WHAT GOD CANNOT DO

By Akin Ojumu

Without question, YAHWEH is omnipotent, i.e., all-powerful. He is most definitely omniscient i.e., all-knowing. God is omnipresent, meaning present everywhere at all times. 

We can all agree that the LORD’s power and wisdom are beyond our comprehension. Human mind is incapable of grasping the limitlessness of God’s ability.

It’s for this reason that God asked Abraham and Sarah the rhetorical question, when they doubted His promise of a child to them in their old age:

“Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14).

And this why Jeremiah had to reassure himself with these words at a time when the all-powerful army of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard, which was in the palace of the king of Judah:

“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.” (Jeremiah 32:17).

Our God is indeed a mighty God. Nevertheless, anyone who tells you, “What God cannot do does not exist,” must be marked and avoided. Such a pseudo-profound mendacious cliché either belies a fundamental lack of understanding of who God really is or it’s a cynical ploy to beguile.

Of course, there are many things God cannot and will not do. And that’s not to suggest that God’s sovereignty is limited in any way. Rather, it’s simply to express the fact that God cannot act contrary to His own character and nature. God cannot violate His own precepts and principles.

The following are just a few of the things God cannot do.

(1) God Cannot Not Love

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love…” (Jeremiah 31:3).

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (Romans 8:35).

(2) God Cannot Sin

“Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!” (Psalms 99:9)

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)

“He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” (1 Peter 2:22).

“You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” (1 John 3:5).

(3) God Cannot Lie

“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind” (Numbers 23:19).

“That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie…” (Hebrews 6:18).

(4) God Cannot Change

“For I am the LORD, I change not…” (Malachi 3:6).

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8).

(5) God Cannot Break His Promise

“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

“Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.” (Hebrews 10:23).

(6) God Cannot Despise a Broken and Contrite Heart

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

(7) God Cannot Satisfy Greedy Desires

“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” (James 4:3).

“For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father but is from the world.” (1 John 2:16).

In the minds of many who say, “What God cannot do does not exist,” God is nothing more than a genie trapped in a celestial bottle and is eager to grant any and all their fleshly wishes and fulfill all their selfish cravings. 

Such a low view of God is emblematic of contemporary Christianity. It’s the product of a Christian life that’s defined by a quid pro quo mindset. 

Sadly, this sort of transactional “give me, bless me” materialistic religiosity is the putrid pond from whence many Christians drink. And it’s the reason the Church is in the mess it is today.