Gods Omnipotence

[chester-blowfold]

Is God omnipotent?
How does this actually work with eternal damnation and free will?

[Thomas]

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

OMNIPOTENT
* For OMNIPOTENT (Revelation 19:6 ) see ALMIGHTY

ALMIGHTY
1: παντοκράτωρ   
(Strong's #3841 — Noun Masculine — pantokrator — pan-tok-rat'-ore )
"almighty, or ruler of all" (pas, "all," krateo, "to hold, or to have strength"), is used of God only, and is found, in the Epistles, only in 2 Corinthians 6:18 , where the title is suggestive in connection with the context; elsewhere only in the Apocalypse, nine times. In one place, Revelation 19:6 , the AV has "omnipotent;" RV, "(the Lord our God,) the Almighty." The word is introduced in the Sept. as a translation of "Lord (or God) of hosts," e.g., Jeremiah 5:14; Amos 4:13 .

[Shev]

Is God omnipotent?
How does this actually work with eternal damnation and free will?

Yes, God is omnipotent.

There is no eternal damnation, nor is there completely free will.

[Lazarus Short]

Here are some relevant comments from Heaven, Yes - Hell, No:

Philippians, chapter 3 ends with an answer to those who limit God, Father and/or Son, by ideas such as Hell being final (no exit), or that we place ourselves there, and close the proverbial door.  Paul speaks of God's power to Glorify our carnal bodies, "...according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." (verse 21).  So, Jesus is able to subdue ALL things, but will He?  Yes, look at II Peter 3:9 – "The Lord is...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."  There you have it – Jesus is able and Jesus is willing.  What can we add to that?  Salvation is looking like a done deal, even if the process of salvation is not finished yet. 

So, given ABLE and WILLING, we can say with Paul, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice."  (4:4).

Now in I Timothy 2:4-6, we have a text which should be able, on its own, to bring the Hell Theory crashing down:  "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all...".  So God will have all men saved?  "Will have" is footnoted "desires to," so we have willing, but how about able?  Willing and able were covered just a few pages ago, at the end of the coverage of Paul's Epistle to the Phillipians.  Further, are God's sovereignty and His omnipotence not doctrines in most churches?  Yes, they are, and we also know that God has used His Powers over and over to overthrow the puny wills and actions of men.  How about Noah's flood?  How about the destruction of Sodom and several other cities?  How about the killing of all those Canaanites?  I really wish I could stop the mouths of some of those theologians who babble on about how God would not violate the wills of men, but regretfully lets them enter Hell.  Rubbish!

[Dandelion]

This is the way I look at it.

God always has the final say. He is the ruler of the Universe. He created it; He created us and all things. He knows what we need, and He loves us, so He will do the best for us.

In other words, God 'wrote the book' on all of creation.

Free will, to me, is the choices we have, within the life that God gave us to live.

It is the ability to choose, day to day, whether we grow closer to Him, or closer to this material world.

We cannot choose to be Barrack Obama or Albert Einstein or Marilyn Monroe.

We are who we are, and we live within that content. Things happen to us daily, and we must choose how we are going to respond or react to them.

Or, there are ideas we hear, things we read, etc. Are we going to believe them, or not?

Our journey here, I believe, is not so much for God.....He always knew what we would choose. It is for us.....to learn of His great love for us; to learn to trust Him with our whole being; to give Him our very lives, in grateful thanksgiving; in obedience and most of all, in our love for Him. It is in this way that we become prepared to go to Heaven, and on to the next phase of our lives. We are being molded, minute by minute, into the incredible creatures that He wanted us to be, since before time. We are becoming His children; formed to His image and likeness. Or, we are growing further away from Him. But, one day, all of us, will bow our knees and know who He is and come to love and worship Him. Because to know Him, is to love Him, and to want to do His will, and not our own. At some point, we will all see the futility and chaos that wanting our own way brings, and we will choose His. It is only a matter of time.

There is the dark glass here, that hides His glory from us, to some extent. Some are better able to see Him through it than others. But, in the end, there will be no veil, and we will all see His glory.

His plan was to save us from our sins, not just by bringing us physically to Heaven, but to bring our hearts and souls to Him. We will all become the people He had wanted us to be, when He created Humanity, but we will have done it, through Jesus' sacrifice, and through God calling us, to Himself.....and by letting go and just letting God have His way.....not us. 

Yes, the name above any other name.....we will come to know just what that truly means.

D.

[eaglesway]

God is omnipotent, and He determined from the beginning that He will save all.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Pet 3:9

19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. Acts 3

5 Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me,[a] "Write, for these words are true and faithful." Rev 21

"If I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto me" John 12:32