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δύναμις (Dynamis): Effective Power, Not Mere Potential · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. We are really glad you're here
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  with us. Glad to be here.
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  This is the place where we try to take the texts, the
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  doctrines, the history of our faith and, well, really get to
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  the bottom of what they actually mean.
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  And not just in a surface level way.
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  No, not at all. Today, we're not just doing a
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  general overview, we are initiating a deep dive into a
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  concept that sits, I think, right at the center of the new.
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  Testament. It really does.
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  We're going to open U the lexicon, look at the history,
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  and most importantly, look at the text of scripture itself to
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  understand a single and I think you could say explosive Greek
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  word. Oh, it is.
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  It's a word many people probably assume they understand because,
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  you know, we have English words that come from it.
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  You hear it and you think you've got it pegged right.
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  But when you actually see how the New Testament authors use
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  it, and especially the Apostle Paul, it just it shifts your
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  entire perspective on things. And as we always do, we're
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  approaching this from a Protestant Christian viewpoint.
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  Yes, we stand on the confessional standards of
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  Reformed theology, looking to the Westminster Confession as a,
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  let's say, a helpful guide. A faithful summary.
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  A faithful summary. That's a good way to put it.
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  But always holding Scripture as our sole and final authority.
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  That is the standard we operate by.
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  So the word for today's deep dive is dynamis.
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  Dynamis. That's delta epsilon, new alpha,
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  muyotis, Sigma dynamis. Now, if you're listening to that
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  and your brain immediately jums to dynamite, well.
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  You're not wrong. Etymologically, you're right on
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  track. You are, and it shows U all over
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  the New Testament, usually translated in our English Bibles
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  as power. But just looking at the stack of
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  research and lexical data we've got here, my sense is that the
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  English word power might be a little bit too flat.
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  Oh, that's a very fair assessment.
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  Power in English can mean almost anything.
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  Can it? It can be political influence.
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  It can be the electricity in your walls.
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  It can be, you know, just brute strength.
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  A powerful engine in a car. Right.
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  But dynamis in the Greek context, and particularly how
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  it's used biblically, it carries a much heavier load.
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  It isn't just about physical strength, it's about ability.
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  It's about potential. And it also covers the
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  miraculous. So it's a wide-ranging word.
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  It is, and at its very core it describes the nature of God's
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  saving work. You could almost call it the
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  engine of the gospel itself. OK, so our mission today is to
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  peel back the layers of this one word.
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  We want to move from how the Greeks might have understood it,
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  which was often about potential or capability, to how the
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  apostles understood it. Which is the effectual saving
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  force of God? We've got a lot of source
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  material here, some pretty dense theological dictionaries and
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  lexicons, but we're going to try to make it accessible.
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  O Let's start with the absolute basics, Section 1, defining
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  dynamis. Let's do it when we open up a
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  standard Greek lexicon. What's the root idea here?
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  What's the first thing we see? The first thing you'll see, the
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  core meaning is something like capability or the potential for
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  functioning. Potential for functioning OK.
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  It's the inherent ability to perform an activity.
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  But you know, to really get a feel for it, you almost have to
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  see what it's not. You have to contrast it with
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  other Greek words for strength. They had a few.
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  They weren't short on words for this kind of thing, no.
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  So first, you have issues. This word typically refers to
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  sheer physical strength, the factuality of having muscles, so
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  to speak. It's possessed might.
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  OK, so issues is like the bodybuilder who has the actual
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  physical capacity, he can lift the weight.
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  That's it. He has the issues in his biceps.
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  It's there. Then you have another word we
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  see a lot in the New Testament exusia.
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  Authority. Yes, authority.
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  It's the right to act. It's the badge.
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  It's the delegated prerogative. So to use the bodybuilder
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  analogy, he might have the issues to stop a car with his
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  bare hand. But he doesn't have the exusia,
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  the authority to direct traffic. Only the police officer has that
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  right. The officer might not have the
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  same issues as the bodybuilder, but he has the exusia that comes
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  with the uniform and the office. OK, that's a clear distinction.
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  So we have esiques, raw physical might, and exusia, the right to
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  act. So where does Dynamis fit into
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  that picture? Dynamis is the inherent ability
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  or the capacity to actually perform the activity.
