The Power of Jesus Christ

RV104-02

The thought of such a glorious event triggers a burst of praise to Jesus Christ from the angelic host. So, in verse 11, we have read, "And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands and innumerable." This is a company of elect holy angels.

Then verse 12: "Saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.'" It swings with all the rhythm of Handel's Messiah, and the captivating of this glorious season.

"Saying with a Loud Voice"

Grammatically, this is in the Greek present tense which tells us that this was a constant chant of the angels. They repeated it again and again. It's in the active voice which tells us that the angels themselves were doing the chanting. It was their voices. It's in the participle mood which tells us that a spiritual truth is being declared. They are going to pronounce something very important.

"Saying with a loud voice." The word loud is "megas" which indicates volume. It described the volume of this chant. It was not a whisper. It was not even an ordinary conversational tone. But it was with a confident, thundering proclamation that this angel spoke in which John heard. What he heard was their "voices" – the "phone." This is a noun referring to vocal sounds made by these angels speaking in unison.

"Worthy is the Lamb"

"Worthy is the Lamb." The word "Lamb" is "arnion." This is a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who has sacrificed for the sins of the world. It refers to the unblemished sinless character and vicarious suffering of Jesus Christ for all mankind. It is not without reason that God the Holy Spirit describes the Lord Jesus as a Lamb – a Lamb for sacrifice, because that's what it took to secure the forgiveness of our evil: the forgiveness of our violations of God's commandments of his laws; and, the forgiveness of all of our human good poured out by the degenerative sin nature within us. It took someone to pay the penalty of sin. The Bible is very clear that the wages of sin is death – spiritual and physical. The only way to reverse it is for someone to pay it. And if you cannot pay it, then you will experience the consequences of separation from God – eternal death forever.

So, the world is generally quite wrong, and it misses the point of Jesus being called the "arnion" of God when it assumes that man by himself, by something he can do, can relate himself to God, and can adjust himself to God by some human dedication; some human commendable motivation; some human good works, as man sees good works, that God will somehow take pity upon him. The Bible, therefore, is very clear when it says: "There is no other name given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved." That is a very comforting statement, because being related to Jesus Christ, therefore, assures us that no matter when you check out of this life and go into eternity, the angels are going to be standing by to carry you into the presence of the living God, which will be your eternal home.

However, it is a chilling statement for all of those who reject Jesus Christ as the Savior of God, such as all of the Jewish people. It is a chilling statement for all those who view Jesus Christ as a mere human being, non-deity, who was just another one of God's great prophets, such as all the Mohammedan world. Not a one of them will ever enter into eternal glory. Not a one of the Jewish people will ever enter eternal glory. This is true for the system of religions that concentrate on human works, including religious rituals such as the Lord's Supper in the form of the Roman Catholic mass, or water baptism in the form of baptismal regeneration such as in the Mormon group and the Church of Christ, and so on. Those human works interjected as an appeal to God neutralize the only basis upon which God says he will save us, which is: "By grace are you saved," apart from human works.

So, to miss the fact that He is the Lamb of God for the sacrifice of the world delivered, as Hebrews says, once-and-for-all, is to doom yourself to the lake of fire for all eternity. Not a one of those people who interject their human works or their religious ritual (which is just another form of human works) will escape that destiny. Human works are anything that a human being can do. Not a one of them will ever enter into eternal life.

So, this is not an insignificant word that John repeatedly uses to describe the Lord Jesus Christ.

This Lamb of God is God's means to bring us in to eternal glory. But never forget that people must also be alerted to the fact that this Lamb is also the instrument of divine vengeance against human evil, and the means by which God will judge a person for all eternity.

"That was Slain"

What was He a sacrifice to? He was a sacrifice to the holiness of God. He was a sacrifice to satisfy the justice of God which must judge sin with eternal death. He was a sacrifice to the absolute righteousness of God that says that no one can be in heaven unless he is absolutely righteous – unless he is absolutely as good as God Himself. And the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was slain to make it possible for His absolute righteousness to be imputed to us, so that no matter what kind of skunks and rats we are here on earth, in heaven, we are going to be the princes and princesses of the living God: in His image; and, absolutely perfect, even as He is.

So, this is the word to describe the death of a victim of sacrifice. Jesus Christ was slain on the cross as God's own sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world. And through Jesus Christ, God's holiness has been preserved so that He can receive into heaven sinners who do no more than trust in the payment of Jesus Christ on the cross. Anybody who tries to do more than trust in the payment of Jesus Christ on the cross by adding something to it on his own, will ensure that he does not go to heaven.

