What does it mean that God is Almighty?

To the patriarchs God made Himself known under another appellation. The first mention of this is found in Genesis 17:1, "The Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God"; that is, EL SHADDAI — God Almighty. But the meaning of the word El is said to be strength, omnipotence; and Shaddai is thought by some to signify the same thing, while others prefer the rendering of all-sufficient, or self-sufficiency. The combination of the two words will, in either case, import divine attributes, as omnipotence and all-sufficiency can only be found in God. These two words are used, for example, in the passage, "And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." (Exodus 6:2-3. See also Gen. 28:3; Gen. 35:11, etc.) When the word "Almighty" stands alone in our translation it generally represents Shaddai. There is a beautiful combination of this name with that of Jehovah in 2 Cor. 6, "I will receive, you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." The God who was known to Abraham as Shaddai, and to Israel as Jehovah, was now declared as Father in that blessed and intimate relationship into which, in His precious grace, He had taken His people in association with Christ.

Omnipotence is unlimited power. Like God's eternity it is both mysterious and incomprehensible to our minds. "The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." — And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (Rev. 19:6; Dan. 4:35). We cannot have an act without an actor, an effect without a cause, and in the same way a creation without a creator. But how the Creation came into existence, no creature can tell. An article may be made if the material to make it is supplied, but how the universe sprang into being out of nothingness, we cannot know. The wonders of creation may be examined by the microscope, as well as by the telescope, but greatness and littleness, or immensity and intensity, are both alike to omnipotence. The power that creates is the same that upholds, for He upholds all things by the word of His power. However great the thoughts and language of men of science, scripture alone can describe the omnipotence of God. Here again we turn to Isaiah, where Jehovah, when dealing with the responsible creature, speaks of His creatorial power and glory. "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance" (Isaiah 40:12). Nor is only creating — for the same power is seen at work upholding all. "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah" (Psalm 75:3). A most comprehensive lesson on this is put before us in Job, chapters 38-42, where God meets His servant, and solves every question in the moral problems of that book, by pointing him to His power and wisdom as seen in the creation.

Omnipotence is involved in this - the power to do whatever it is His will to do. Omniscience is involved in it also. Did not God know all things, He could neither know what to do rightly, nor judge morally. Supremacy is involved in our very idea of God as one, and active in power. They are inherent in our idea of God, and (when once the heathenish additions of what are confessedly imaginations are removed) cannot be separated from the idea of God. That which it is important to get fast hold of is, that there is a will in God. No moral being can be without it; a will guided by righteousness and holiness, and to which omnipotence and omniscience are subservient, but which is the source and origin of all that exists outside Himself, not of its state, for moral beings have a will, but of its existence.

In God's presence, as it were under God's eye, Job learned experimentally that He was Almighty, and the Searcher of every thought of the heart. "I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee." (Job 42:2.) He seems to quote the first words the Lord uttered when He spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, "Who is he that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" and then makes the solemn confession of his own guiltiness, "Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not." This is indeed renouncing his own wisdom. But further, he goes on to say, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

The friends are silent; Job does not believe in his heart only but makes confession with his mouth. He murmurs, he resents, he questions no more, but frankly owns, as a thing realised in his soul, that Jehovah is able for all things, and no purpose withheld from Him. Evil in men or Satan, ruin everywhere in this fallen world, had touched Him in no wise. His own difficulties and reasonings were but the insubmissiveness of heart of one who, as Jehovah had Himself said in His exordium, darkened counsel without knowledge. It was Job that proclaimed his own ignorance, declaring that he did not understand, things too wonderful for him that he knew not. Not a word now about his friends, or their lack of intelligence, as of candour and charity, however true. He judges himself before God; and uses the words which God had applied to him, the withering proof of his presumption, as the lowly expression of one who felt his need of learning from God, and of desire that it might be wrought in him. Finally, he acknowledges that anything he had previously known of God was but like a report from afar, compared with that near and deep sight of Him which made him loathe himself, so as to repent in dust and ashes. He humbles himself under God's mighty hand, that he may be exalted in due time.

Again Job responds to the piercing, humbling words of Jehovah. Again he repeats his confession in a complete way. He acknowledges God's omnipotence, and that He cannot be thwarted in His purposes, which exhibit His power, wisdom and goodness as fully as do His works. There is a complete surrender and reversal of all that he had previously said against God.

I would muse and rest a little upon this. As to God, His irresistible power knows no check whatsoever. But as sure as this His power is irresistible, so sure likewise is it that He has a character of His own, which in no case will He violate. Morally, He could not violate His own character. He knows, as God, how the well-being of dependent creatures throughout the universe hangs upon, in their various measures of capacity, their knowledge of Him, and so being cheerfully subject to Him.

It is well for suffering saints to know that God holds the reins. "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed" (Job 38:11). In the working out of His ways, He may change the times and the seasons and remove kings and set up kings (Dan. 2:21). He may even go back upon what we speak of as the laws of nature, but never for one moment has He changed His word. "Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name" (Psalm 138:2). In the material realm iron has been made to swim, the Jordan while in spate was made to divide and go backwards, the sea to divide and made a path for the redeemed of the Lord, and the sun to go back in his course — but never once has He gone back upon His word. From this He never has, never will, nor ever can depart. While it is clear there can be no limit to His power, we know He is governed by His love, and, in the region of moral verities, there are certain things He cannot do. "He cannot deny Himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). "God cannot be tempted with evil" (James 1:13). "God is not unrighteous" (Heb. 6:10). "For Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with Thee" (Psalm 5:4). From these, and other passages, we learn that God is so governed by His nature, that He cannot do anything that is opposed to justice. It is not that He obligates Himself to use His almighty power in accord with the principle of Justice, but that justice so inheres in His moral nature that He cannot act otherwise. Think for a moment of the grace of the Almighty stooping down to tell us this, that we may be able to stay ourselves upon Himself.

The confounding moral infinitude (that is, absoluteness of perfection) with extension, which I have noticed is a very great blunder. But then I freely own that in strictness we cannot speak of attributes in God (moral ones). It is only a human way which (speaking reverently) divides God into parts. God cannot be or do evil: to say this is a limitation of power is only a delusion. If I say that He cannot do what He pleases, for He cannot do evil, the "cannot" applies to "what He pleases," not to the power of God. As to acts of power, He can do everything. It is morally impossible that there should be in Him the contrary of what He is, that is of good and right. But this is not limiting power or anything; it is denying a limit to goodness, and saying it is absolute. Infinite goodness means merely goodness always perfect as goodness. That this is after an imperfect thought as to God I admit, because it takes one characteristic by itself (that is through our finite nature), for nothing in God is characteristic (that is, special and in part). It has been noticed elsewhere how thus Christ had no character, but was always what He ought to be wherever He was. Perfect goodness He was, but not goodness by itself as we conceive it. He was firm and severe where He ought, and good in that; He was tender and affectionate where He ought, and good in that; He was seemingly hard and deaf to seed, and unchanged in goodness in that - in all love to His Father, and obedience. The divine nature in man which produced one produced all, perfect in each place in relation because perfect in itself.

Here is the key to the meaning of a term about which there has been so much perplexity, and so great a variety of thoughts. God Himself is limited in a certain way, as we all realize. He cannot lie; He cannot repent. This is no limit indeed, save that of His own perfections: He cannot act in contradiction to His attributes. Thus, though He be Love itself, yet love cannot with Him, even in the least degree, overbalance justice. "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord" (Prov. 17:15). So His own Word declares, and how can He then clear the guilty? Did He not, when He gave the law, say distinctly that He could not? (Ex. 34:7.)