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  It's the force that brings about an effect.
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  It's functional. It's the can do.
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  So it's less about the muscle itself and more about what the
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  muscle can accomplish. That's a great way to put it.
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  It's the effective force, and the sources we've looked at give
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  some fascinating secular uses that really help illustrate
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  this. It's not just about muscles and
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  armies in the ancient world. Oh this is interesting.
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  Give us an example. OK, so the historian Thucydides,
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  for instance, he uses dynamics to talk about the value of
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  money. The value of money.
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  How does that work? Well, think about it.
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  Money itself is just a piece of metal or paper, but it has the
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  capability to purchase things. It has the potential stored
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  within it to effect a transaction.
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  That potential is its dynamics. Huh.
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  So the strength of a dollar bill is its dynamics.
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  It's the ability it contains to be exchanged for goods.
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  I've never thought of it that way.
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  It makes sense though, right? Or here's another one from the
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  New Testament itself, but used in a sort of secular sense. 1st
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  Corinthians 14 point Lana OK Paul is talking about speaking
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  in tongues without an interpretation and he talks
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  about the meaning of a spoken word.
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  The Greek word he uses there is dynamis.
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  So the meaning is the dynamics of the word.
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  It's the force or the significance of the word.
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  If I speak a word in language you don't understand, that word
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  has no dynamics for you. It has no capability to convey
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  meaning to your mind. It's just noise.
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  It's impotent in a sense. Exactly.
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  It lacks the specific capability for that situation.
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  The medical writers of the time, like Hippocrates or Galen, they
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  use dynamics all the time to describe the potent of a
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  medicine. OK.
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  That's very clear. A specific plant has the
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  dynamis, the inherent property or capacity to heal a certain
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  ailment. It's not just a plant, it
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  contains A functional ability. That makes it so much more
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  tangible. It's not just some abstract
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  might floating around. It's a specific potency residing
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  within something, whether it's a coin, a word, or a plant.
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  That's it. It's an indwelling ability.
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  Now, I saw in our notes here that there's a bit of a
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  philosophical background to this, specifically with
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  Aristotle and I I know we don't want to get bogged down in Greek
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  philosophy, but why does that Aristotelian distinction matter
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  for us when we're trying to understand the New Testament?
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  It matters a great deal, actually, because it sets up the
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  very contrast that the Bible is making.
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  Aristotle made a famous distinction between dynamis,
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  which he viewed as potentiality. Potentiality.
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  And Energia, which is actuality or work where we get our word
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  energy. OK, so for Aristotle, what's the
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  difference? For Aristotle, dynamis is the
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  capacity to be something that isn't yet realized.
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  The classic example is an acorn, and acorn has the dynamis to
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  become an oak tree, but it isn't an oak tree yet.
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  It's strength and waiting. Correct.
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  It's latent. It's a possibility.
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  Or a block of marble has the dynamis to become a statue, but
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  only if a sculptor acts on it. Got it.
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  It's unrealized potential. Yes, but, and this is a huge
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  shift, when we move into the New Testament, especially when we
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  were talking about God, that distinction largely collapses.
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  It gets turned on its head when God is involved.
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  His strength is never just latent potential waiting around
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  to be realized. God's dynamics is active.
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  It is effective. When God has the ability to do
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  something, that ability is so tied to His will and His action
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  that the potential and the actuality are almost one in the
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  same. So it doesn't just sit on the
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  shelf. It never sits on the shelf.
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  The source material is very clear that in the biblical
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  worldview, God's strength is always linked to His acts in
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  history. It's not a philosophical
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  abstraction, it's what he does. Speaking of acts in history,
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  there is of course a military application of this word too,
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  isn't there? Yeah.
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  I mean, we often hear about force in the context of armies.
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  Oh, absolutely. This is a major usage both in
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  the Greek world generally and in the Septuagint.
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  The Septuagint being the Greek translation of the Old
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  Testament. Right, and in the Septuagint,
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  dynamis is often the word chosen to translate the Hebrew word
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  chail, which can mean a host or an army, or it translates sibo,
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  both which also means hosts. An army is by definition a
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  collection of force, a projection of might.
