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There Is No Power but of God

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 30, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 64.

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“There Is No Power but of God”

By ADOLPHUS SMITH

ADOLPHUS SMITH
It is absolutely true that “there is no power but of God.” Rom. 13: 1. There is no power in matter of itself to move. A watch is a wonderful piece of human mechanism, constructed of material drawn from God’s laboratory, with design to measure passing time. But of itself it is as powerless as a piece of clay. Human power must be stored up in the mainspring; and even then the watch cannot “run” unless the power is allowed to escape by way of the balance wheel. And when its store of power is exhausted, the watch will stop forever unless the power is renewed.
Of the dust of the ground God made man, a more complicated and wonderful mechanism than the watch. Ps. 139: 14. But man could not live and move until there was imparted to him a certain measure of God’s own power. See Gen. 2: 7. The immortality of the saints will be perpetuated by renewal of vital power through eating of the tree of life. Rev. 22: 2. The mechanism of the astral universe also is upheld by the same divine power. Heb. 1: 3; Isa. 40: 26. Our spiritual life and its perpetuation are by the same power of God. Eph. 2: 10; Rom. 1: 16; 1 Peter 1: 5; Jude 24; 2 Cor. 4: 16. The new creation in Christ Jesus imparts the divine nature to the redeemed. “In Christ we become more closely united to God than if we had never fallen. . . . God has adopted human nature in the person of his Son, and has carried the same into the highest heaven.”—The Desire of Ages, page 27. All that man can accomplish mentally, physically, or spiritually, is made possible by the power of God that is imparted to him. Hence, man has no right to take glory to himself. See 1 Cor. 4: 7.
God’s power is grossly misapplied by the sinner. Isa. 43: 24. The power of Pilate to condemn and crucify Jesus was put God-given power misused. John 19: 10, 11. Each thought and act is a use of God’s intrusted power. They are golden grains of sand in time’s hourglass that measure out our destiny.