In Luke-Acts, God’s “Power”
(δυναμις) is yet another form that God takes. As noted earlier, Luke’s reference
to Simon Magus as “the Power of God that is called Great” (Acts 8:10) is
arguably a reference to the Samaritan title for God as “power.” But Luke also
refers to “the power of God” elsewhere in his narrative. When Gabriel explains
to Mary how she will conceive, he tells her that “the power of the Most High
will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35), and during Jesus’s ministry, we learn that “the
power of the Lord” was present with Jesus to heal (5:17). In both these
examples, we may be tempted to see “power” simply as an attribute of God (and
not as an entity). But when Gabriel speaks to Mary, he directly parallels the
action of the Most High’s Power with the action of the Holy Spirit: “the Holy
Spirit will come upon you” // “the Power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
With this synonymous parallelism, Gabriel indicates that the Spirit and the
Power have a common referent, with their collective action resulting in “the
begotten one” being called “Son of God” (1:35). In Jesus’s healing ministry, “the
power of the Lord” also arguably acts as an agent, since this “power” is the
source behind Jesus’s healing (“the Power of the Lord was [present] for him to
heal”). Some manuscripts even suggest that the Lord’s “Power” heals people, directly,
since they render the phrase as “the Power of the Lord was [present] to heal them,”
instead of “The Power of the Lord was [present] for him to heal” (5:17)
(although note that scribes probably envisioned “the Lord” in reference to
Jesus here) (Emphasis added. Scribes likely changed the singular αυτον to the
plural αυτους [and other plural variations# because they did not realize that αυτον was the
subject of the articular infinitive το ιασθαι, Metzger, A Textual Commentary,
115).
Elsewhere, Luke more
clearly describes God’s Power as a heavenly entity. When Jesus is on trial
before the Sanhedrin, he indicates that “the Power of God” is a localized
presence that occupies space when he evokes Dan 7:13 and Ps 110:1, saying, “the
Son of Man will be seated at the right of the Power of God” (Luke 22:69) (Note,
though, that Matthew and Mark more explicitly reference Dan 7:13 in their
version of this saying, relating that the Son of Man will be seen “coming
on/with the clouds of heaven” [Matt 26:64; Mark 14:62]. They also say that the
Son of Man will be seated to the right of “the Power” instead of “the Power of
God.”). In the synoptic apocalypse, Jesus also speaks of multiple heavenly “powers”
when he foretells that “the powers of the heavens [αι . . . δυναμεις των ουρανων] will be shaken”
(21:26 (Luke 21:26 likely alludes to Isa 34:4 [“all the stars will fall away”].
Note that a variant of Isa 34:4 reads: “all the powers of heaven will be
dissolved.” Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, 2:1350. See also
Matt 24:29; Mark 13:25). As in other apocalyptic texts, “powers” here is a way
to refer to angels or the heavenly host; Luke sees “power” not simply as a
literary attribute but as a tangible reality. Luke reinforces this sense later
in Acts, when the Jewish council asks the apostles: “By what Power or by what
Name did you do this”? (Acts 4:7). Here we see the coupling of “Power” with “Name”
and the assumption that the apostles drew upon a higher source in their healing
of the man outside the temple (Note also the association between God’s power
and glory: Jesus says that the Son of Man will be seated at the right of the
power of God [Luke 22:69], and Stephen sees the Son of Man standing at the
right of the glory of God [Acts 7:55-56]). Luke’s association of God’s Power
with God’s Spirit in particular (Luke 1:35) indicates that this Power is a
heavenly agent that engages human lives. (Brittany E. Wilson, The Embodied
God: Seeing the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church [New York: Oxford
University Press, 2021], 129-30)
