lie. II Timothy 2:13 says that God cannot deny Himself. In Matthew 23:37, Jesus cries out over the
city “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who
kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to
gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but
you were not willing!” God desired to gather the children of Jerusalem to
Himself, but He could not force them to.
If God cannot do something, doesn’t that mean that God is
not all-powerful after all?
C. S. Lewis, in his book the Problem of
Pain, wrote: “His Omnipotence means power to do all that is
intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may
attribute miracles to him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If
you choose to say ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time
withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless
combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix
to them the two other words ‘God can’… It remains true that all things are
possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but
nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His
creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because
His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we
talk it about God.”
What Lewis said in short was that saying that if Omnipotence
allows God to do the logically impossible it is nonsense, even nonsense for
God. Impossible is
impossible. An action which is in itself contradictory, such as telling a
true-lie, is impossible for God to do. Not that this limits His power, because
God can do all things, but contradictory actions do not exist, and are, as
Lewis says, nonentities.
And for God to lie or to deny His own nature would be
contradictory, a logical impossibility, a nonentity which cannot exist and
which therefore God cannot do.
Norman Geisler,
the modern apologist, writes: “…omnipotence does not mean that God can do what
is contradictory.” Again, to use C. S. Lewis’ terms, that would be nonsense.
And nonsense is nonsense even for God. Geisler also says “Further, omnipotence
does not mean that God must do all that He can do. It simply means that He has
the power to do whatever is possible, even if He choose not to do some things.
God is free not to use His omnipotence whenever He desires…”
Lest we come to think that this is a triumph of modern
theology, consider this quote from a man named Origen. Origen Adamantius was an early church
Christian writer, who died circa 253AD. He said “We do not back ourselves into
a most absurd corner, saying that with God all
things are possible. For we know how to understand this word all. It does not refer either to things
that are non-existent or that are inconceivable. For example, we maintain that
God cannot do what is disgraceful, for then He would be capable of ceasing to
be God. For if He does anything that is disgraceful, he is not God.”
So the actual extent of Omnipotence is without limit. God
remains unlimited in His power, while at the same time being unable to do what
is inconceivable. And the inconceivable is the illogical, the unreasonable and
the contradictory. God cannot lie because God is truth. God cannot cease to
live because He is life. God cannot make a Rock bigger than Himself because
there is nothing bigger than His own infinity.
Omnipotence
means that God can do whatever is actually possible to do. He cannot make a
square triangle, for example. That’s a contradiction.
Don’t get all hung up with non-believers over the subject
of God’s omnipotence. God can certainly do anything, since a contradiction is
nothing at all. God can work miracles, but not nonsense.
3.
The Biblical basis of
Omnipotence
An American pastor by the name of Tony Campolo is quoted as
having said “Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is
omnipotent. On the one hand, he is technically correct. As we’ve already seen,
the Bible never uses the word omnipotent.
But on the other hand, if this pastor is suggesting that the doctrine of God’s
omnipotence is unbiblical, he isn’t just technically wrong. He is very wrong.
That’s just bad theology.
We’ve already seen the words shaddai in Hebrew and pantokratos
in Greek express this doctrine of God being Almighty, as being
all-powerful. But besides these words, Scripture is absolutely full of
declarations of God’s power. Allow me a brief selection of them. (volunteers
read?)
Psalm 115:3
Isaiah 43:13
Jeremiah 49:19
Daniel 4:35
One of my favorite passages on the power of God is
in the book of Job.
Turn to Job 38. Job was a righteous,
upstanding guy who suddenly suffered a whole lot, and most of the book of Job
is occupied by Job’s discussion with his three friends on the nature of his
suffering and the nature of pain and the nature of God.
Eventually, Job clings to his own righteousness as his
defense, implying that God has wronged him. At the end of the book, God Himself
addresses Job as a voice from a whirlwind. What God says to Job forms some of
the most eloquent Scriptures on God’s sovereignty, supremacy and sheer,
unequaled power.
Read Job 38.
And it goes on. Pretty humbling. If Job, or if anyone,
should think that they were greater than God, they would not think so after
reading these words. God alone in His power can do these great things.
So, the power of God is biblical, it’s epic and it’s in the book.
4.
