God's Eternal Purpose

Notes

1. "The word 'power,' as used in our English version, is represented in the Greek Testament by several distinct words. One of these is kratos, or its collateral form, which signifies strength, or the manifestation of physical force. The two chief forms, however, are exousia and dunamis. The first of these indicates authority as exercised or conferred by a ruler, and seems to intimate official privilege or prerogative; thus: 'All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth;' 'to them gave He power to become the sons of God;' and Christ gave to His disciples 'power over unclean spirits, and to heal all manner of sickness.' Their official prerogatives and their miraculous endowments are in all cases expressed by the word exousia, though in a few cases dunamis is joined with it. Ministerial power is everywhere expressed by the word dunamis, as in St. Luke: 'Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.'"—Simpson's "Lectures on Preaching," page 199.

2. "If we endeavor to analyze the elements of this power in itself, I think we shall fail. It is spiritual and invisible. All we can do is to trace the circumstances under which this power is given, and the results which flow from it. Indeed, power is in its nature indescribable. It is known simply by its results. Gravitation, that greatest of all material powers, ceaselessly active, everywhere potent, is wholly beyond our research, or even our conception. Where are those cords, stronger than steel, which bind the planets to their centers? Where are those unseen ties that, like a universal net-work, envelop every atom in the air, and make it fall to the earth, and not merely to the earth, but in a direct line toward the center of the earth, though it be thousands of miles away, and can never be reached? It seems an emblem of God, filling all space, operating through all matter. If the dream of astronomers be true, that not only secondaries surround their planets, and planets their suns, but that suns revolve around the center of immense systems, and all these centers through the immensity of space move around one great center, who can even conceive the magnitude of a force that can thus operate through infinite space with precisely the same law of attraction for vast worlds and for infinitesimal atoms? It is a force never seen, and yet it operates alike in the sunshine and in the dark. It is never heard, and yet it sends its myriads of worlds singing and shining on their way. He who made that power by the word of His Spirit gives that Spirit to work in us and through us. Nor is it the only exhibition of power. Consider the chemical affinity that draws together the acids and the alkalies. With what constant and unseen power does it operate! Think of that magnetic power which makes the steel filings, though in a mass of dust and rubbish, and clippings of tin and brass, leave them all and fly up and kiss the magnet. It touches that pivoted needle, and lives and treasure are secure upon the stormy ocean in the darkest night by its unerring guidance. The winds blow ever so fiercely, the cold comes ever so freezingly, the waves roll ever so furiously, and the vessel pitches and sinks as though it would be submerged; and yet that strange influence, unseen, unheeded, unfelt even by the most sensitive nerves, holds the needle in its place. Who can tell what is power? We see it in its effects, we measure it in its results. So with spiritual power. We can not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; but it breathes upon the human spirit—the stormy passions subside; falsehood, fraud, lust, and avarice disappear; and truth, purity, meekness, and love reign supreme in the soul. It is a transmutation beyond what the philosopher sought in the fabled stone whose touch would transmute into gold. It is a new creation from the breath of Him who created all worlds and breathed into all spirits. Spiritual power is not beauty of presence nor dignity of form. It is not learning, nor rhetoric, nor logic, nor oratory; but it can use these for its one great end. It can burn and shine in the highest periods of the most eloquent speaker, and it can thrill in the accents of the unlettered man. It can invest the words that drop from the mother's lips, and it can wing the lispings of the little child. It can use all there is of a human being, and of his acquirements, for the glory of God and for the advancement of His church."—Id., pages 202-204.

3. "Satan can not hold the dead in his grasp when the Son of God bids them live. He can not hold in spiritual death one soul who in faith receives Christ's word of power. God is saying to all who are dead in sin, 'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.' That word is eternal life. As the word of God which bade the first man live still gives us life; as Christ's word, 'Young man, I say unto thee, Arise,' gave life to the youth of Nain, so that word, 'Arise from the dead,' is life to the soul that receives it. . . . It is all offered to us in His word. If we receive the word we have the deliverance."—"Desire of Ages," page 320.