This power entails forgiveness and eternal life (also called reconciliation or peace with God), sonship, and enablement (Acts 10:36; Romans 6-8; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21). Its power will extend into complete, unending redemption for us and the Creation (Romans 8:18-25).
John the Baptist, associating the gospel with the kingdom, said it arrives when the Christ baptizes with the Spirit and fire (Luke 3:15-18; cf. Acts 2:30-36). Jesus preached it as release and tied it to the kingdom, focusing it on the world and the poor (Luke 4:16-18; Mark 1:15; Matthew 11:5, 24:14). Paul defined it as the power of God, and not merely as salvation (Romans 1:16). This is because to save, God exercises his power through Christ to overtake the power of sin in humans and the Creation, giving us the Spirit (Romans 1-8; Ephesians 1:3-14). Two images in John's gospel express God's powerful enablement through the Spirit as part of the gospel: being born anew and receiving water that leaves one never thirsting again, what Jesus later called "the Paraclete" (John 3:3; 4:10; 7:37-39; chaps. 14-16). Luke calls the same Spirit-enablement "power from on high" (Luke 24:49).
So the gospel is about the Father's gift of his ongoing, powerful redeeming work mediated through the Son by the Spirit. It is about far more than heaven; it is about God's grace restoring us into a permanently healthy relationship with him and others (Titus 2:11-14).
Darrell Bock is research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.
The late pastor theologian gave strong counsel to me and so many others in ministry.
The first woman tried to get free of God. But when she aligned herself with God’s purposes, she became the ‘Mother of All the Living.’
The Spirit is at work, but so are the mechanisms around high-production sets.
