From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

You have been conveyed out of the dark kingdom and into the kingdom of Christ. So act like it, Paul says. Don't let anyone cheat you by taking you back into the old ways, and seeking after the old power. Seek the new power that is yours in Him.

In previous articles of this series, we've discussed common misconceptions about spiritual power, the nature of genuine spiritual power in the life of the Christian and the church, and the need for spiritual power. Our anchor verse in this series has been Colossians 1:11, "Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power."

In this article we come to a third point that every Christian needs to understand about spiritual power: the magnitude of genuine spiritual power - the vastness of it.

Genuine spiritual power is not power on a human scale, or by human measurements. Because it is God's power, it is infinite power. It is limitless power. And it is sovereign power. In other words, it is power that God makes available to Christians according to our need, as He alone in His perfect wisdom knows our need. It is power that He commands, not power that we can demand. It is power that operates not for our selfish, fleshly interests, but for the glory of God.

Dunamis: Inherent Power

In Colossians 1:11, the Apostle Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit uses two different words for power. He uses one of those words twice, in two different forms. The phrase "strengthened with all might" uses the Greek word dunamis twice - once as a noun, and once as a verb. Dunamis is an interesting word. It's the word from which we get our English word dynamite. In the Greek, it's a word that signifies inherent power - in other words, the kind of power that something or someone has because of its nature. A stick of dynamite is a good basic example of that kind of power. Because of the chemical makeup of the material that is in that stick of dynamite, it has the inherent power to act as an explosive under the right conditions - for example, when heat or fire is applied to it.

Paul uses this word dunamis with good reason. It was a word that the Colossian believers had heard often. Colosse was a center of a particularly fanatical form of paganism. The Colossians were a Christian minority living among a fervently pagan majority. Among the pagan Greeks and Romans of New Testament times, the word dunamis was one of the words they most often used to describe their false deities. They would ascribe power to Cybele as the goddess of the earth; to Apollo as the god of health; to Athena as the goddess of wisdom; to Zeus or Jupiter as the ruler of the gods; to Mars as the god of war. All of these gods, the Greeks said, had dunamis, inherent power, in their various realms. And so their worship of these deities was a way of accessing or appropriating the power, the dunamis, that these pagan deities supposedly possessed.

We stand on firm Biblical ground in saying that these pagan deities did possess dunamis, inherent power - but it was and is demonic power, Satanic power, the power of the kingdom of darkness. And dear friends, I believe that we are also on firm Biblical ground in saying that the counterfeit power that is in operation in so many churches today is Satanic power. It is from the realm of the evil one. It is his deception. It is his counterfeit. Jesus said in John 8:44 that Satan is a liar and the father of lies, and Jesus told the unbelieving religious rulers during His days on earth that they were of their father the devil. It is the same with the spiritual charlatans that we find among us today. They are of their father the devil.

Even many sincere Christians and churches today fall into the trap of seeking after the wrong dunamis - the presumed dunamis of an impressive facility; the misleading dunamis of a large crowd; the deceptive dunamis of emotion; the ensaring dunamis of a leader's personality; the untrustworthy dunamis of human skill, competency, and organization - the inherent power of things that appeal to the eyes, to the flesh, and to pride (1 John 2:15-17), things that are passing away, things that have no inherent value in God's economy.

In contrast, Paul says this to the Colossian believers: My prayer is that you will have the true dunamis, the true power of God through Jesus Christ. Because of what Christ has done for you on the Cross, and by His resurrection from the dead, you have been delivered from the power of darkness (Colossians 1:12). You have been conveyed out of that dark kingdom and into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the dear Son of God.

So act like it, Paul says. Don't walk in the old ways. Don't seek after the old power. Don't seek after the old, fleshly wisdom. Don't let anyone cheat you by taking you back into the false things that you left behind when you came to Christ. My prayer, Paul says, is that you will be empowered with the genuine dunamis, the power of the one true and living God.