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  That's right. And this is where we get that
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  very famous title for God that we hear all the time.
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  Curious tune dynamic. The Lord of Hosts.
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  The Lord of the armies. Now what's fascinating is that
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  those armies could be the human armies of Israel, but more
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  often, especially in a theological sense, they are the
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  heavenly armies. The stars and the angels, the.
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  Stars, the angels, the entire cosmic array.
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  God is the commander in chief of all the forces in the universe.
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  So right out of the gate, even before we get to the New
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  Testament proper, Dynamis establishes God not as a
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  philosophical concept of potential, but as a commander
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  with the full capacity to enforce his will.
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  That's a perfect transition actually, into our second
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  section, looking at that Old Testament background you
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  mentioned, the Septuagint. We look at the Hebrew concepts
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  that Dynamis is translating. We see a really stark contrast
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  between the biblical worldview and the, well, the Pagan
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  worldview that was all around Israel.
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  Well, this is absolutely critical to understand and the
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  surrounding cultures. You know, the Egyptians, the
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  Canaanites layer, the Hellenistic mystery religions.
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  Force was often viewed as something impersonal.
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  Impersonal. Yes.
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  You have concepts from comparative religion like mana
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  or Orenda. Strength was seen as the sort of
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  neutral natural force, a substance that was just floating
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  around in the universe like. Electricity.
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  Or, you know, to use a modern pop culture reference like the
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  Force in the movies. That's an excellent analogy,
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  very similar to the force. It's a substance that you could,
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  in theory, manipulate if you knew the right rituals.
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  Right. Spells or incantations?
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  Right. Or if you possess the right
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  sacred objects. It was basically magic.
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  The goal was to learn how to tap into this cosmic dynamics to get
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  what you wanted, to make your crops grow, or to curse your
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  enemy. But the biblical view is
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  radically different. Night and day in the Old
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  Testament strengths belongs to a person.
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  It belongs to Yahweh. It's not some neutral force out
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  there to be manipulated by us. It is a personal attribute that
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  is expressed through His personal will.
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  So you can't conjure Yahweh's strength.
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  You can't perform a ritual to force his hand.
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  Absolutely not. God acts because he wills to
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  act, not because some priest pulled the right lever or said
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  the right magic words. His might is an extension of his
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  character. And the defining moment of this
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  personal dynamics in the entire Old Testament has to be the
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  exodus. Without a doubt, this is the
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  event that forever shaped Israel's understanding of what
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  might looks like. It's the baseline.
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  I'm seeing references in the source material to Deuteronomy
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  3.24 and Exodus 15.6. Thy right hand, O Lord, has
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  become glorious in power. And that very specific phrasing,
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  the strong hand and the outstretched arm, that is the
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  language of dynamis in action. The sources we're drawing from
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  make a huge point of this. Israel's God is the God of
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  history. Meaning he doesn't just exist in
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  nature like a storm God or a sun God.
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  Precisely. He shapes actual historical
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  events through his capability. He doesn't just rumble in the
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  sky. He splits the Red Sea.
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  He doesn't shine in the heavens. He moves the armies of empires
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  like pawns on a chess board. His might is demonstrated in
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  time and space. This also connects to creation
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  itself, doesn't it? It isn't just about redeeming a
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  people, it's about making the entire stage they live on.
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  Yes, that's the other foundational display of his
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  dynamis, Jeremiah 27.5 says. I have made the earth, the men
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  and the beasts on the face of the earth by my great power.
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  By his dynamis. By his dynamis.
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  And Isaiah 40.26 has that beautiful, almost poetic image.
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  Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these.
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  He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by
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  name, and then He gives the reason by the greatness of his
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  might. And because he is strong in
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  power, not one of them is missing.
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  There's a parallelism there. He calls them by name, that's
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  his word, and he sustains them by his might.
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  His Word and His strength are linked, and from our Reformed
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  perspective, this is where we see God is the sovereign Creator
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  and sustainer. His might isn't arbitrary.
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  It's not Caprice. It is linked directly to His
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  righteousness and His Holiness. He creates and sustains the
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  universe in a way that displays His own glorious character.
