God the Father Almighty (Isaiah 40:9-31; Revelation 4-5)

It is common today to say something is powerful. We use the word to describe countries, military forces, politicians, businessmen, cars, computers, novels, storms, and many other things. Yet when we hear the word used we are also aware that in each area something or someone more powerful can come along, and usually does eventually. A person who claimed to have achieved a form of power or discovered a source of power that could never be improved would be treated with derision by everyone else.

Yet almost at the beginning of the Apostles Creed we read that God the Father is all-powerful. Here, in contrast to other claims about power the Christians are claiming that their God, as far as his power is concerned, can never improve. This has been the testimony of the Christian church down through the centuries. Of course, the church has also claimed that such power belongs to each person of the Trinity. So linking it here to the Father should not be read as denying it to the Son or to the Spirit.

God is unique - his power cannot change

The first detail to note about God the Father’s almightiness is that he has always been so. He did not develop into an almighty being through exercising some form of previous power. We are familiar with a muscular person who becomes even more powerful by training and usage. Such a development never took place within God. He was not more powerful after his work of creation than he was before it. The amazing truth is that he has always been almighty.

Connected to that amazing reality is the fact that he will always be almighty. Our God does not get tired. It was to this extraordinary truth that Isaiah called God’s people to observe and take comfort from during a period in which their weakness was obvious at the time of the Babylonian captivity. We too can take comfort from them: ‘Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.’ We too should remember that our God will always be almighty.

God is uniform – his power is never alone

Of course, we are not to think of God as almighty only. We have all seen strong people with very little intelligence or with no sense of compassion. It is not always appropriate to think of a divine attribute by itself because the Lord never acts merely according to one of his attributes. Here in the Apostles Creed God’s power is connected with his fatherhood, which reminds us that we can expect his power to be used in a fatherly way, or that his fatherhood will be exercised powerfully.

We can think of God’s power in connection with any of his other attributes. Two attributes, however, are usually mentioned alongside his power and they are his love and his wisdom. If a person is wise but has no power, then no one will get the benefit of his knowledge. If a person is loving but has no power, then no one will experience his love. But if a person is powerful without wisdom, then his strength can be used foolishly; and if a person is powerful without love, then his strength is expressed clinically and without feeling. But when a person is powerful, wise and loving, then we can expect him to do his best in a very caring way. And since God is all-powerful, all-wise and all-loving, we know that he will use his power in the best way he can and do so with love.

Moreover, God’s power will reveal itself in connection to what has been decided in the agreement or covenant in which the persons of the Trinity engaged before time. This agreement included the creation of the universe, the atonement for the sins of fallen humans by the Son, and the application of that salvation to them by the Holy Spirit, as well as all other benefits promised to them both in this life and in the next. Because that is the case, God could not have destroyed Adam and Eve after their fall because he had decided to bless some of their descendants.

Taking these details together, we can deduce three important aspects of his power. First, God is unimpressed by the combination of opponents, no matter who they are. We see an example of this in Psalm 2, which predicts the combined opponents who came together against Jesus and put him to death. The Lord’s response to their display of power was to laugh. Given that the combination included the military power of Rome and the ecclesiastical power of the Jews, we see that it was powerful. But in contrast to God’s power, it was weak.

Second, God is undeterred by the strength of the opposition. The opposition in the days of Jesus was impressive in a sense. Yet we also know that it would be straightforward for a modern military to defeat the ancient expressions of power. Today’s powers can do things that our ancestors could not have imagined. There is a danger that we as Christians may become so impressed by contemporary powers that we think God can no longer deal with them. Yet the truth is, he is more than able to defeat the ideas and displays of power that dominate our society. No matter how strong they get, they are still the equivalent of dust on a set of scales in God’s eyes. Their development is not a theta to his dominion.

Third, this fact is always true – God is unbeatable by the opposition. His power cannot be defeated. He did not lose even in some situations that initially give that impression, such as when Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and brought them and their descendants into his army. God was not defeated then, even if the devil imagined he had a victory. God remained in complete control, and revealed that he had his own purpose.

