The Omni’s
Most of you probably know the 3 Omni’s – Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence. There’s actually a 4th one – Omnisapience. Omni means “all”.
I’ll quickly define them:
Omnipotence: all powerful.
Omniscience: all knowledgeable
Omnipresence: all – always present
Omnisapience: all wise
The Bible doesn’t contain those words specifically, but from Genesis to Revelation, the Divine Author makes all these abundantly clear as we’ll see. Today’s blog post is on God’s omnipotence.
OMNIPOTENCE.
Almighty God is powerful! John Frame, in his essay on the 3 first Omni’s defines it this way: “God has complete and total control over everything”. Mark Jones’s definition is: “God possesses unlimited power as the Infinitely Powerful One, which explains why the Bible uses ‘Power’ as a proper name for God.”
Mark 14:62: “And Jesus said, “I Am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”” (ESV)
There are no limits on His power ~ He will do what He decides to do. God’s power throughout Scripture is evident wherever you look. Start with Creation. Just a spoken word and something comes into existence. “Let there be light, and there was light.” Can there be anything or anyone more powerful than this? The omnipotent God created everything out of nothing! “ex nihilo”. There is no such thing as hard work for God. It’s just as easy for God to create the cosmos as it would be for Him to create a grain of sand. Jones writes, “God’s power refers to that force or ability by which He acts. He can do whatever He pleases!
Let’s look at some Scripture:
Psalm 115:3 ~ “Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases.”
Isaiah 55:11 ~ “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Jeremiah 32:17 ~ “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.”
Genesis 18:14a ~ “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
The attributes of God are codependent. Including His sovereignty. R.C. Sproul once said, “If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.” Melissa Henley followed this up in the magazine TableTalk by Ligonier ministries with “Here’s the good news: there are no rogue molecules. Nothing can touch us that hasn’t first come through His hands”. He knows every hair on our heads, He causes the rise and fall of rulers and kingdoms, He orders and sustains everything in the infinitely vast cosmos! He controls and has power over each person’s life ~ of all the trillions of people that have ever existed to those not yet in existence ~ as Psalm 139 says He knits every person in the womb. He decides when and where each person is born, when we will come and go, sleep or awake. And most of all, our salvation is entirely the work of God’s power! It’s His prerogative and choice from beginning to end. Just ponder all of this and be awed by the infinite power of God!
Jones also quotes Charnock. “God’s power is like Himself: infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; it can neither be checked, restrained, nor frustrated by the creature.” His power = His being! God doesn’t just HAVE power, He IS power…. just as with all His other attributes. His essence and His power are one and the same. In God’s aseity we see that because God is self-sufficient, self-existent, so His power must be self-sufficient. God doesn’t draw His power from anyone or anything. His power is “originally and essentially in the nature of God, and not distinct from His essence.” (Charnock).
Theologians separate God’s power into absolute power and ordained power.
Absolute power meaning that what God is capable of doing, He doesn’t necessarily do.
Ordained power is what God actually does and has decreed according to His will and also then accomplishes it.
Matthew Barrett in “None Greater”, says God’s absolute power refers to God’s ability to do all things, including those things that God, for any variety of reasons, chooses not to do. God’s ordained power refers to those things that God has ordained, decreed and willed to do. And it’s part of His absolute power.
Why bring this up? Surely you’ve heard some of the challenges to God’s omnipotence:
- Can God create a rock so big He cannot lift it?
- Can God lie?
- Can God create another being who is equally unlimited in power?
Barrett forces us to conclude that we are looking at God’s omnipotence “upside down”. He suggests we ask the opposite: If God could do these things, would it be a display of impotence rather than omnipotence?
Think about it. If you understand WHO GOD IS, His character or attributes, you’ll see the contradiction:
“For God to do anything that would violate His other attributes does not complement,
His power but destroys it.”
Non-acts can be displays of power as well. His power is just as powerfully manifested in what He cannot do as what He can do! God cannot act in any way that would compromise His holiness! Or His justice. Or His goodness. Or His truth. Jesus could easily have made stones turn into bread – but he chose not to in order to obey His Father.
