HE IS THE MIGHTY GOD!
--Isaiah 9:6
It was April 1742 when George Fredrick Handel premiered his oratorio THE MESSIAH in Dublin. The next year several performances were given in London, and King George II was present on one such occasion. When the King first heard “The Hallelujah Chorus,” he was so overwhelmed and inspired that in homage to “The King of Kings and Lord of Lord” he rose to his feet as a tribute of respect. Whenever the monarch stands, protocol demands all present must follow suit. Thus began the custom the audience stands for the singing of “The Hallelujah Chorus,” and in doing honors Him Who is the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
Under powerful, Spirit led inspiration Handel composed his masterpiece in just 24 days. He knew it was the Mighty God who had gifted him to create such a masterful piece of sacred music and told a friend that while composing it, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God Himself.”
Our passage in Isaiah 9:6 is the basis for another chorus in THE MESSIAH “For Unto Us a Child Is Born.” Jesus is the Mighty God, the Lord God omnipotent who shall reign forever and ever.
Mighty God is the most potent, power packed name given to our Messiah in Isaiah 9:6. In the original Hebrew the name is “Gibbor El.” When we examined the name Immanuel, we discovered that “El” is the most common term for deity in the Ancient World. Its root meaning is “strength or might.” Most times in the Hebrew Scriptures it refers to God Almighty, the one true God of Israel, but it may refer on occasions to pagan gods.
When “El” is used for the One, True Living God, it is usually paired with another term so that it will not be mistaken for some pagan counterfeit. Thus for clarity Isaiah yokes “Gibbor” with “El.” The basic sense of the term “Gibbor” is strength, might, power, powerful.
Sometimes “Gibbor” means a “strong or mighty man, a warrior.” “A fifth grade teacher in a Christian school asked her class to look at TV commercials and see if they could use them in some way to communicate what God is like.” Here are some of the results: “God is like Bayer Aspirin; He works miracles. God is like Tide; He gets the stains out that others leave behind; and, God is like Coke; He’s the real thing.” Biblically speaking “God is like a mighty warrior.” On several occasions “Gibbor” is used in a military sense for a “proven warrior.” When used in this way, it suggests spiritual strength or masculinity.
In the Ancient World a king exemplified the power of his kingdom. As Commander-in-chief he would lead his troops in battle and had to be a “mighty warrior.” The Hebrew women praised David’s military might in I Samuel 18:6-17, “As they were coming home, when David returned from killing the Philistine, the women came out of all the towns of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they made merry,
“Saul has killed his thousands,
and David his ten thousands.”
This is the imagery and expectation behind the promise of the Messiah in Isaiah 9:6; He would be “mighty” in similar fashion to His ancestor David. Our Mighty God is the most powerful Commander-in-chief.
Scripture continually declares that Israel’s God is a “Mighty God.” Remember Isaiah 10:21, “A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.” Whenever Israel surrendered to God in obedience, He was her “Mighty Warrior” leading her to victory in all her battles, as in Zephaniah 3:16-19:
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands grow weak.
17 The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
18 as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
19 I will deal with all your oppressors
at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
This promise will be fulfilled when Jesus returns and reigns over the entire world as “The Mighty God, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.” He will physically live with us again ruling as our absolute “Mighty Warrior giving us victory.”
God is mighty in creation and redemption; therefore, Jeremiah praises Him in Jeremiah 32:16-17:“After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the LORD, saying: Ah Lord GOD! It is You who made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for You.” Jesus is our Creator God who “made the heavens and the earth by His great power and outstretched arm” as John confirms in John 1:1-4: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” Jesus is our Mighty God who made the heavens and the earth and “nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing is too difficult for Him.”
Chapters 40 through 66 of Isaiah were revealed to him during the final years of his life. They provide us many details about the ministry of our Messiah and His Coming Kingdom. Isaiah 40:12 presents the Messiah as our Divine Creator:
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
And marked off the heavens with a span,
Enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
And weighed the mounts in scales
And the hills in a balance?
Our Mighty God measures the waters of the oceans and seas “in the hollow of His hand.” A span is “the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger when the hand is fully extended.” What a testimony that is to the mighty, awesome, creative power of God the Son who created all things. “Astronomers tell us that the Milky Way, our Galaxy, contains more than 100 billion stars and that there may be as many as 100 billion other galaxies in the universe. They also believe that the billions of these galaxies have billions of stars with hundreds of millions of planets like our earth. And yet this awesome, humongous universe fits in the palm of its Creator’s hand.” [SOURCE: Paul Lee Tan, “2200: Size of Universe” in Signs of the Times: a Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastor, Teachers and Christian Workers. (Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, 1979), 549.] Furthermore, He measures “the dust of the earth, weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance.” Our Mighty God is awesomely powerful in His creation.
A redeemer is one who buys the freedom of another or sets someone free by paying a ransom. In the Exodus Israel’s Mighty God frees her free from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. Again Jeremiah 32 recalls God’s mighty acts of redemption on behalf of His people: “You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror, and You gave them this land, which You swore to their ancestors to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they entered and took possession of it.” [Jeremiah 32:21-22] Our Mighty God redeemed Israel with His same “strong hand and outstretched arm” by which He “made the heavens and the earth.”
Romans 3:23 makes it clear that everyone of us is a sinner: “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sin enslaves us; Jesus our Mighty God redeems us from slavery to sin. Paul makes this clear in Romans 81-6: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
The great Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard points out that our Mighty God is even more wonderful and powerful as our Redeemer than He is as our Creator. He says, “God creates out of nothing. Wonderful, you say. Yes, to be sure, but He does what is still more wonderful: He makes saints out of sinners.” [SOURCE: Soren Kierkegaard, Leadership, Vol. 8, no. 4.].
You and I can trust the Mighty God Who holds His universe in the palm of His hand and makes saints out of sinners to care for us. At the coronation of his son Solomon just before he died King David praised God Almighty in these words found in I Chronicles 29:10-12: “Riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all. In Your hand are power and might; and it is in Your hand to make great and to give strength to all.” His promise “to give strength to all” is for us to claim and to live by today. Our Mighty God, Who holds his universe in the palm of His hand holds, protects, guides, keeps, and sustains you and me as well.
Charles Simeon of Cambridge was one of the great evangelical scholars and leaders of the Church of England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His biographer shares with us the comfort that Almighty God gave Charles Simeon on his death bed. “After a short pause, he looked round with one of his bright smiles and asked, ‘What do you think especially gives me comfort at this time? The creation! Did God create the world, or did I? I think He did; now if He made the world, He can sufficiently take care of me!’” [SOURCE: Paul Lee Tan, “1466: Deathbed Comfort” in Signs of the Times: a Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastor, Teachers and Christian Workers. (Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, 1979), 397.] The Mighty God, our Lord Jesus Christ Who made the world “can sufficiently take care of you and me today and for all eternity.”
