08 - Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII. The Omnipotence of our Lord Jesus Christ,
FEW, we think, in the Christian world would aver that almighty, unlimited power, could be possessed by any being in the universe, but God alone. If there can be more than one omnipotent being, there can be more than one self-existent and eternal being. But the Scriptures assure us that there is only One living and true God. Then, again, if we prove Jesus Christ to have possessed omnipotent power, or that he is almighty, we shall, by so doing, show clearly the fallacy of that doctrine which makes him a creature. It is denied by Unitarians that Jesus Christ Is ever called Almighty in the Bible, We will see. But, in the first place, we wish to remark, that no creature is omnipotent. In Isaiah 9:6, we read that “ he shall be called the mighty GOD,” and not a mighty god! “ I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the ALMIGHTY. Revelation 1:8. Again, “ Thus saith the Lord, the king of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts. 1 am the first and I am the last) and beside me there is no God.” Isaiah 44:6. “These things saith the first, and the last, (which was dead and is alive.”) Revelation 2:8. The terms first and last signify one whose existence never began and will never cease. No angel can, in truth, say, that he is the first cause, and in himself is the consummation of all things. No creature is the first and the last, and he who says, HE is himself the. first and last^ testifies also, that he is THE ALMIGHTY. Our argument, then, from these declarations may be seen in the following syllogysm. The first and the last is ALMIGHTY.
JESUS CHRIST is the first and the last, Therefore, Jesus Christ is ALMIGHTY. But it may be said, that “ there are two persons who declare themselves to be first and last.” If that is admitted, these two persons must be one in essence or in nature, or we have two Almighty Beings, which makes two Gods; and the FIRST and the LAST expressly says, that there is no God beside himself. How much better it would be for Unitarians to confess what Christ himself says, that He and his Father are one, than to be driven to the unavoidable extremity of admitting two beings to be God, or two Gods. There are either two Almighty Gods, or Jesus Christ, in his divine nature, is one with the Father, or He and Ate Father are one. “ And they cease not day nor night, saying; Holy,! Holy! Holy! Lord, God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” Revelation 4:8. Verse 11.
“For thou hast created all things.” Here: The Creator of all things, is the Lord God Almighty.
Jesus Christ is the Creator of all things:
Therefore, Jesus Christ is the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
Admitting he has but one nature, this could not be true; that is, it could not be true of his human nature. Says an apostle, “ Ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” Colossians 2:10. If Jesus Christ is the head of ALL principality and POWER, he possesses all power, Here he is represented as not only standing at the head of all power, but of all principality. This conveys the same idea, as that “by him all things consist.” Colossians 1:17. A few brief remarks may show the evidence of the omnipotence of our blessed Lord.
1. Creation is the work, of Omnipotence alone.
Creation signifies -the production of being, where no being existed prior to such creation’. The source of all created existence is the self-moving energy of an unoriginated, infinite, unlimited, and eternal cause; and” that cause was evidently Jesus Christ in his divine nature.
2. The Creator is necessarily the first cause; arid in respect to all his works he must have exercised his own creative energy, not through a Creature, for no creature ^existed. As he was the only being that then existed, he must have made all things for himself, and by himself; and this the Bible most unequivocally affirms of our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. The works of creation could not have been performed, officially, or by delegated power, because creative power is the sole attribute of Omnipotence. If all things were created by delegated power, there must have been one who delegated that power, and another who received it; and this proves there were two beings in existence before the creation of any, and of course they were self-existent, and consequently two, self-existent-, Gods. Again, He that received the power delegated, could not have had it before, consequently he was not God; and he who delegated it must have ceased to possess it, consequently he ceased to be God. This scheme. of Unitarians, then, must amount to this. The infinite, eternal God, ceases to be God; and a finite being a creature immediately becomes such. Again, if Jesus Christ created the worlds by delegated power, he did not make them for himself, but for him who delegated and employed him. This contradicts plain declarations of Scripture, which say, that “ Ml things were made BY Him and FOR Him.”,.
4. “ Before the mountains were brought forth,” there must have been an infinite duration, in which there was no creature in existence, and it is evident that all the existence there could have been was underderived and unoriginated, consequently the omnipotent Creator was all the existence there was possibly in the universe. Now, we are expressly told that Jesus Christ “ is before all things;*’ therefore the apostle considered him God. There is, then, the same evidence that Jesus Christ is omnipotent, that there is that he is the Creator of all things; and there is the same evidence of his omnipotence, that there is of any Creator, or any God. Christians may confide in this Almighty Deliverer and Redeemer, who has conquered death, sin, hell and the devil, and has the keys of death and hell; and in to Whose hands is placed all power in heaven and earth. He can open and no man shuts y and He can shut and none opens.
While we’ are considering the character of God our Savior, it would be well to mark his condescension for us, -” For though he was rich, he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich.’’ It Would have been condescension in an angel; but while we reflect that it was the Christ, Creator of all things, that suffered while inhabiting a body like ours, we may sink at his feet in humble contrition. The blessed Savior died for us* “Who nought deserved, who nought deserved but death, Saving the vilest! Saving me! O love Divine.
O Savior God! O Lamb once slain! At thought of thee, thy love, thy flowing blood, All thoughts decay, all things remembered, fade;
All hopes return; all actions done by men Or angels, disappear, absorbed and lost.” The texts we have cited prove the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus Christ, as clearly as words can express it, for his own mouth declares that he ia the Almighty.
(1.) He is called the mighty God, and the mighty God is the Almighty.
(2.) The Almighty distinguishes himself from all his creatures by the appellations FIRST and LAST) which was and which is.
(3.) Jesus says He is the first and the last.
(4.) These terms convey the same sense when applied to the Lord Jesus, that they do when applied to Jehovah...
(5.) Jesus Christ, in. his divine nature, is the Almighty God, or there are two Almighty Gods, “which is absurd. Can a creature be proved to be the Almighty God? Certainly not. But we trust the candid reader will very readily see that Jesus Christ is called Almighty.