I don't think, in our evangelism, that we are hitting away at that with sufficient intensity. I discovered this in our introductory tape in the basic Bible doctrine series. That is a short 30-minute tape entitled "How to Go to Heaven." For years, we had a tape that did not emphasize the fact that if you added something to what God has done, you have removed the possibility of going to heaven. We told them what God expected them to do in receiving Christ as Savior, but it did not alert to people the serious consequences if they got to dabbling with God's plan, and to readjusting it and revising it. So, we redid the tape, and that important truth is now involved – that people are to be alerted to the fact that the Lamb of God was slain, and nothing more needs to be added for God to preserve His Holiness, and to permit us who are sinners to come into His heaven. We are qualified to come. We have the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ, and our moral guilt has been completely taken care of.

The grammar of this word is perfect. In the Greek language, the perfect tense always tells us that something has happened in the past, and the consequences of what happened continues right to the present. In other words, it goes on forever. So, here He was slain in the past, and His status as one slain for the payment of the sins of the world goes to the very present. That's why we say that no additional sacrifice for sin is needed. God the Holy Spirit, with reason, put this in the perfect tenses so that we would understand that the slaying back there was all that was needed. It is a great blasphemy, and it is a great travesty throughout this land and throughout this world, every time that a Roman Catholic priest steps up to his altar and performs the ceremony of the mass in which he is performing a bloodless sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Why is he doing it? He is performing the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in a bloodless way so that everybody who is in that auditorium (in that church) at that time will gain merit in God's eyes and in his standing with God toward eternal life. But if you understand anything about the Greek Bible, that perfect word tells us that the slaying in the past completely satisfied the demands of God, and the effects of that continue to the present.

It is passive in voice which means that Jesus Christ was slain by sinful men. He did not commit suicide. He was a sacrifice offered by God, and executed by sinful men. He was in fact literally murdered. He did not commit suicide. It is participle which means that a spiritual principle is being stated.

He is Worthy to Receive

So, the word "receive" is active. Jesus Christ is the one who actually receives it. Then you have the infinitive mood which tells us that this is God the Father's purpose. Infinitive indicates the purpose of Jesus receiving this. It is God's purpose that His Son should receive the qualities which follow.

So, we begin looking at these things that have so excited the angelic host, and which thrills John to the core of his being as he hears one word after another being thundered out. If you can just imagine in your mind's ear that you hear these angels in a tremendous voice sounding forth, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing." When Handel used these words in his "Messiah," he used that rhythm. That's the way that you sing it. It's bing, bing, bing, in just that kind of staccato way, as these things were sounded.

Power

This word, for example, is used in Matthew 25:15, where we read, "And unto one he gave five talents; to another, two; and, to another, one, to every man according to his 'dunamis' (according to his ability). And straightway took his journey." Everyone is given a responsibility of money to handle according to his capacity to handle the money in terms of investment.

You have it used again in Luke 6:19: "And the whole multitude sought to touch Him (that is, Jesus), for there went forth 'dunamis' (power) out of Him and heal them all. Jesus had ability that flowed from Him.

Acts 3:12: "When Peter saw it, he answered the people, 'You men of Israel, why do marvel you at this, or why do you look so earnestly on us as though by our own 'dunamis' (our own power, or our own ability or holiness) we have made this man walk." Peter was not denying that they, as the apostles and the representatives of Jesus Christ had great power. They did. But he was clarifying the fact that this power was not inherently in them as human beings, but was something that God had given to them. So, "dunamis" this means power.

It's interesting to contrast this with another word that sometimes is translated with the idea of power. That is the word "exousia." The word exclusive means "authority." The word "dunamis" means "power in action," as in performing a miracle. In the case of Jesus Christ, it is omnipotence.

The word "dunamis" was used in 2 Corinthians 8:3-4, describing the financial support given by the Macedonian Christians to Paul's ministry: "For to their power (ability) I bear witness. And beyond their ability, they were willing of themselves beseeching us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints." The people of Macedonia financed Paul's work to the extent of their ability: not falling short of it; and, not doing less than the financial capacities that God had given them. It wasn't all that much, but such as they had. Furthermore, Paul says, "I recognize that you even went across. You denied yourself something so that finances were there to accomplish something that needed to be done for the Lord's work and for the propagating of divine viewpoint. So everything Paul said that he did, the Macedonian Christians, in the sight of God, also did. So every reward that Paul earned, the Macedonian Christians also were participants in that reward. The word he uses is the word "dunamis" – acting up to their ability.

