The Power of God

I’d like to share some things with you that I believe the Lord has helped me to see and experience regarding the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I know that, just as soon as I mention the word gospel, almost everybody, especially people in a meeting like this, assume that they have already heard and already know it. But that’s just what I want you to consider today. What do you really know of the gospel? Because I can tell you with a great deal of certainty, that you know no more of the gospel than the measure of its power that you have experienced to change you into a new creature. I mean to say, it matters very little how familiar you are with the words of the gospel, or how many times you’ve heard or even preached the good news of the gospel. There is only one way to truly KNOW the gospel, and that is to know the power and work of the gospel removing from you the life and nature that you have inherited from Adam, and creating all things new in you by the power of Christ’s resurrection. 

You see, the gospel is not words. The gospel can be described by words, and declared through words. But the substance of it is not words. Millions of people have heard the words of the gospel, and have believed those words, and yet have never really heard the gospel, nor felt the power of the gospel working in them according to the power of God. And these are, in fact, still strangers to the gospel, no matter how long they have believed or even preached the words. 

In his first letter, Peter makes this statement: 

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.” Now this is the Word which by the gospel was preached to you. 1 Pet. 1:22-25

There is much here that we could talk about, but I’d like to just draw your attention to a few important things. First, Peter is clear in saying that those who had purified their souls by obeying the truth, and were therefore able to love one another fervently with a pure heart, THESE (and not just anyone who reads these words) are those who he says “have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” Second, the thing that has caused this birth in them, this purification in them that allows heavenly love to flow unrestricted, is an incorruptible SEED or WORD. It is an immortal thing, a living Word, which is not like the grass or flower of the field that fades away, but is rather an immortal Word that endures forever. And Third, he then says most directly and clearly, that this is the living Word, which, by the gospel, was preached to you. That is to say, through the preaching of words, this eternal Word of life and power—by which you must be born, and through which you must be purified unto love—was announced to you, declared to you. 

Now, I hope you can see here (as you could also see in many other Scriptures) that it is extremely possible to hear the announcement of the gospel, without really hearing or experiencing the eternal Word which is preached through the gospel. And in fact, if somebody among the original recipients of this letter from Peter were to read these statements and know in their hearts that they were NOT among those who had been purified by obeying the Word of truth, and were NOT therefore able to love one another fervently with a pure heart, then they would most likely (and rightly!) assume that they were not yet familiar with the eternal Word of life and power that does these things.

So the message of the gospel can be described in words, believed in words, and repeated with words; but the thing described by these words must be an experience of power, or we have not truly known the gospel.

And it is for this very reason that Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1:5, “For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance.” And also in chapter 2:13 of the same letter he says, “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.”

It is this “effective working” that I want to talk to you about during this time together. And again, I want you to consider the following question with real humility and sincerity: Can anyone say they truly know the gospel without knowing its effective working? Or, in what sense, or to what measure, can you say you know the gospel, if the Word of the gospel hasn’t come with power to purify your heart unto an experience of true heavenly love? In his letter to the Romans Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD.” I will return to this verse later, but my question for you to consider is is whether you know and experience the gospel to be the very POWER of God? Please be very honest with yourself in this. There is no gain in lying to ourselves. Is your faith in the gospel a faith in the power of God? Paul said. “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

In order to consider these things with sincerity before the Lord, I believe it is essential to understand something of what this power is, what it does in man, and why we desperately need it. Because unless these things are seen and felt, there is no real knowledge of the gospel. You see, the gospel is a solution, it is a powerful cure, a heavenly medicine. But no one takes a medicine that they don’t think they need. And so if we’re really going to know the medicine, and feel its effects, the first step is to diagnose and expose the disease. 

If you were somehow turned into a slug, that would be quite a change. There’s no doubt that you would consider this change to be a significant fall, or an enormous loss of what you formerly had. Let’s say that you wake up one morning, brush your teeth, check your email, start to run out the door in order to drive to work, and all the sudden you find yourself a tiny, slimy, slug, with no arms or legs, no hair or teeth, no ability to walk or run or drive or talk or work, and the only thing you can now do is slowly slide along the ground in your own slime, and eat decaying plant matter and fungi.

Think for a moment about what you would lose if you became a slug. Think about all of the abilities, activities, thoughts, foods, relationships, enjoyments, the security, productivity, beauty, plans, wisdom, understanding, communication, etc, that would be immediately lost if you were somehow turned into a slug. What a terrible change! What an enormous fall and loss! 