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  So to sum up so far, we have a foundation where strength is
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  personal, it belongs to God, it's effective in history, and
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  it's the basis for both creation and redemption.
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  That's a solid summary. Now let's Fast forward to the
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  New Testament Section 3. The power of Christ, and it
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  seems dynamic, shows up right at the very beginning of Jesus's
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  earthly life. It does at the incarnation
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  itself. Luke 1.35 is the key text here.
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  The Angel Gabriel is speaking to Mary.
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  He says the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of
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  the Most High and the Greek there is dynamic Hipsistu will
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  over shadow you now. This is the point where we have
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  to be very careful, right? Because in the Pagan myths of
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  the time you have stories about God's coming down and having
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  biological relations with human women.
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  That is not what is happening. Here, no, and the text is
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  extremely careful to avoid that Pagan connotation.
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  The word over shadow is the same kind of language used for the
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  cloud of God's glory filling the Tabernacle.
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  This is a creative act of the Spirit.
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  A new creation. It signals a new, new beginning
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  in history, very much like the Spirit hovering over the waters
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  in Genesis. It is the dynamis of God
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  initiating the incarnation from nothing, without any human
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  contribution from a man. And this connects directly to a
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  Reformed view of the virgin birth.
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  It's a miracle of God's soul initiative.
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  It's non rationalizable. You can't explain it
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  biologically. It is the raw force of God doing
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  what is impossible for nature. And that theme of the impossible
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  seems to follow Jesus everywhere he goes.
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  When we look at the Synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke,
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  they often refer to his miracles simply as powers.
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  Yes, the plural form dynamace is often translated as mighty works
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  or miracles in our Bibles, but literally it just means powers.
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  When Jesus healed someone, it was seen as an instance, an
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  explosion of this dynamis. And there's that one particular
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  story that really highlights this in a unique way, the woman
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  with the issue of blood. Right, Mark, 5 point later.
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  She's been bleeding for 12 years.
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  She's desperate, she pushes through the crowd and she just
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  touches the hem of his garment. And the text says that Jesus
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  immediately perceived that power had gone out from him.
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  That is a fascinating verse. It almost sounds physical.
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  It does. Luke, who is a physician, uses
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  language that almost sounds substantial, as if strength were
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  a substance or an electric charge that left Jesus's body.
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  But again, we have to distinguish this from magic.
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  In a magical framework, the Force works automatically,
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  mechanically. If you touch the right relic or
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  say the right spell, you get the result, no questions asked.
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  But look what Jesus does. He stops everything.
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  He makes it personal. Deeply personal.
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  He asks who touched me? He calls her out.
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  He demands a relationship, a confession of faith.
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  And then he says to her daughter, your faith has made
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  you well. It wasn't the magic of touching
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  his garment. It was the personal capability
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  of Christ responding to personal faith.
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  So it completely rejects the idea that Jesus is just, I don't
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  know, a walking battery of strength that anyone can drain
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  from if they just touch him in the right way.
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  Precisely. And that contrast between the
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  personal might of Christ and the impersonal, magical view of the
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  world is made even sharper in the book of Acts.
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  With the figure of Simon Magus. Simon the Sorcerer, Yes, in Acts
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  chapter 8. This guy was a magician in
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  Samaria and the text says the people were amazed by him.
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  But they were, and in Acts 8/10/10 we're told what they
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  actually called him. They said this man is the power
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  of God that is called great, or the great power of God.
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  They thought he was the literal incarnation of the divine
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  dynamis. Wow, that's a bold title to take
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  for yourself. It is the ultimate self
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  aggrandizement. Simon Magus represents that
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  Pagan magical view. I possess the strength.
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  I am the great one. Come to me for a display.
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  And he even tries to buy the ability to give the Holy Spirit.
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  Which shows he saw it as a technique to be bought and sold.
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  Now contrast that with Christ. Paul in First Corinthians 1.24
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  calls Christ the power of God. But Christ is the power of God
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  because he executes the Father's will in perfect humble
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  obedience. He doesn't use his dynamics for
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  self display. He uses it to serve and to save.
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  Simon wanted strength to increase his own status.
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  Christ humbled himself even to death on a cross.
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  In the ultimate display of that strength, ironically, comes
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  right after his greatest act of humility.