The word "exousia" is an interesting word to contrast because "exousia" is a word referring to authority. It contrasts with the word power or "dunamis." The Lord Jesus Christ not only had unlimited power to make things happen, but He had the right to use it. He had the authority. That's what authority means – the right. He had unlimited power and the right to use it. These two words are contrasted in Luke 4:36. The Lord Jesus Christ cast out a demon at Capernaum. He has been preaching to the people. They are amazed at what they're hearing from this carpenter: "And they were all amazed, and spoke among themselves saying, 'What a word is this, for with authority ('exousia') and with power ('dunamis'), He command that the unclean spirits, and they come out?'" He not only had the power down to tell a demon to beat it, and to split, and to get out of that person, but He had the authority to do so. He had the power, and He had the right to use it by virtue of who He was.

You and I as believers have great "dunamis" in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have great power. However, our spiritual condition does not always give us the authority to use it. Many times we are botching up our lives, and we are botching up the Lord's work, because we who have power; who have ability; and, who have capacity in some way, are trying to use it when we're out of authority with God for us to use it; when we don't have the right to use it; and, when our lives are not in conformity to the plan of God and to the pattern of God. We are not in the status of spirituality. All Christian service has to be judged and has to be evaluated. We are so eager to get out there hustling and doing things for God because we have the power by virtue of our spiritual gift to do something. We have a power, but we don't have the authority unless our lives are lined up with the Word of God. So, these two words go together to tell us something very important about the Lord Jesus. In His humanity, He is our partner in spiritual service. "Dunamis" is power, and "exousia" is the authority to use it.

Here are some usage of this word "dunamis" (this word "power") in the Word of God to give us a concept of the nature of the power of which the Bible says the angels declared, "Jesus is worthy." For example, Jesus Christ has the power that was necessary to create the universe. That is tremendous power – a person who has the power to think something and to make it become a reality. Wouldn't you like to have the power like that? Wouldn't you like to think of a million dollars, and there it was right on your dining room table, all neatly stacked and folded? Then wouldn't you like to think of having it deposited at the account so you didn't even have to carry it down there? You know, there's no use making a scene walking in with all these bills. Now that is the power of the mind, and it's the power of mentality that you and I are going to someday enjoy in a tremendous way. There are subtle dimensions to the human mind that all of us in some way become aware of. We call it discernment. We call it insight. We call it savvy. We try to describe it in some terms, but we are aware that there are powers of capacity of our minds to change things in the physical world. And the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ was totally compatible to the mind of God, and He had that power without limitation.

John 1:3 says, "And all things were made by Him. Without Him was not anything made that was made."

Verse 10 says, "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world (the cosmos system) did not know Him.

All Things were Created by Jesus Christ and for Him

Hebrews 1:3 says, "Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." The priests in the Old Testament temple never sat down, because he had to sacrifice those animals again and again and again, and he had to repeat the ritual again and again because they were only symbols.

Here's another evidence that the provision for eternal life is complete. When Jesus Christ made His sacrifice, He then, as our great High Priest, sat down on the right hand of God the Father, indicating by that very action that nothing more is required, or can be added, to our ground for deserving being entitled to eternal life.

Jesus Christ can Produce Miracles

John 9:16: "Therefore, some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not of God because He doesn't keep the Sabbath day.' Others said, 'How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?' And there was a division among them." Obviously, if you are a man of God, and if you have God's power, you can override natural laws.

Out in the charismatic world today, there is all that deceit about being able to override natural laws. That's all it is – it's deceit. They do not have the power of healing miracles, for example, such as the Lord Jesus Christ had, and they evidence it by the fact that they cannot take anybody and perform the miracle. If you have a spiritual gift, and you are in a status of spirituality, whether it is teaching; or giving; or discerning; or ministry; or, whatever – you have the gift, and you can use it at any time.

In Acts 2:22, we read, "You men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, the man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst of you as you yourselves also know." There was no question that these things had been actually done by Jesus. There was no conning. There was no pretending. There was no self-deception.

Many years ago, we had a quartet of four men who came to Berean Church from Dallas Seminary. They came to sing, and they stayed for years. One of them soon drifted off. In his first year studies at Dallas Seminary, he got entrapped in the charismatic movement which was rising in popularity and power at the time. He got the full rest of the self-deception. He became victim to all the self-deception that is involved in that movement. On one occasion, he turned to the other three men who had been on the quartet with him who were trying to plead with him to show him the delusion that he was following. And he said, "Listen, I had these cavities in my teeth, and God has healed them – not with feelings, but He gave me new teeth. Look." And he opened his mouth, and they looked in and they saw that which is always comforting and exciting to the heart of a dentist. His teeth were filled with holes and cavities. He needed a dentist just like he had always needed a dentist. There was no filling of the teeth. And they said to him, "But the teeth still have the holes in them. Look yourself." He said, "No, you're just saying that. I believe God."

That's the kind of self-deluded miracles that are characteristic of that movement today. And that is not an isolated case. I don't know how many times I have seen and heard precisely that routine played – people pretending that something has been done when it has not been done. Jesus Christ had "dunamis." He had ability to make things happen in the physical realm. He could make that which was physically wrong come out physically right. He could override the laws of nature.

