We call God’s infinite power his omnipotence (Latin omni, “all,” and potentia, “power”). Ames said, “The omnipotence of God is that by which he is able to effect all things which he wills or could will.”
The Scriptures confess, “Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all” (1 Chron. 29:12), and, “None is able to withstand thee” (2 Chron. 20:6).
Greg Nichols says, “The Creator alone has supreme power that is ideal (Gen. 18:14, 25), self-existent (Acts 17:25, 28), infinite (Eph. 1:19–23; 3:20), eternal (Rom. 1:20), and unchangeable (Isa. 40:28; Heb. 1:10–12).”
James Ussher offered the following summary of divine omnipotence:
• First, he is able to perform whatsoever he will, or is not contrary to his nature.
• Second, he can do all things without labor, and most easily.
• Third, he can do them either with means, or without means, or contrary to means, as pleases him.
• Fourth, there is no power which can resist him.
• Fifth, all power is so in God only, that no creature is able to do anything, but as he does continually receive power from God to do it.
Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 773.
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