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  The resurrection. This is the apex.
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  This is the ultimate display of dynamis in the entire Bible.
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  Romans 1.4. Declared to be the Son of God in
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  power according to the spirit of holiness by His resurrection
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  from the dead. The resurrection is the
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  declaration of who He is. And Acts 2.24 says it was
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  impossible for death to hold him.
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  The Greek is udainiton not possible.
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  Think about that for a second. Death has a strength, doesn't
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  it? It has a it is the ultimate
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  capability to end biological life.
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  Everyone succumbs to it. Seems invincible.
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  It does, but the dynamics of life inherent in the Son of God
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  was so much greater than it broke the strength of death.
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  It shattered the chains, Peter says.
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  God loosed the pangs of death because it was not possible for
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  him to be held by it. So the resurrection isn't just a
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  happy ending to a sad story, it's a cosmic collision of
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  capabilities. It is.
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  It's the victory of the greater capability over the lesser
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  capability, the strength of eternal life over the strength
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  of physical death. This brings us to how this
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  strength applies directly to you, the listener.
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  We're not just watching a cosmic light show from a distance.
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  This actually touches us. Section 4.
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  The power of the Gospel Yes, you said earlier that the gospel is
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  the engine. Paul says something very
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  specific and very famous in Romans 1.16.
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  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power, the
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  dynamis of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
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  This is a text we in the Reformed tradition cherish so
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  deeply. So let's ask the question, why
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  is the Gospel itself called a force?
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  We usually think of the gospel as a story or as news
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  information, and information isn't usually described as a
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  force. That is the crucial distinction
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  the New Testament makes. The gospel is not just good
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  advice. It's not a self help manual.
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  It's not simply a historical record of events.
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  It's more than information. It is an active, effectual
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  force. When the gospel is proclaimed,
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  the dynamics of God is unleashed to accomplish salvation.
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  It does what it says. It's what theologians called
• 18:50
  performative word. It creates the reality it
• 18:52
  describes. It creates faith where there was
• 18:54
  no faith. It creates spiritual life where
• 18:56
  there was only spiritual death. It doesn't just invite us to be
• 18:59
  saved. It is the very instrument God
• 19:01
  uses to save us. And this is where the Reformed
• 19:03
  doctrine of human inability really comes into sharp focus,
• 19:06
  isn't it? Because if we had the ability to
• 19:08
  save ourselves, we wouldn't need a force to do it for us.
• 19:11
  We just need the instructions. Right, a map.
• 19:13
  But if you look at what the source material in Scripture
• 19:16
  says about the human condition, it's consistently bleak about
• 19:20
  our natural ability. John 6.44 Jesus says no one can
• 19:25
  come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
• 19:28
  Romans 8.7 Paul says the mindset on the flesh cannot please God.
• 19:33
  There's a cannot attached to the natural man and inability.
• 19:36
  We are morally and spiritually impotent.
• 19:38
  We lack the dynamics to please God or to save ourselves from
• 19:41
  our sin. Romans 5.6 says that Christ died
• 19:44
  for us when we were without strength, powerless.
• 19:46
  So we are powerless. Utterly so.
• 19:49
  You have to contrast that human inability with the divine
• 19:52
  ability Jesus says in Matthew 19.26.
• 19:55
  With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are
• 19:58
  possible. Salvation, therefore, from a
• 20:01
  biblical standpoint, has to be monarchistic.
• 20:04
  OK, let's unpack that word for a second.
• 20:05
  That's a theological term, monarchism.
• 20:07
  It's simple really. Mono meaning 1 and ergon meaning
• 20:11
  work. It is the work of one.
• 20:13
  God's strength alone regenerates the spiritually dead heart.
• 20:16
  It's not a cooperative effort. No.
• 20:19
  Just as Jesus used his dynamis to call Lazarus out of the tomb,
• 20:23
  and Lazarus being dead did absolutely nothing to help, so
• 20:26
  the Gospel, as the dynamis of God, calls us out of spiritual
• 20:29
  death into life. We respond in faith, yes, but
• 20:32
  only because God has first given us the ability to respond.
• 20:35
  And that puts the focus entirely on God's glory.