In Acts 20:38: "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with 'dunamis,' and went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him." Jesus had power.

Jesus Christ has Power over Satan

Jesus Christ has Power to Destroy the Wicked

Ezekiel 38 and 39 tells us that someday God Himself, when Russia decides to make her move against the Middle East, and to come against Israel, and to come into power and authority in that part of the world, that God Himself, in the middle of the tribulation period, will destroy the Russian nation with fire from heaven. All that will be left of that mighty military force that now constitutes that nation will be one-sixth of it. And they'll trail back like dogs with their tails between their legs in defeat – traveling and straggling back to the Russian homeland. Jesus Christ has power to destroy the wicked, and He's going to do exactly that. Who in the world today would have that kind of "dunamis" and that kind of capacity to perform that kind of a feat? No one.

Isaiah 11:4 says, "But with righteousness He shall judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips, he shall slay the wicked.

Isaiah 63:3: "I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peoples there was none with Me, for I will tread them in My anger and trample them in My fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and, I will stain all my raiment." That is symbolic talk about somebody who is in a winepress stomping out the grapes with his feet, and whose garments become splattered with the juice of the grapes so that it is all red. Jesus Christ said, "This is how I am going to look when I stomp in the tribulation upon the nations of the world and upon the wicked people who lead this world. They're going to be like somebody stomping grapes under his feet.

That is hardly a testimony for pacifism. That is hardly the kind of description of Jesus Christ that we are given in our society today as the meek and lowly One who wouldn't hurt anybody. He is going to be the muscular, conquering hero of the line of the tribe of Judah. Notice that Isaiah said that the people aren't going to be in the winepress with Him. He's going to do it alone.

Jesus Christ Provides Eternal Life

Jesus Christ will Change our Bodies into Glorified Bodies

Jesus Christ will Remove our Sin Nature

Jesus Christ will Rule the Earth

2 Peter 1:16 says, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of His Majesty:" when we made known unto to the "dunamis" of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then there is another tremendous factor concerning the power of Jesus Christ which is directly related to us as Christians. 1 Corinthians 1:24 tells us that that power of the Lord Jesus Christ is, wonder of wonders placed at our disposal: "But unto many who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God." He is the power of God to us.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, we find that the power of Jesus Christ rests upon the individual believer: "And He said unto me, 'My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather glory in my infirmities, that the "dunamis" (the power) of Christ may rest upon me. We won't delve deeply into verse 10 now. We've done that before. However, verse 10 then declares to you five expressions of the power of Christ – the ability to perform that rests upon the believers. It is the five expressions of the spiritual maturity structure of the soul. Each of those particular facets of spiritual maturity that we have studied so often are right there in verse 10. And Paul says, "It is the power of Jesus Christ."

In Ephesians 3:16, we are given a little more clarification in that this power is transmitted to us by God the Holy Spirit: "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might (power – 'dunamis') by His Spirit in the inner man." The Christian comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ in the power that characterized Christ as the resurrected Man.

In Philippians 3:10, Paul says, "This is what I am after: that I may know Him (the Lord Jesus) and the 'dunamis' (the ability – the capacity) of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, made being made conformable to His death. The Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity not only has great ability to make things happen, but He has the authority because He is so related to the will of God and so subject to the Father's will. He has the authority to use that power, and not to bring destruction, but to bring about that which is good and that which is God-honoring.

His sacrifice on Calvary qualifies Him to be trusted with such infinite power. He will not take His ability to make things happen, and try to make evil things happen. That is our problem as Christians. Unless we distinguish between human good and divine good, we as Christians are as guilty as the unbeliever who moves through our society trying to bring about human good objectives that God vomits out of His mouth in disgust. We abuse the power and the capacity that we have as Christians instead of using what we have become. We are head-and-shoulders above the rest of the world. Once you are a born again believer; once you have any kind of degree of doctrinal understanding; and, once you have built any spiritual maturity in your structure, you are ahead of the game in our society beyond anything that we can imagine. Only eternity will show you how far ahead you were. But to take that capacity; to take those insights; and, to take the ability to make things happen, which you do get because you are informed of the Word of God, and then to use it to produce human good is a great travesty.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the angels say, is worthy of "dunamis" (ability to perform – to make things happen) because He will not put it to an evil use. Christians have access to this power through the Lord Jesus Christ, via the Holy Spirit, by applying the Word of doctrine which they have learned. Because they are joined to Christ, His power is shared by all of us. What a tremendous thing to realize that the angels could rejoice in the power of Jesus Christ, we're not spectators to that power. We are possessors and potential participants of it.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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