Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 534
“The exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the hea venly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And has put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all.” Ephesians 1:19-23.
To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart is one of the simplest things imaginable. To trust Christ, to depend upon His power and faithfulness is such a childlike act that one sees no extraordinary difficulty in it. Yet, to bring the human mind to exercise simple faith in Jesus is a work of the most astounding power. To bring down the pride of man, to subjugate his will and to captivate his passions so that he shall cheerfully accept that which God presents to him in the Person of Christ Jesus, is a labor worthy of God.
How strangely vile are they who cannot be brought to know their own mercies, except by an Omnipotent power! The blessed Spirit of God is always the secret Author of faith. It is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. Our text twice over uses the strongest words which could be employed to set forth the Almighty power exhibited in bringing a soul to believe in Jesus and in bringing that believing soul onward till it ascends to Heaven. You will carefully notice we have first of all this expression, “The exceeding greatness of His power.” And then we have on the other side of the word “Believe,” lest it should escape from the sacred barrier, these words, “According to the working of His mighty power.”
Now, the first expression is a very amazing one. It might be read thus—“The superexcellent, sublime, overcoming, or triumphing greatness of His power.” And the other is even more singular—it is a Hebrew mode of speech forced to do duty in the Greek tongue—“The effectual working of the might of His strength.” Or, “The energy of the force of His power,” or some such strong expression as that. As if the Apostle was not content to say, “You believe through the power of God,” nor “through the greatness of that power,” but “through the exceeding greatness of His power.”
And not satisfied with declaring that the salvation of man is the fruit of God’s might, he must needs put it, His mighty power—no, as if that were not enough, he writes the energy, the efficacious activity of the power of that might. No amount of straining at the passage can ever get rid of the grand doctrine which it contains, namely, that the bringing of a soul to simple faith in Jesus and the maintenance of that soul in the life of faith displays an exercise of Omnipotence such as God alone could put forth.
Nor need we, dear Friends, be at all surprised at this, when we recollect what the work of salvation really is. Be it never forgotten by us that the salvation of a soul is a creation. Now, no man has ever been able to create a fly, nor even a single molecule of matter. Man knows how to fashion created substance into many forms. But to create the minutest atom is utterly beyond his might. Jehovah alone creates. “All things were created by Him and for Him.” No human or angelic power can intrude upon this glorious province of Divine power—creation is God’s own domain.
Now, in every Christian there is an absolute creation—“Created anew in Christ Jesus.” “The new man, after God, is created in righteousness.” “Regeneration is not the reforming of principles which were there before, but the implantation of a something which had no existence. It is the putting into a man a new thing called the spirit, the new man—the creation not of a soul, but of a principle higher still—as much higher than the soul as the soul is higher than the body. Since the life and principle created are the most glorious of all God’s works, being in fact a part of the Divine nature itself, I may say most boldly that in the bringing of any man to believe in Christ, there is as true and proper a manifestation of creating power, as when God made the heavens and the earth.
Further than this, there is more than creation—there is destruction. No man can destroy anything. Since the world began, not a single particle of matter has ever been annihilated. You may cast matter into the depths of the sea, but there it is. It still exists. Cast it into the fire and the fire consumes it—but either in the ash or in the smoke, every atom survives. Fire does not destroy a single particle. There is as much matter in the world now as when God first spoke it out of nothing. It is as great an exercise of divinity to destroy as it is to create—
“Know that the Lord is God alone— He can create and He destroy.”