The Personal Value of
Omnipotence
Let’s summarize what we know thus far: Omnipotence is not
word used in the Bible but it is implied in the clear teaching of God being
Almighty. The Omnipotence of God means that God is able to do anything,
anything which it is actually possible to do in reality. God cannot perform
actions which are self-contradictory
or actions which will contradict Himself. Therefore, God can create ex nihilo, out of nothing, He can move
stars, shake mountains, tear down nations and even redeem the most wretched
sinner. But though God can do these things, God cannot lie, cannot deny
Himself, and cannot cease to be Himself.
Now, when we come to this last point of the Personal Value
of Omnipotence, I mean to address whatever application we can gain from this
doctrine. Let’s for a moment, jump to another subject.
Charles Darwin
once said “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would
have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their
feeding with the living bodies of Caterpillars.”
Now what Charlie there addressed is the great Problem of Evil, or
the Problem of Pain, as C. S. Lewis so entitled his book. The Problem of Evil
does tie in with God’s Omnipotence.
For, if God is all-powerful, then He can defeat evil.
And if God is all-good, then He would defeat evil.
But evil exists.
Therefore God is not powerful or good or both, or He
doesn’t exist at all.
The Problem of Evil is a question which millions have on
their minds when they come to think about God. The Bible clearly says that God
loves and that God is all-powerful, as we’ve seen. But how could an Almighty
God of love allow, say, school shootings or natural disasters or wars that
claim the lives of millions?
John Stott
was an Anglican leader who once said “The fact of suffering undoubtedly
constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith, and has been
in every generation. [suffering’s]
distribution and degree appear to be entirely random and therefore unfair.
Sensitive spirits ask if it can possibly be reconciled with God’s justice and
love”.
So does the Problem of Evil defeat the doctrine of God’s
Omnipotence? How can God be all powerful and loving if evil exists at all? As
the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus posed: “If God both can and wants to abolish evil, then
how comes evil in the world?”
Consider that the present existence of Evil does not
guarantee the permanent existence of Evil. An all-good God would defeat evil,
and an all-powerful God can defeat evil, and evil as we know it is not yet defeated, therefore, evil will be
defeated.
The Problem of Evil is not really a problem, but a promise.
The Problem of Evil seen in this way turns out to be the Promise of Evil’s
Defeat.
See, God’s Omnipotence is a doctrine of His nature which closely relates to
His promises, specifically, whether He is able to keep His promises.
Geisler,
again, says “Omnipotence also provides us with assurance that God will keep His
Word, whether it is made in predictions about the future or promises to us in
the present. For example, an all-knowing God can predict the future, but only
an all-powerful God can perform what He predicts. Likewise, an all-loving God
can promise salvation, but only an all-powerful God can accomplish what He has
promised. In short, God’s predictions and promises are no better than His power
to perform them.”
In a nutshell, God’s Omnipotence is a proof of His
Faithfulness. Since God is all-powerful, each promise and prediction He makes
will become true, even as it applies to the so-called Problem of Evil.
Remember Abraham
whom we just talked about. His story is such a prime example. He was given
promises which seemed impossible and ridiculous. How could a man and a woman in
their nineties have a son? And yet they believed and they did have a son. Even
when God told Abraham to take that son and offer him as a sacrifice on a
mountain, we’re told that “by faith
Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the
promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said ‘In Isaac your
seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was ABLE to raise him up, even from
the dead…” (Hebrews 11:17-19).
Of Abraham we’re told in Romans 4:20 that
“He did not waver at the promise of God through
unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully
convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.”
At a hundred years old, Abraham believed that God could do
as He said He would do. Abraham was convinced that God is able. And Abraham was
not let down. So… are you so convinced?
Really all of this boils down to a question of faith, of
trust. We’ve seen the Scriptures. We’ve examined the logic. We’ve heard from
some of the best and brightest minds out of the past. But it comes down to
faith. Do you believe that God is able? Do you trust that God will complete His
work He began in your life? Do you trust that God is not willing that any
should perish when you think about your unsaved loved ones? Do you trust that
God works all things together for good when your life becomes dark, stressful
and troubled? Do you believe that God is so able?
Jude 24, “Now to Him who is ABLE to keep you from
stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with
exceeding joy…”
Let us pray that God may strengthen our faith.
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