Indeed this would be a loss. But I’d like to suggest to you, that the fall of man from his original state into the condition of the natural man—I mean into the nature and life in which you were born into this world—is a fall far even than a human being turned into a slug. And if you doubt my words (which surely many of you do), I fear it is only because you have seen, felt, experienced, and enjoyed the things of a slug for so long, and have lived in such a degree of sluggish blindness and deafness, that you do not really know what you are, where you are, and what the power of the gospel must do to restore you.

Man was created in the image and likeness of God. God said “Let Us make man in our own image and likeness” and then He breathed into him His own breath of life. What was this image and likeness? Some people wrongly assume that this image and likeness have something to do with man’s form or shape, or with the fact that man walks on two feet, and can grow a long white beard. But I assure you, that this has nothing to do with the matter. God is a Spirit, and there is no form, shape or beard that bears His image and likeness. 

In all of creation, only man is said to have borne the image and likeness of God, and this is because only man was created to abide in His life and light, to live as a branch on God’s vine, to drink from His sap (so to speak), to be “a partaker of the divine nature,” and to bear His fruit. Man’s ability to bear the image and likeness of God was because man was created as a temple of His Spirit, a vessel for His nature, a partaker of His life, righteousness, truth, wisdom, and love. We bore His image because God Himself was at work in us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. 

The image and likeness of God was no external thing, nor was it simply man’s intellectual capacity. I think we have all seen that even those of the greatest intellectual ability often fall very short of bearing anything that could be called God’s likeness. Many, in fact, use their intellect for no better reason than to obtain more pleasure, power, and praise. But Adam bore the image and likeness of God because the life, light, love, righteousness, purity, power, and wisdom of God was the nature that reigned in him, and all that he did, and thought, and desired were only manifestations of all the goodness and glory that were hidden in God. 

In a similar sense, you could say that a diamond bears the image and likeness of all the forms of light and color that are hidden in the sun. Now we know that there is a rainbow of color and beauty that is hidden in the light that continually pours forth in the rays of the sun. But when these rays pass through a diamond, we are suddenly able to see what was there all along. The diamond doesn’t PRODUCE anything of this light and beauty. In fact, if you put the diamond in a dark room for a hundred years it would do nothing at all, and would be indistinguishable from the darkness. But when a diamond is filled with the light of the sun, it becomes a beautiful showcase, a clear revelation and manifestation of all that cannot be naturally seen by the eye of man. And in this sense the diamond truly does bear the image and likeness of the sun. It receives, carries, and displays to all seeing eyes the beauties and colors that are hidden in sunlight. 

But now, if you were talking to a man born blind, and you told him that a diamond bears the image and likeness of the sun, that man would have no frame of reference to understand what you were talking about. Having never seen the sun, he could (of course) only imagine what it meant to bear that image. And so, holding a diamond in his hands, he perhaps would tell you that the sun must be hard and cold, because that is what he finds to be true of the diamond. And when you tell him that it is not so, he then might say, “Well, then the sun has sharp edges and points that can break rocks or carve wood.” But of course, you know that that has anything to do with the image and likeness of the sun. 

Like all analogies, this one has its weaknesses, but I think you can see what I am trying to say. The image and likeness of God has nothing to do with what man is in his flesh. You will never find God’s image and likeness there. The only way that man can ever bear the image and likeness of God is if, like the diamond, man receives, carries, and displays the beauties and colors and wonders of the life and light that are hidden in the invisible God.

Now the fall or death of the first man was not a death of the outward, fleshly vessel. God said, “In the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall surely die.” We know that they did eat, and they most surely did die as well. But again, this was not the death of the earthen vessel. It was in fact something far worse than that. It was, in a few words, the LOSS of the life and light of God. It was a real death to His nature, a total departure from His character, a complete loss of His image and likeness.  

You often hear in the church today that man still bears the image and likeness of God. But this is not true, unless a man has regained all that was lost. Man was indeed created in God’s image and likeness, but he lost it entirely when he lost the life and nature of God reigning in his soul. God’s image and likeness were not retained in man simply because man retained the same shape after the fall, or because he walked on two feet, grew white hair, and kept possession of his intellectual faculties. Far from it. In fact, man’s intellect and body and all of his natural gifts have been used for thousands of years to manifest an image and likeness of another father, another nature. 

Adam lost the image and likeness of God, and in Genesis chapter 5 we are told that after “Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, he begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” Now, it is true that man today still bears the same purpose. I mean, he is still created IN ORDER TO bear God’s image and likeness. But he does not naturally possess it as he comes into this world born of a woman. The image and likeness he possess in the fall—I mean, in the fallen state, the slug-like condition—is that of a his fallen father. This is something that the Scriptures declare in the strongest and clearest terms that language can offer. Just to give a few verses that declare this change. 