The revealing of God’s power

In order to help us understand God’s power, we can think of him revealing it in three ways: in the work of creation, in the works of providence, and in the provision of salvation. As far as his work of creation is concerned, we are told by him that he made it all by the power of his word. He commanded and it appeared. We do not even know the size of the universe he brought into existence. One thing we do know is that he could have made a far bigger universe if he had wanted. Yet the one that exists only appeared because of his great power.

When we speak about God’s providence, we are referring to his continual control of all events that happen in his creation, whether that is the physical universe we can see or the spiritual world we cannot see. His control is not limited to what he initiates or to what pleases him, but also includes whatever is thought or done against him by intelligent creatures as well as all the actions of lesser creatures, whether a fly or an elephant. He controls the elements, so we see his power in the warmth of a beautiful sunset, in the raging of the sea, or in the fury of a storm. No inferior power is independent of him and without him all of them could not do anything.

Of course, this raises the issue of why an all-powerful God allowed evil to show itself, and why he did not destroy it right away. Mind you, if he had destroyed Adam and Eve when they sinned, then none of us would exist because all of us are their descendants. Was it not an act of grace for God to let them live and seek his mercy? The suggestion that wants this world without evil does not take into account that such a world would not be the best world.

While we cannot explain why it is so, we know that the way God has selected is the best way. We cannot see that now, but we will see it is so when the new heavens and new earth appear. In the meantime he calls on us to trust in him and to look ahead to the perfect world that is yet to come.

God’s almighty power is revealed in Jesus. His incarnation was brought about by the power of God, as the angel Gabriel informed Mary before she conceived (Luke 1:35). We can read about the power of God that was displayed in the miracles that Jesus performed by the Holy Spirit. The power of God is also revealed in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Only God has the power to raise the dead. He gave power in other situations when dead persons were raised, but these eventually died. In contrast, the resurrection of Jesus revealed God’s power in very different way because he was raised in order never to die again.

Another way in which God shows his power is through the gospel. Paul explained to his Roman leaders why he was not ashamed of the gospel: ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek’ (Rom. 1:16). The apostle had seen how the message about Jesus and what he did at the cross changed the lives of countless people as he had spread the gospel among the various peoples he had met. From one point of view, the gospel message seems so insignificant among all the messages vying to be heard. Yet those who respond to it discover its power.

Connected time wise to the power of God that accompanies the gospel message is the expression of divine power that is at work within believers, a power that brought them from death to life and continues to transform them. Paul likens those expressions of power to what was revealed by God when he raised Jesus from the dead (Eph. 1:19-23). Peter assures his readers that God’s power has given them everything they need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).

Responding to God’s power

Some people respond to the reality of God the Father’s omnipotence by raising what they imagine are scenarios that would deny his existence. For example, they can ask if God could make a stone so big that he could not lift it, which is an absurd question because it assumes that God’s power is like that of a weightlifter. As we have seen, God’s power always works with his other attributes, such as wisdom and love and holiness, and is not to be treated as a show for our benefit. Instead it always is engaged in his glory.

First, we should praise God for his power specifically. When we praise a person, we mention the good things he has done or the accomplishments he has achieved. If we did not indicate why we were praising him, we would not communicate any meaning. Merely to say about him, ‘I praise him,’ would be to focus on you and not on him. Something similar can happen with regard to God if we don’t say why we are praising him. So we should be specific when we describe his praises.

Second, we should be encouraged to pray because the Hearer of prayer is almighty. God can refuse to answer a prayer, but that is not a sign that his power is limited. Instead it is a reminder that he is sovereign. Yet normally he wants us to ask him to keep his promises. We honour him when we do so. The Lord is not reluctant to exercise his power, therefore we should pray.

Third, the almightiness of God should give us hope for the future. Even in this life we know that in a situation of conflict the most powerful will eventually win. In a far higher sense, it is true with regard to the future of God’s kingdom. Although his cause is smaller in Scotland today than in previous times, God still possesses unlimited power. He will always be in control.

Fourth, we should be willing to trust the all-powerful God. Jesus, on one occasion, reminded his disciples that no one could take them out of his Father’s hands. Those who belong to his family are safe for ever. Sin will not defeat them totally, death will not defeat them totally, and the devil will not defeat them totally, even although they sin, fall into temptation, and one day will die. These are powers, but they are under the authority of God. When we die, we will experience the power of God taking us to heaven; at the resurrection we will experience the power of God restoring us to life.