At different times in Yahwist, as also in Jewish and Christian, history, the power of God was understood in different ways. The earliest idea was not very different from...
At different times in Yahwist, as also in Jewish and Christian, history, the power of God was understood in different ways. The earliest idea was not very different from a pagan one: God possesses a power stronger than any power in our world, and therefore no one can resist Him.
Abraham, to whom God revealed Himself by the name El Shaddai, meaning literally "God of power" and usually translated "God Almighty," may have thought this way, and so may Jacob, who so wanted to receive at least some part of this power on the eve of meeting Esau, when he wrestled with his God all night.
And each time it turned out that the power of God is not simply an instrument that, once received from God, can be used at one's own discretion, but an instrument of God's action, inseparable from Him and changing from within the person who has dared to receive this power.
It is not accidental that both Abraham and Jacob receive new names after their momentous encounters: a new name means that a person, while outwardly remaining the same, has changed inwardly, changed so much that the former person is no more, and the new one who has come in place of the former deserves a new name. If we want to receive God's power, it will necessarily change us ourselves: for it is inseparable from God's presence, and in that case our own heart must become the place of this presence, a heart that must change so God can enter it.
Later, in the time of the Judges and the first kings, the power of God was seen somewhat differently: it was seen where God enters human affairs, for example when He intervenes in the course of a war to change it in favor of His people.
Here the power of God is already perceived more spiritually; it is personal and inseparable from God's will, it cannot be separated from God and used at one's own discretion. But the initiators in this case are still people, not God. They undertake affairs that they consider right and necessary not only for themselves but also for God, and then ask God to join these affairs as a helper.
Meanwhile, God's power is needed by Him for the fulfillment of His plans, not ours. This should have become especially clear to the people during the Babylonian captivity, when everything human collapsed and God's nearness was nevertheless experienced more vividly than ever.
God gave these lessons to His people for a reason: without assimilating them it would have been hard to expect the power of God revealed to the world in Christ, and the breath of the Kingdom that Christ brought into the world, to be understood and received.
