Nothing Is Impossible With God: Verse with Commentary

What does it mean that with God, nothing is impossible?  Is there anything impossible for God?   If so, what is it?

Impossible Things for God

Hebrews 6:17-18 “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.”

There is more than one thing that God cannot do and that is that God cannot lie!  God’s nature is that He is always good and cannot do evil, therefore God cannot lie and that is so reassuring when we read the Bible.  In fact Paul tells the Corinthians that “all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (2 Cor 1:20).

It is also impossible for God to be mocked since whatever we reap, we are sure to sow (Gal 6:7).  You cannot reap a lifestyle of sin and not reap the awful consequences.  You will most certainly reap what you sow, later than you sow but also more than you sow.

It is also impossible for God to change as “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8) for God has declared “For I the Lord do not change” (Mal 3:6). Humans change and someday we will be changed for “in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:52-53).  God has no cause to change for He is always the same; perfect, holy, complete in Himself and has no need of anyone or anything.

With Man Some Things Are Impossible

Matthew 19:26 “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

God looks at everything and sees that nothing is impossible for Him.  With humans, only a few, limited things are possible but with God all things are possible.  God has a history of taking improbable people and doing impossible things.  The story of Gideon’s army showed that when God is one your side, there is nothing that He cannot do as Gideon’s army of 300 defeated an army of 32,000!  Martin Luther said that God plus one is always a majority. The fact is that “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (2 Chron 16:9).

With God, All Things Are Possible

Luke 1:37 “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Mary was told that she was to conceive and have a child and call Him Jesus, even though she was a virgin and told her relative Elizabeth, being past child-bearing age, that she would bear a child and call him John, she was told by the angel Gabriel that “nothing will be impossible with God.”  The same thing happened to Sarah who at age 90 would gave birth to Isaac for it was “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised” (Heb 11:11) and God asked the rhetorical question “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen 18:14).   The answer of course is no, there is nothing too hard and there is nothing impossible that God cannot do (except lie, be mocked, and change).

Faith in the God of the Impossible

Luke 17:6 “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

If you read Hebrews chapter 11 you can see just how powerful faith is and it is not our power but the power of God that is revealed in this faith.  Our faith is only as strong as the Object of our faith and when the Object of our faith is God, then what is a mountain to God?  Is there really anything too hard for God?  If we have faith in God’s ability then we can do anything as long as it is His will and it is for His glory.  That is what Jeremiah knew.

With God, Nothing is too Hard

Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.”

If God can create the entire universe, creating everything out of nothing, then how can He not do the impossible?  God loves to show Himself strong and to be glorified by doing what the world considers impossible.  In fact, the more impossible it seems the more God is glorified by doing it!  What a great God we serve!

God; Impossibly Out of Nothing Comes Everything

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

We know that for every effect there has to be a cause but there does not have to be an effect for every cause because God is uncaused. He is the unmoved mover which is the concept described by Aristotle to explain the origin of everything.  If there is anything that now exists, then there had to be a cause greater than the things that were created and the indescribable infinite nature of the universe had a cause much greater than itself…and that cause was God.  What is greater…the house that the builder built or the builder himself?  It is the builder of course for without the builder there would be no building, therefore the builder will always be greater than anything he can build just as a Creator has to be, by necessity, greater than anything He could create.

What is there in this universe that had no beginning?  What is there in the entire universe that had no cause?  God alone is the cause and all matter including all life had as its cause, God.  There can be no other explanation.  God has to be eternal for He could not have created Himself because He would have had to be or would have had to have existed prior to His being created so the sheer illogic that God has a cause is irreconcilable.

Conclusion

There are three things as we have read that God cannot due:  He cannot lie, He cannot be mocked, and He cannot change.  Someday we will exchange our mortal body for the immortal body (1 Cor 15) and we will be like Him for we shall see Him as He is even if it does not yet appear what we shall be like (1 John 3:2).  This is when the children of men will become the children of God (John 1:12) and it will happen in less than a split second.  If you are not born again then you will face quite a different future as Daniel described in 12:3a because “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt [but] “those who are [born again, they shall] shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Dan 12:3b).  Which state you shall be in is up to you (John 3:16-18).  You have a choice to make and no choice is to reject the One, True Source of Life.

Another Reading on Patheos to Check Out: What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book  Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon