English Puritan Pastor Stephen Charnock (1628-1680)

A.W. Pink quoted English Puritan Pastor Stephen Charnock (1628-1680) in his book The Attributes of God when he wrote about the power of God. Charnock pointed out how God’s power accentuates His nature:

“The power of God is that ability and strength whereby He can bring to pass whatsoever He pleases, whatsoever His infinite wisdom may direct, and whatsoever the infinite purity of His will may resolve… As holiness is the beauty of all God’s attributes, so power is that which gives life and action to all the perfections of the Divine nature.  How vain would be the eternal counsels, if power did not step into execute them.  Without power His mercy would be but feeble pity, His promises and empty sound, His threatenings a mere scarecrow.  God’s power is like Himself: infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; it can neither be checked, restrained, nor frustrated by the creature.”

There’s nothing within His sovereign will that He can not accomplish.  So often we live as though God doesn’t have this power.  But He does.  I love how the Apostle Paul encapsulated this attribute in His well known doxology:

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen,” (Ephesians 3:20-21, ESV).

He indeed in able!

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