•  Gen 6:5 “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
•  Gen 8:21 “The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.”
•  Jer 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?”
•  John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.”
•  Rom 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”
•  Eph 2:1-3 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Do these verses sound like they describe the image and likeness of God to you? Of course not. These, and multitudes of similar verses, clearly describe an enormous change from our original condition, a great fall and loss by which we have 1) become something entirely different than what we were, 2) taken pleasure in our evil condition, and 3) become entirely unable to see or understand what we have lost.

From being a branch of God’s goodness, righteousness, purity, love, and life, we have become a selfish, proud, and bestial creature that wastes his precious time pursuing the passing pleasures of sin. Or in the words of the Lord to Jeremiah, “I planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have you turned before Me into the degenerate plant of an alien vine?”

Are you willing to see this to be your natural condition as a son or daughter of Adam? Now please don’t comfort yourself with the idea that, while this may be true, you have nevertheless been forgiven. Forgiveness is wonderful, but forgiveness doesn’t fix this problem. A forgiven son of Adam is still the image and likeness of Adam. Forgiveness doesn’t restore the image and likeness of God. You can forgive a murderer, but that doesn’t make the man something other than a murderer. You can forgive a thief, but that doesn’t change him in any way.

My friends, I am not trying to insult you or discourage you. Truly, with all of my heart I desire to help you. But true help starts with a true diagnosis of the problem. And what I’m trying to tell you is that man has an extremely serious problem, a terrible and terminal disease. He has fallen into a state that is far worse than what the mind is willing to see, far worse than a man being turned into a slug, and yet he has actually learned to like it this way. Another quotation from Jeremiah: “An astonishing and horrible thing Has been committed in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?” (Jer 5:30-31) 

Man has lost the image and likeness of God, and now naturally bears the image and likeness of God’s enemy. And what does this mean practically? This means that instead of abiding in and manifesting the righteousness of God, he has become a manifestation of all sorts of unrighteousness, uncleanness, and shameless wickedness. He has become a body of sin. Instead of bearing the image of God’s love, he bears the image of self-love and self-pleasure, with all of its ugly branches and fruits. Instead of walking in the wisdom from above, he walks in the wisdom from below, which is “earthly, sensual, and demonic”. As the apostle says, the nature that now works in the fallen sons of Adam produces “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like” (Gal 5:19-21). 

These strong words do not describe other people. These words describe the nature of fallen flesh, and to whatever extent that this nature still lives and operates and reigns in you and I, they describe us too. And that is why I asked you if you knew the POWER of gospel. Because the power of the gospel doesn’t just call you a new name; it makes you a new creation. I mean, it doesn’t just call a slug a human, and ignore the fact that he has regained no human traits. And it doesn’t just forgive a slug for having done sluggish things. The gospel is the power of God working in man to restore all that was lost, to create us anew in Christ Jesus, to regenerate, restore, and renew the nature and image man has lost in the fall.

What a sad gospel now predominates in the church today! It is a gospel that tries to call us something that we are not. Do you see what I mean? “The good news of the gospel,” they say, “is that though you remain a slug, you can call yourself a human.” Though you continue to live in pride, and selfishness, and uncleanness of thoughts, words, and deeds, pursuing your own goals, living in your own fleshly will, NEVERTHELESS!… because you believe in Jesus, you can call yourself saved, regenerated and restored. Some say that God no longer sees the fact that we are still slugs. Others say that He sees it, but having crucified His Son, He is able to ignore it. But JESUS Himself said that He came to make you “free from sin indeed,” to “give life abundantly,” to make us “perfect as the Father is perfect,” to “cleanse the inside of the cup” to so that the outside could be clean, to “make the tree good so its fruit will be good.” Jesus said that He came restore God’s image in man, making us again branches that abide in Him, live by His sap, and produce His fruits. John said that Christ came to “destroy the works of the devil” in man, to give us a “seed which cannot sin”, and which can “purify us even as He is pure.” Paul said that we must be transformed “into the same image from glory to glory,” “conformed to the image of His Son”, “cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

And this is why I’m asking you what you KNOW about the gospel. Again, the gospel is not words. The gospel is power. It is not the power to call yourselves something that you are not, but to truly restore you to what you once were. And I’m asking you today, as a way of introducing this subject, what you really know about the “effective working” of this powerful gospel. I’m asking you if this gospel has changed your heart, cleansed your soul, given you a new Spirit, with new desires, new understanding, a new will, with heavenly love, goodness, and wisdom, restoring God’s image and likeness in you to what they were in the beginning. And if your honest answer is yes, than praise God, you indeed know the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if your answer is no, then it may be helpful for us to talk a little more about why this is the case, and what we must do about it.