Kratos: Demonstrated Power

And then Paul uses a second word for power in Colossians 1:11. First we have, "Strengthened with all might." Those words are two uses of dunamis. But then we come to this: "according to His glorious power" - literally, "in accordance with the power of His glory." The word for power in that phrase is the Greek word kratos, and it means demonstrated power. Dunamis means inherent power. Kratos means demonstrated power.

The stick of dynamite, sitting in the box, has dunamis. It has inherent power because of its nature, its makeup and composition. But when you apply a match or a spark to that dynamite, and the explosion happens, you have demonstrated power. Now you really know it was a stick of dynamite, and not just a stick of wood that somebody painted red and put in the box.

The pagans also used this word kratos, demonstrated power. In secular Greek literature we find this term being used to describe the power of earthly rulers. At the time of the book of Colossians it was a term that was used especially to denote the power of the Roman Empire and the Roman emperor. But the thing that the pagans did not understand was that any power that earthly rulers have is only theirs because God has given it to them. Christ is the One who governs all thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers (Colossians 1:16). He is the One who sets up one earthly ruler, and puts down another. The power that is above and behind the temporal powers that we see here on earth is spiritual power, the glorious power of God in Christ.

Genuine spiritual power, God's power, is the kratos kind of power. It is demonstrated power. It's not something that we can only talk about in the abstract. It is not just theoretical power. It is actual power. It is demonstrated power. It is power at work. It is "the power of His glory" - the power that is inherent in the glory of God, the power that is demonstrated in His glorious acts.

The Magnitude of Spiritual Power

The power that is available to believers to live the Christian life, and to the church to carry out its Christ-ordained mission, is God's glorious power. It is demonstrated power. I want to mention three things that we find in God's Word that tell us about the magnitude, the vastness, of that power.

First of all, the power of God that is available to believers for living the Christian life is the power that created and sustains the universe. "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created" (Revelation 4:11). "In the beginning was the Word [Jesus Christ], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:1-2).

Paul also speaks of it in the following verses of Colossians chapter one: "He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Colossians 1:15-17). Literally, by Christ all things "hang together" - the creation, the principalities and powers, the laws that govern the operation of the realms both seen and unseen - all of it. The power of God that is available to believers for living the Christian life is the power that created and sustains the universe.

Secondly, the power of God that is available to believers for living the Christian life, and to His church for carrying out its mission, is the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. "God both raised up the Lord [Jesus Christ] and will also raise us up by His power" or dunamis (1 Corinthians 6:14) Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power [dunamis] according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). Colossians 2:15 tells us that in being nailed to the cross Jesus "disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it" (the cross and in the resurrection). The power of God that is available to believers and the church is the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Thirdly, the power of God that is available to individual believers and to the church as a body is the same power that will raise us from the dead at the Last Day. "God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me" (Psalm 49:15). Paul prays for the Ephesian believers, in chapter one of that epistle, in much the same way that he prays for the Colossians:

"That you may know [oida, experiential, empirical knowledge, not merely theoretical] what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power [dunamis, inherent power] toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power [kratos, demonstrated power] which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come" (Ephesians 1:18-21).

The power of God that is available to believers for living the Christian life here and now, and for the church to do its two-fold work of proclaiming the Gospel to the world and building up the saints in sound doctrine, is the same power that will raise us from the dead to enter into a glorious inheritance at the Last Day.

Are You Still Relying on the Old Power?

Are you, or your church, still seeking after and relying upon the old power - the power of the flesh, the power of the kingdom of darkness? Or, are you and your church thinking and living as God commands you to - as those who have been conveyed out of the kingdom of darkness, and into the kingdom of the Son of the Father's love, who possesses all power, and who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18)?

Paul exhorts us, "Be strong [endunamo, be endued with inherent strength] in the Lord, and in the power [kratos, demonstrated power] of His might [ischus, His personal, forceful ability]" (Ephesians 6:10). We must heed the words of the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah:

"Thus says the Lord: 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.

"For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.

"For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

"I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.' " (Jeremiah 17:5-10).

Next: The Purpose of Spiritual Power

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