What does it mean that God is omnificent?
The word "omnificent" is not itself a Bible word. It names a claim the Bible makes everywhere: that God creates without limit, that everything which exists exists because He made it, and that nothing was made any other way.
Nothing Outside His Making
Creating is not one activity of God among many. Commentators treat it as the mark that separates God from everything else there is.
J. N. DarbyThen we find His creation glory stated afterwards. "All things were made by Him." There is nothing which more stamps God to be God than giving existence to that which had none, causing to exist by His own will and power. Now all things exist by the Word; and this is so emphatically true that the Spirit has added, "and without Him was not anything made that was made."
Made By A Word
If God had to work with tools or materials, His creating would be limited by them. Scripture describes something else — speech that produces what it says.
A. J. PollockThe Word had only to speak, and everything sprang into existence. The thought was in His mind, and the word — the creating word — brought everything into existence. We stand amazed as we consider such wonders, which go beyond our powers to understand. So creation is to us the first expression of the activity of THE ETERNAL WORD.
What "Out Of Nothing" Means
The usual way to describe unlimited creating is to say God made everything out of nothing. One writer presses the point with a simple comparison: a maker of things is not a creator of things.
A. J. PollockBefore a watchmaker can make a watch, he must have two things: first the materials to make the watch with, and then the tools to shape it. The watchmaker can make a watch, but he cannot create one. A watchmaker cannot make a watch out of nothing. The Bible, however, tells us plainly that God created the world out of nothing.
Commentators differ over the phrase itself. Another writer thinks "out of nothing" is a careless way to say a true thing, since nothing is not a substance God worked with.
William KellyTo say that everything was made out of nothing is what no Christian would say; but that, where nothing existed, God created all things out of His own will and word is exactly the truth — at once simple and profound. All other theories are as unwise as they are unnecessary and untrue. Evolution may not openly deny God, but at best it robs Him of His personal action and concern in the wisdom, power, and goodness of His will in every part.
Source, Sustainer And End
The New Testament does not stop at saying all things were made by the Son. It adds two words that stretch His creating forward in time and outward in purpose: things hold together by Him, and they exist for Him.
J. T. Mawson"By Him." The force that has summoned the worlds out of nothingness into being, and that upholds them in being, is His. He wields it. He is the one Producer and Sustainer of all created existence. "For Him." He is not merely a lesser workman, creating for the glory of a higher Master, for a God greater than Himself. He is the End of created things as well as their immediate Source, and in living for Him every creature finds both the explanation and the law of its being.
By Will, Not By Accident
An unlimited Creator leaves no room for a universe that produced itself. The heavenly song in Revelation traces every existing thing back to a decision.
William KellyIt is all the result of the Creator's will, who upholds all that He has called into being. "For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created" (Revelation 4:11). Dualism, pantheism, eternal matter, and evolution are mere but wicked delusions.
The Same Power In A New Creation
The creating does not belong only to the beginning of the world. Writers see the same power at work when God changes a person, and the parallel is deliberate: light spoken into darkness, then and now.
H. Forbes WitherbyBut God shined in; God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. There was a new creation, and it was entirely of God. The Creator brought into these hearts, by His sovereign grace, what was never born there. By His own light He showed what sin was, what self was, and proved by His love the excellence of His light.
Summary
- He speaks. Creating by a word is the clearest mark of deity — giving existence to what had none, by His own will and power.
- He needs nothing. No materials, no tools: where nothing existed, God created all things out of His own will and word.
- He wields it. The Son is not a lesser workman but the one Producer and Sustainer of every created thing.
- He wills it. Nothing exists by accident; everything exists because He chose it and holds it in being.
- He speaks again. The same voice that said "Let there be light" shines into a dark heart, and that new creation is entirely of God.