3 The Mighty God
3
The Mighty God
His name is “Mighty God,” and this takes care of the demands of life. “For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name” (Luke 1:49).
The history of mankind has been the story of the discovery and application of power. First it was manpower, then horsepower, then steam power and electric power, and now atomic power. Each step on the “power path” has enriched mankind materially and financially, but it’s doubtful that we are any richer spiritually. We’re able to harness the powers of the universe, but we can’t control ourselves or keep selfish people from destroying the world and its people. We’re still weaklings when it comes to the things that matter most. I’m sure some future historian will call the last half of the twentieth century “The Age of Power and Weakness.”
The basic power needed today is spiritual power, and the source of that power is Jesus Christ. He is the “Mighty God.”
He Is God
The fact that Jesus Christ is called “Mighty God” indicates that he is God. Leo Tolstoy wrote: “I believe Christ was a man like ourselves; to look upon him as God would seem to me the greatest of sacrileges.” And yet Jesus claimed to be God. He dared to say, “That all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23). At the close of his sermon on the Good Shepherd, Jesus said boldly, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). The people present understood this statement to be a clear claim to deity, and they responded by picking up stones to stone him!
Near the close of his public ministry, just before his death on the cross, Jesus cried out, “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me” (John 12:44–45). He told Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In plain, simple language Jesus Christ claimed to be God.
Those who knew him affirmed that he was God. The apostle John identified Jesus as “the Word” and wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Thomas fell before Jesus in worship and exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), and Jesus didn’t correct him. If any man opposed the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was God in the flesh, it was Saul of Tarsus. When he met Jesus, however, the zealous rabbi changed his mind and was for the rest of his life a witness to the deity of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote concerning his nation, Israel, “Of whom are the fathers, and from whom according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen” (Rom. 9:5). Titus 2:13 says, “Looking for that blessed hope, and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
A member of a cult that denies the deity of Christ challenged me one day with, “You can’t find one verse in the Bible that calls Jesus ‘God’!” I turned to Hebrews 1:8: “But to the Son He says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.’” The man’s only reply was to refer me to another translation that obviously twisted the original language in order to support false doctrine.
Referring to Jesus Christ, the apostle John writes: “This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). You don’t have to be a Greek scholar to understand that statement. Jesus claimed to be God and accepted that claim from the lips of others. He accepted worship as God. He also claimed to do things that only God can do, such as forgive sins (Luke 7:49).
The names that he bears affirm his deity. The very name “Jesus” means “Jehovah is salvation”; while many people in his time bore that name (in tribute to the great leader Joshua), Jesus actually lived up to it. He said to Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house. . . .” (Luke 19:9). Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic, and the religious leaders exclaimed, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7).
One of his names is “Immanuel” which means “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). The angel identified him to Mary: “that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Mary was the one witness who could have saved Jesus from the cross. Yet she stood at the cross and made no protest. If Jesus was not God, why was Mary silent?
Since Jesus is God, he deserves our faith, love, obedience, service, and worship. “Because He is your Lord, worship Him” (Ps. 45:11). To reject Christ is to reject God, and to reject God is to reject life. “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life: and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). “After six years given to the impartial investigation of Christianity,” wrote General Lew Wallace, author of Ben Hur, “as to its truth or falsity, I have come to the deliberate conclusion that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of the Jews, the Savior of the world, and my personal Savior.”
Jesus cannot be avoided; we must face the facts about him and decide. Isaiah says that Jesus is God. What do you say?
Christ’s Power Revealed
Not only is Jesus called God, but he is called the “Mighty God.” What a paradox that a babe in a manger should be called mighty! Yet even as a babe, Jesus Christ was the center of power. His birth affected the heavens and caused a dazzling star to appear. The star aroused the interest of the Magi, and they left their homes and made a long and perilous journey to Jerusalem. Their announcement about the newborn King unnerved Herod and his court. Jesus’ birth brought angels from heaven and simple shepherds from their flocks on the hillside. Midnight became midday as the glory of the Lord appeared to men.
We also see the mighty power of Jesus Christ in the creation of the universe. “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3). Obviously, then, he himself was not created since he made everything that was made. No statement in Scripture puts it more majestically than Hebrews 1:1–3: “God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
The apostle Paul agrees with this statement. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible. . . . All things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:15–16). What mystery: the Creator becomes a creature! He who fills all things becomes an infant in a cattle stall! The mighty God!
Not only does Jesus reveal his power in creation, but also in history. The Bethlehem promise tells us this: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2).
Old Testament history is the story of his goings forth. As Dr. A. T. Pierson used to put it, “History is His story.” No matter where you turn in the Old Testament record, you meet Jesus Christ. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day,” said Jesus to the Jewish leaders, “and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). Moses accomplished what he did because he esteemed “the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt” (Heb. 11:26). Before conquering the city of Jericho, Joshua met Jesus the commander one night and bowed before him in worship (Josh. 5:13–15). The three Hebrew children walked with him in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3:24–25). No wonder the Lord Jesus was able to teach those discouraged Emmaus disciples from the Old Testament, for it records his goings forth! “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27).
When he ministered here on earth, Jesus revealed himself as the “Mighty God” by the miracles that he performed. The very accomplishment of these works was evidence of his deity and left the beholders without excuse. “Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent” (Matt. 11:20). His fellow countrymen marveled “that such mighty works” were performed by his hands (Mark 6:2). And yet they failed to trust him! “Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them” (Mark 6:5).
