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Metamath
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 The Power The second part of the summing up of the Lord's prayer is more than simply acknowledging God's omnipotence. It is a conclusion of the redemption as complete, and that God's hands are not tied in expectation of the arrival of the messiah, God's gloves are off and He is able to redeem anyone with the work of Christ that He has chosen. As God is able to lead us in our lives, the prayer draws together the thread that He is the way, the truth and life and not merely that we live and move and have our being in Him - but that the world is under the strict control of the Kingdom of God and this creation is not far from Him. He does not wave to us from a window high above the clouds in some other galaxy - rather God is present and able to make any difference He wishes, and that difference has been Christ. The "power" is that every moment of this creation is somehow constrained by the will of God from moment to moment. That is not a statement of determinism, rather that God is able to answer the prayer for believers to be refined, perfected and delivered as well as to be lead from temptation and into the fold of the one heavenly flock. The power belongs to God, in that Jesus Christ is the hope we may place our faith upon - we ensure that since the works or God are complete we do not worship another in His stead, (which was Marcions error) but we reference the one true God that has been the creator of all and has not been supplanted by any other. It is an illusion to suppose that everything continues as it has since the beginning, for this creation was the first, and when evil is finally destroyed along with this world, only those the Lord chose to save will be saved. The Lord stated "My strength is made perfect in weakness". When the least of all men has been saved and the rest are required necessarily to repent - what will happen then? Likewise when the last of all men are saved, what will happen? The Lord will return soon. Jesus warned us to fear not the threats of men but to fear He whom has the power to cast us into hell. That is a warning we should take note of, for God is in power over every particle in creation, as well as able to resurrect the dead. Christ on the cross was relieved of the presence of two parts in spirit, leaving only a third, that of Christ Himself without the spirit of the Father to give Him His Father's life. Christ only then, as prince of all virtue and His perspective of regression now reduced to that of a man - (so that He would lay down the life He had as well as that which the Father gave to Him) Christ was completely cut off with nothing upon that cross and still, He picked up His own life again and was raised from the dead. Simple and without much to assert it is the idea that if God laid down a necessarily existent life for another, then that other would have the same measure of eternal life. If God absolutely has to live and gave His life for us, that (kinda) gives us eternal life, right? Of course such a view of the cross is rather simplistic - but without complaint it is at the heart of Christian belief - even if it may be picked upon as a fallacy of equivocation. If God however showed His love by laying down His Life for His friends - then as He showed Himself able to choose when to pick up any life again, He may do so freely - doing it Himself when He was yet non-existent is good enough for me. The rest is down to His freedom of choice of His friends. |
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