Jesus Christ showed both absolute and ordained power in His life and ministry – right through His resurrection and ascension. When Peter cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Jesus said to him in Matthew 26: 53 ~ “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and He will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”
Jesus could have saved himself from God’s wrath on the cross by coming down off it. But he didn’t because of his ordained power to act according to his purpose.
Some will ask the question: “Doesn’t God act through others when He exercises His power?” Yes, but that’s because He chooses to do so, He doesn’t have to.
I love how Barrett describes God’s power as an infinite and eternal power. And that He cannot stop being as omnipotent as He always has been and always will be! No limitations.
In his chapter on God’s omnipotence, Barrett tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar – the “king who ate grass” to describe God’s power. This king’s power, at that time, was power incomparable to any other king on earth ~ and here he was, on all fours, eating grass. God was humbling him – and showing him AND us that our King is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnisapient. God has mercy on Nebuchadnezzar and restores his sanity – and his repentance is seen in his prayer:
“And I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever, for His
dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will
among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His
hand or say to Him, “what have You done?””
Barrett says, “His lordship is universal in its scope and exhaustively meticulous in His control, extending to events as colossal as the crucifixion of Jesus (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28), and as small as apparently “random” or “chance” occurrences, like the casting of lots in the story of Jonah. (Jonah 1:17). Prov 16:33 “The lot may be cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Such sovereignty had to mean that the God I worshipped is not merely powerful, he is all-powerful. He is omnipotent.”
Congratulations if you’re still with me!! One more aspect of God’s omnipotence that is worth knowing about.
In his “Reformed Dogmatics”, Herman Bavinck shows God’s power in His names! It’s impossible for me to summarize what this incredibly wise and well written theologian says, so here are his words:
“God is omnipotent in His sovereignty. Names such as El, Elohim, El Shaddai and Adonai indicate His power: He is the mighty King and Lord over all. All His works proclaim His omnipotent power. He is further called “great and terrible” (Deut 7:21), the “Mighty One of Israel” (Isa 1:24), the “great and mighty God whose Name is Yahweh of hosts” (Jer 32:18), “strong and mighty” (Ps 24:8), “the Lord” (Matt 11:25; Rev 1:8, 22:5).
In the New Testament, He is “the great King” (Matt 5:35; 1 Tim 1:17), “the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim 6:15; Rev 19:16), “the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor 6:18; Rev 1:8; 4:8, 11:17), “the only Sovereign” (1 Tim 6:15).”
Powerful acts of God seen in creation, providence, the exodus, nature with its laws, the history of Israel with all its marvels – all loudly and clearly telling us of God’s omnipotence!
And to Job, God has many things to say – in question form – of His power! I could quote chapters 38-41, but I won’t. Go read it yourself. And marvel at God’s omnipotence!
Finally, we should consider how God’s omnipotence needs to affect our lives specifically.
God’s omnipotence should produce in us an unshakeable hope! Hope in God. In the eternal, unseen God of the cosmos. Hope in the coming of the New Heaven and New Earth when Jesus returns!
And ~ something that I personally need to take to heart each and every day, is that if we really believe in God’s almighty power – it should lead us into a greater and deeper trust in Him. If our God is that powerful, how can we not trust Him with our lives? How can we not totally surrender to Him knowing that He will always meet our needs?
Sit in the magnificence of God’s omnipotence. Revel in His power. Be humbled. Look at Creation all around us – marvel at the grandeur of the mountains, and the petals of a tulip. Wonder at the intricacies of our bodies. And know how our Omnipotent God is Sovereign, in control, orders and sustains all – for His glory!
Resources used:
John Frame’s essay “Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience”.
Matthew Barrett’s book “None Greater”.
Mark Jones’ book “God Is”
Julie Manning’s article “God is Omnipotent”
Herman Bavinck’s “Reformed Dogmatics”
Theology Musings 