• 20:38
  We don't contribute the strength.
• 20:39
  We are the recipients of the effect of His strength.
• 20:42
  That's right, and this all leads to the great paradox of the
• 20:45
  cross. First Corinthians 1.18 For the
• 20:47
  word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to
• 20:50
  us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
• 20:52
  To the worldly mind, the Greek mind, even the modern mind, a
• 20:56
  man dying on a Roman cross looks like the ultimate display of
• 20:59
  weakness. The Greek word is estenia,
• 21:02
  sickness, weakness, defeat. It looks like he lost.
• 21:05
  It looks like the Roman dynamis and the Jewish religious exusia
• 21:09
  won. But Paul says no, you're looking
• 21:10
  at it all wrong. He says look closer, this
• 21:13
  apparent weakness is actually the supreme manifestation of
• 21:16
  God's strength. And you have to ask why?
• 21:19
  How? Because in that moment of
• 21:21
  apparent defeat. God was disarming the spiritual
• 21:24
  forces of darkness. He was satisfying the infinite
• 21:27
  demands of his own justice. He was crushing the head of the
• 21:30
  serpent. As promised in Genesis, the
• 21:33
  cross completely redefines what real strength is.
• 21:36
  Real strength isn't just brute force.
• 21:38
  It's the moral capability to redeem and to love, even to the
• 21:41
  point of death. You mentioned disarming the
• 21:43
  forces of darkness. That segues perfectly into our
• 21:45
  next section, Section 5, cosmic conflict.
• 21:48
  Because the Bible tells us we aren't just dealing with
• 21:50
  abstract sin, we're dealing with active, malevolent beings.
• 21:54
  Yes, the New Testament world view is very much alive with
• 21:56
  spiritual beings, both good and evil.
• 21:59
  And what's really interesting is that dynamis in the plural is
• 22:02
  often used as a title for these angelic or demonic ranks.
• 22:06
  You see it in those lists Paul gives.
• 22:08
  All the time. Romans 8.38, Ephesians 1.21,
• 22:11
  first Peter 3.22. They all include some variation
• 22:15
  of angels, authorities, principalities, powers.
• 22:19
  When you read powers in those lists, it's our word dynamis.
• 22:23
  So we're talking about a hierarchy of intermediate
• 22:26
  spiritual beings. That seems to be the idea.
• 22:28
  In Jewish thought, these are often part of God's heavenly
• 22:31
  host. But in the Pagan worldview, and
• 22:33
  certainly in the way the New Testament often describes the
• 22:35
  fallen world, these are forces that are hostile to God and his
• 22:38
  people. And in paganism, these are
• 22:40
  forces you had to deal with. Right.
• 22:41
  You viewed these powers as independent forces you had to
• 22:44
  appease or manipulate to have a good life.
• 22:47
  You might make a sacrifice to the power of the heir or the
• 22:49
  power of the sea to ensure a safe journey.
• 22:52
  So how does Christ relate to these dynamists?
• 22:54
  He is the undisputed victor over them.
• 22:56
  Ephesians 1.21 says that God seated Christ at His right hand,
• 23:00
  far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.
• 23:04
  He's not just a little bit stronger.
• 23:06
  He's not in the same league. He's not even playing the same
• 23:08
  game. He is in a different category
• 23:10
  entirely. He created them and in his
• 23:13
  death, resurrection and ascension, he has triumphed over
• 23:17
  them, Colossians says. He disarmed the rulers and
• 23:20
  authorities and put them to open shame.
• 23:22
  And 1st Corinthians 15 tells us the end goal.
• 23:25
  That at the end he will deliver the Kingdom to God the Father
• 23:28
  after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
• 23:31
  The abolition of every hostile force is the goal of history.
• 23:35
  For the believer living in this world now, that is an incredible
• 23:38
  comfort. It's the ultimate security.
• 23:40
  And that brings us to Romans 8.38, which is the anchor for
• 23:43
  this whole idea, Paul says. For I am convinced that neither
• 23:46
  death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present
• 23:50
  nor the future, nor any powers. There it is again, dynamite.
• 23:55
  Nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation
• 23:59
  will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in
• 24:02
  Christ Jesus our Lord. Think about what he's saying.
