Omnipotence

“Sovereignty and omnipotence go together. One cannot exist without the other. To reign, God must have power and to reign sovereignly, He must have all power.” –Tozer. This depends on a misconception of the idea of “sovereignty”, but we’ll discuss that when we get to that chapter.

The classic statement of omnipotence in the Bible is: “Nothing is impossible for God.” And that precisely defines what omnipotence is. It is not “God can do anything,” for this opens God up to the sophomoric statements like “Can God create a rock He cannot lift?” And then the theologian needs to then have alternative statements to make up for it. The most simplistic of statements about God’s power is this: God can do whatever He wants.

My favorite story about God’s omnipotence in the Bible is found in Numbers 11. The people of Israel are complaining that they haven’t had any meat to eat for ages. So God and Moses are discussing this, and God tells Moses to inform the people that they’ll have meat to eat for a whole month until they are sick of it. Moses replies, “And how can that happen? Do you realize how much cattle we’d have to slaughter to feed 600,000 people? I can’t keep that promise.” God rebukes his servant by saying, “Is God’s power limited?” And, sure enough, God simply diverts a wind, causes a huge flock of birds to fly over the Israelites and the birds fall down dead, right in the camp.

We often think that God is limited because we aren’t creative enough to see how God would work circumstances out. Or we put God in a box, saying “The only way to solve my problems is X”. But God’s power is not only vast, but infinitely creative. He will meet our needs in ways we couldn’t imagine.