If you are a Christian, you have probably heard the phrase 'there is power in the name of Jesus' many times. As a non-christian, this probably makes no sense. I think I finally understood it a bit more today, and I wanted to try to explain to you why Christians say there is power in the name of Jesus.
In the old testament of the bible (the first half of the bible if you will, before Jesus coming to earth as a man), we read in Genesis (or 1 Moseböken, if you're Swedish) that God created the heavens and the earth. If you read the first chapter, you'll see that God created through His word. He spoke things into being and they happened. The power of His word brought things into being.
In the Old Testament you see many times that God spoke to people, sometimes directly, other times through prophets, or happenings, such as the burning bush.
In the New Testament, the phrase 'God said' appears only once, in a parable Jesus uses to simplify a lesson He is teaching. Aside from that, the phrase never appears, quite strange compared to the forty-five times it appears in the Old Testament.
You have to wonder why after speaking so much to people in the time before Jesus came to earth, God suddenly seems to stop communicating with them. Or does He stop?
In John 1 (New Testament) verses 1-14 we have an another, slightly brief note on creation. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of all men.'
The Word being spoken about is the powerful word that God used to create the world in the beginning. The word God used brought the earth into existence and created life simply by saying so.
The writer continues in verse 14, 'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...' This verse says that the powerful word God used that created life itself in the beginning, became human just as we are, and lived humanly like the rest of us.
The Word is Jesus. And when Jesus came to earth, He said all that God had been saying in the Old Testament simply by living and dying and rising again as He did.
Jesus is all God has ever said and will ever say. He is the the final word. The curtain closer if you will. So that, where in the Old Testament God spoke, as it says in Hebrews chapter 1 (New Testament) 'by the prophets' (verse 1), He
has 'spoken to us by His son...through whom also He made all the worlds.' (Verse 2).
Now try to understand all of this. The power that God used to create the world was harnessed if you will, in Jesus, who was sent to the earth, being life itself, and that life being a light which was so powerful that darkness could not overcome it (John 1.5), which is why when life (=Light=Jesus) was crucified on the cross and put to death (=darkness), death couldn't overcome it.
You see the life and light that Jesus is, is so powerful that no death, no darkness, no sin, no curse, no emotion or situation of any kind, is any match for it.
When we say Jesus name, we aren't just saying a name, we're declaring power over all things. There is power in the name of Jesus because Jesus is power itself. He is the very Word by which all things came into being.
A beautiful an amazing force to be reckoned with.
