Power

 September 16, 2023

There’s every good reason to keep reading the Bible even when you’ve read the same book dozens of times: God’s revelation from the Holy Spirit which was transmitted through inspiration to the writers and becomes illumination to our hearts when we read it, culminates in the transformation of individuals, and at times, entire societies. But it often takes repeated exposures for that illumination to actually dawn in the human heart.

In my reading this morning from Romans 1, two verses caught my eye. We pick up the conversation mid-sentence in verse 3, where Paul is describing the Gospel he preached…

“concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead…For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” —Romans 1:3-4, 16 

First of all, notice that Paul didn’t say Jesus became the Son of God by means of the resurrection (implying that he was a mere human prior to that event); he was “declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead.” In other words, by the resurrection, God unequivocally declared to all the world that Jesus Christ is his eternal Son. The power of the resurrection declares for all to hear who Jesus is. 

Later in the chapter, Paul uses that word “power” once more, this time connecting it to God’s work in us. In other words, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead has the ability to save us from our sins. The question naturally follows: “Why don’t we see this power in peoples’ lives?” The answer is in that word “believes.” It is available only through faith, and not faith as a single intellectual declaration, but as a genuine confidence that the power that raised Jesus from death can actually work in me to change me.

Every time I’ve fallen short and sinned, EVERY time—it’s been because at the point of failure, the problem wasn’t that I couldn’t have held out longer; it’s because I failed in that moment to believe that God had the power to save me. At that point in time, faith was an abstract intellectual matter, not a vital, living trust in the God who raised Jesus from the grave. Paul here connects God’s work through Christ with his work in us, and that connection is summed up in the word “power.”