His enemies argued that Christ’s power originated from Satan; but that was only an evasion of facts. He quickly demolished their argument. “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?” (Matt. 12:26).
Of course, the greatest act of power that he performed on this planet involved his death and resurrection. Paul prayed for the Ephesians (and for us) that they might know “what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:19–20). God raised Jesus from the dead “having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (Acts 2:24).
Not only did the Father raise Jesus from the dead, but Jesus raised himself from the dead! Speaking about his life, Jesus said, “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18). “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself” (John 5:26).
The miracle of his resurrection is central to his work of redemption. The gospel message says “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). His resurrection guarantees our redemption. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7).
It’s unfortunate that some of the pictures artists draw of Jesus (and no picture of him is authentic) depict him as something less than a man. Certainly he was meek, but meekness isn’t weakness. Meekness is power under control. He was lowly in heart, but he was able to make a whip of cords and drive the hypocritical money-changers out of the temple. His arrest and crucifixion appear to be experiences of weakness, and in one sense they are, but in a deeper sense, they reveal his mighty power. “For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God” (2 Cor. 13:4). No wonder Paul shouts, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).
Jesus Christ is God, and he is “Mighty God.” But what does this mean to us today who believe in him?
God’s Power in Us
His mighty power is available to us today. Here is the way Paul prays for people like us: “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy” (Col. 1:9–11).
Note the universals in that prayer: all wisdom, fully pleasing, every good work, all might. If God fills us with “all might,” then that makes us almighty! We are strengthened with all might! We have no problem believing that Jesus Christ is almighty, but to assign this attribute to his people—mere creatures of clay—is a great leap of faith. But it’s true: the almighty power of God is available to us through Jesus Christ. Salvation is not something that God begins and we finish.
Salvation is the work of God from start to finish. “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). On the cross, Jesus cried, “It is finished!” He provides a complete salvation. He didn’t “make the down payment” and expect us to keep up the installments! No, “It is finished!”
This means that God’s believing people can claim from Christ all that they need. “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19). But note that Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1 deals with the inner person, the character of the believer, and not the material or physical needs of life: “Strengthened with all might. . .for all patience and longsuffering with joy.” The almighty power of God is available to us through Jesus Christ so that we might develop Christian character and practice Christian conduct to the glory of God. Patience, longsuffering, and joy don’t come to our lives automatically; it takes spiritual power to produce this kind of godly character.
Paul himself is a good example of what the power of God can do in our lives. Paul was given a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7–10). We don’t know what it was, but we know that it was severe enough and painful enough for him to pray three times that God might take it away. Paul’s prayer seems logical. After all, he was an important man with a great work to do. Physical pain and weakness would only hinder his ministry.
As you read Paul’s account of this experience, you detect several levels of spiritual understanding. First, Paul tried to escape the thorn, but God refused to remove it. Then Paul determined to endure the thorn, but that was not the level that glorified God the most. Even an unsaved person can courageously endure pain. God’s grace moved Paul to a higher level: he accepted his pain, then learned to triumph in it! “Therefore most gladly I rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (v. 9). He learned to be enriched and empowered by the weakness that his handicap brought to his life. The secret? “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).
Only the grace of God can bring the power of God to our lives. Paul confessed it openly: “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10). God’s grace is channeled to our lives through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16). Through grace God does in and through us what we could never do for ourselves. Grace isn’t simply a supplement to our strength, for we have no strength of our own. Grace turns our weakness into power for the glory of God. “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). The reason many people don’t experience God’s power is because they’re too strong in themselves and won’t confess their weakness. God has to wait until they’re weak; then he can share his power with them.
The Bible contains many examples of this principle of weakness turned into strength. When Abraham was seventy-five years old, God promised to give him a son through whom a great nation would be built and the whole world blessed (Gen. 12:1–3). Ten years passed, and the son hadn’t yet been given. Abraham’s wife Sarah suggested that her husband take her handmaid, Hagar, and have a son by her; Abraham cooperated with the plan. Hagar did bear a son, but the whole enterprise was contrary to God’s will and led to serious family problems. God waited another thirteen years, until Abraham was ninety-nine years old, before he began to fulfill his promise. And when Abraham was one hundred years old, and his wife ninety, the son Isaac was born.
Romans 4:19–21 explains the great miracle: “And not being weak in faith, he [Abraham] did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 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.”
It was Abraham’s faith that released the power of God in his life. He didn’t look at circumstances or depend on personal feelings. He simply claimed the almighty power of God and God released his power and, as it were, raised Abraham and Sarah from the dead! God’s promises and God’s performances go together. “There has not failed one word of all His good promise” (1 Kings 8:56).
What God did for Abraham and Sarah he also did for Moses, Gideon, David, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and myriads of believing people whose names are found in the pages of the Bible and church history. God worked in them and through them, and they did exploits and brought glory to Christ. God is still looking for believing people who can become channels of his almighty power in a world that is characterized by weakness. “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chron. 16:9). A loyal heart doesn’t mean a sinless heart, for nobody alive has a sinless heart. It means a heart completely trusting in the Lord, a heart that is not divided in its loyalty. The Lord doesn’t entrust his power to those who will not trust him completely.
Whatever may be your burden or battle today, God has the power to meet it, handle it, solve it, and use it for your good and his glory. Jesus Christ is the “Mighty God” and his power is available to you. “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. . . .” (Eph. 3:20). Admit your own weakness, yield to him by faith, and receive his promised power.