• 24:06
  There is no cosmic force, no demon, no angelic being, no
• 24:11
  spiritual power anywhere in the universe that has a great enough
• 24:15
  dynamis to break the grip that God has on his chosen people.
• 24:20
  That is the Reformed doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints,
• 24:23
  or maybe better put, God's preservation of the Saints right
• 24:25
  there. It is because if our salvation
• 24:27
  depended on our strengths to hold on to God, any one of those
• 24:30
  powers could pry our fingers loose.
• 24:32
  But since it depends on God's dynamics holding on to us, we
• 24:34
  are eternally secure. So we have this cosmic security,
• 24:37
  but we still have to live here. We still walk around to these
• 24:40
  weak bodies in a fallen world. So section sex power and
• 24:43
  weakness the Christian life. How do we experience this
• 24:46
  dynamis day-to-day? Well, the key of course is the
• 24:49
  Holy Spirit. Acts 1.8 is the classic text
• 24:52
  just before his ascension. Jesus tells the disciples you
• 24:55
  will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
• 24:57
  So the spirit is the agent who brings this dynamis into our
• 25:01
  lives. He is.
• 25:02
  It is. But notice the purpose of the
• 25:04
  strength. It's not strength to fly, or to
• 25:06
  get rich or to be famous. It is strength to be my
• 25:10
  witnesses. Witnesses.
• 25:11
  The Greek word there is mortars. Where we get our word martyr.
• 25:15
  So strength to die. Strength to testify, even if it
• 25:19
  costs you everything. It's the strength to lay down
• 25:22
  your life, whether metaphorically in daily service
• 25:25
  or literally in persecution, as a testimony to the reality of
• 25:29
  Jesus Christ. The primary purpose of this
• 25:31
  given ability is witness, not self glory.
• 25:34
  And this brings us to what I think is the most
• 25:36
  counterintuitive, upside down part of the New Testament's
• 25:40
  teaching on strength. The great paradox.
• 25:42
  The paradox of ministry we see in 2nd Corinthians 12.9.
• 25:45
  Yes, this is so personal for the Apostle Paul.
• 25:47
  He talks about having this thorn in the flesh.
• 25:49
  We don't know for sure what it was.
• 25:51
  Some say it was eye trouble, others say it was a demonic
• 25:54
  opposition or maybe just constant persecution.
• 25:56
  But whatever it was, it was a source of weakness for him.
• 25:58
  And he pleaded with the Lord to take it away.
• 26:00
  Three times he wanted the problem fixed.
• 26:04
  He wanted the dynamis of God to remove the weakness.
• 26:07
  And Jesus gives him an answer he wasn't expecting.
• 26:10
  My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in
• 26:13
  weakness. My dynamis is made perfect in
• 26:16
  your estenia. The two words are set in direct
• 26:19
  opposition. This is the distinctive law, if
• 26:22
  you will, of New Testament strength.
• 26:24
  It doesn't operate by eliminating our weakness, but
• 26:27
  through it. Paul says another place that we
• 26:28
  have this treasure in earthen vessels in clay.
• 26:32
  Jars. Cheap breakable pottery.
• 26:34
  And he tells us why. So that the surpassing power
• 26:37
  belongs to God and not to us. If we were Superman, if we were
• 26:41
  flawless and unbreakable, people would look at us and say, wow,
• 26:44
  what a great person. But when we are obviously weak,
• 26:48
  struggling, flawed, and yet we are sustained and even useful
• 26:51
  for the Kingdom. People have to conclude that
• 26:54
  can't be them, that must be God. Our weakness becomes the
• 26:57
  backdrop that makes his strength visible.
• 26:59
  That is a very hard pill to swallow for most of us.
• 27:02
  We are taught to project strength, to be competent, to
• 27:04
  hide our weaknesses. We are, but the reformed
• 27:07
  application here is absolutely crucial.
• 27:10
  We must avoid the error of thinking that we possess some
• 27:13
  inherent spiritual strength. We don't have a spiritual
• 27:16
  storage tank that we fill up on Sunday and then use during the
• 27:19
  week. We are dependent.
• 27:20
  Moment by moment we are branches plugged into the vine.
• 27:24
  The moment we start thinking we are strong in ourselves, we are
• 27:26
  actually cutting ourselves off from the flow of tree dynamics.
• 27:31
  So Paul says he will boast all the more gladly of my
• 27:34
  weaknesses. Not because he's a masochist who
• 27:36
  enjoys pain. No, but so that the power, the
• 27:39
  dynamics of Christ may rest on him.
• 27:41
  The word Forrest there means to pitch a tent or dwell on him.
• 27:45
  Christ's strength comes and shelters us right in the place
• 27:48
  of our weakness. That's a beautiful image, and we
• 27:50
  have this hope that our current weakness isn't the final word.
• 27:53
  There's an eschatological hope here, too.
• 27:55
  There is Philippians 3.21. We are eagerly waiting for a
• 27:59
  Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly
• 28:03
  body to be like His glorious body.
• 28:05
  And then He tells us how. By the power that enables him
• 28:08
  even to subject all things to himself.
• 28:11
  By that same all-encompassing dynamis, so the Christian life
• 28:14
  is lived in this tension between the already and the not.
• 28:18
  Yet we already have the dynamics of the gospel that has saved us.
• 28:21
  We have the Spirit indwelling us.
• 28:23
  But we are not yet glorified. We still inhabit these lowly,
• 28:27
  weak bodies. We still face sickness and
• 28:29
  death. But the promise is that the very
• 28:32
  same dynamics that raised Jesus from the dead will one day
• 28:36
  completely transform US, body and soul.
• 28:39
  So we are a people of strength, but a people who are also
• 28:42
  constantly waiting for the full revelation of that strength.
• 28:45
  Exactly. We live by faith in the strength
• 28:48
  of God, not by the sight of our own abilities.
• 28:50
  OK, let's try to bring all of this together in our summary.
• 28:54
  We have covered a huge amount of ground today, starting with just
• 28:57
  one Greek word. We really have.
• 28:58
  We started with the namus as a Greek word that just meant
• 29:01
  ability or potential. We saw how Aristotle saw it as
• 29:04
  latent, but then we saw how the Bible takes that word and
• 29:08
  completely fills it with the character of Yahweh.
• 29:10
  It becomes the creating force of the God of history in the Old
• 29:13
  Testament. Then it becomes the person of
• 29:15
  Christ in the Incarnation, in his miracles, and supremely in
• 29:19
  his resurrection from the dead. And finally, for us, it becomes
• 29:22
  the effective life giving work of the gospel that saves us when
• 29:25
  we were totally helpless. And the Reformed stance, I
• 29:28
  believe, holds all this together beautifully.
• 29:31
  We are, as Romans 5 says, legally and morally without
• 29:34
  strength on our our own. We are the clay germs.
• 29:37
  But God himself supplies the dynamics for our salvation and
• 29:41
  for our daily Christian walk. That's the summary.
• 29:43
  Salvation is of the Lord from start to finish, His strength,
• 29:46
  not ours. I want to leave you, our
• 29:49
  listener, with a final provocative thought that comes
• 29:51
  out of our source material. The Bible mentions that at the
• 29:54
  very end, Christ will hand the Kingdom over to the Father after
• 29:58
  He has destroyed every hostile force.
• 30:00
  The ultimate goal of His use of strength is to give all glory
• 30:04
  back to God. Handing over not a keeping for
• 30:07
  himself. Right, so here's the question
• 30:09
  for you to Mull over this week. In a world that is absolutely
• 30:13
  obsessed with acquiring personal influence, with building a
• 30:16
  platform, with showing off ability, what does it look like
• 30:20
  for you to live a life that boasts in weakness?
• 30:24
  What would have to change in your life for the only strength
• 30:26
  visible to be God's strength sustaining you rather than your
• 30:30
  own muscle impressing the people around you?
• 30:32
  That's the question. Are we building our own little
• 30:35
  Kingdom with our own perceived strength, or are we content to
• 30:38
  be weak vessels that witness to His?
• 30:41
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into Dynamis.
• 30:44
  We hope this changes the way you read your New Testament this
• 30:46
  week. It's always a privilege, keep
• 30:48
  thinking. Goodbye.