The Arms of God

In art, in literature, in music arms provide images of strength, welcome, protection, rescue, tenderness, and comfort.
The Bible shows us that those are things that God offers us. The Bible also often uses the symbolism of arms to describe God’s character and activity.

1. God at the ready                             Isaiah 52:10

Psalm 8:3-4 “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”
As marvellous as the creation of the heavens is, they were just the work of his fingers. However when God saw the damage our sins brought about the Bible says the “Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations.” It’s as if creating the world was easy but when it came to solving the crisis of our sin, God had to roll up His sleeves and he really got down to business… This is a serious matter for Him. God intervenes and he is going to act to save his world.
In Luke 1:46-55 Mary saw that her own miraculous pregnancy and that of her cousin Elizabeth was a sign that God acted to fulfil his promise to save.
“From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me, holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; (v48-51)

All this activity of God is intricately bound up with the birth of Jesus. His incarnation is the indication that God has done something, that far from being indifferent to the world he stepped right into it.

Strangely not everyone wants a God who is so concerned. They would rather he minded his own business.
Why do people reject the idea of God reaching down into our lives? It is probably because they want to hold on to the arrogant assumption that they can fix the world themselves. God will never accept that the world is not his business. He will never accept that you are not his business. He is and will ever be not only our creator but our Father.

We delude ourselves if we think human beings can sort out this world wn it is we and our sin that is the problem. The old hymn Stand up, Stand up for Jesus has the line, “The arm of flesh will fail you, you dare not trust your own. We need outside help. We need a Saviour. Praise God, we have one.

The image of the Lord baring his arm is a picture of a soldier making ready for battle. Any warrior in Bible times would of necessity remove an upper garment, and free his arms of all encumbrances in order to fight effectively. Usually, this meant wearing some type of sleeveless upper garment so that the arms were totally unhindered in battle. The Bible shows us that God is a warrior ready to go into battle for us.

2. God at work

It is of course one thing to be willing and ready to get involved in trying to save and rescue. But are his arms long enough to reach us and are they strong enough to win the day?
Isaiah 59:1 “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.”

The flexing of muscles immediately conveys power and strength.
In the Bible God is described like this, “Your arm is endued with power, your hand is strong, your right hand exalted.” Jeremiah once said to God, “Ah Sovereign Lord you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you”

Such verses give us tremendous hope because there are millions of things that we find too hard to do.
However a question that raises itself is, “If God is all powerful why do we still see such suffering in the world?”
If he is all powerful why does he let bad things happen?
Where do we begin to answer such a question? Where we start is actually the crucial thing. If we start with the bad things and try to reason back to God we will never make it.
If we start with lung cancer or divorce or rape or murder or earthquakes it is hard to find God. He is there but he is hard to see.
It is far better to start with God and what you know about him and then go back to the bad things. In our personal experience God has shown us his love, and his power we know his presence with us. What we know of him tells us that God will find a way of redeeming the seemingly impossible situations in the world.
We need to start with what we know about God and then look at the world. And what we know about God is best expressed in Jesus. Jesus said, “He that has seen me has seen the father.” When I look at Jesus I see someone who cares, who loves without limit and who ultimately overcame the greatest enemy of men, death itself.
Jesus is represented by the ‘hand’ and ‘arm’ of God. We have heard the expression: “He is my ‘right arm’, or my ‘right hand man’.” These expressions indicate how valuable this person is to us, and how necessary to accomplish the desired results—the person described in this way is an extension of ourselves to help carry out our plans.
Psalm 89:13 “Your arm is endued with power.”
Matthew 28:18 “All power in heaven and earth has been given to me.”
And so let’s not forget that when we say God is a God at work the culmination of that work took place on a hill outside Jerusalem where the Saviour God sent, bared his arms and had them stretched out and nailed to a cross but such was his power that he rose to life three days later.
And we can obey the request of the psalmist; “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.” (Psalm 98:1)

3. God at my side

Are we able to have an individual relationship with such a powerful being or is he just too overwhelming to know personally?
Human beings have done everything to provoke the Lord to anger.

When faced with the holiness of God and his own sinfulness the prophet Isaiah cried out, “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the king the Lord Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:5)

Yet Isaiah was not destroyed but cleansed and then commissioned by God to speak for him.
The Victorian preacher, Spurgeon said, “What a mighty arm of grace it must have been which held back the anger of God while we were in a state of rebellion and impenitence! For God to rule the angry sea seems nothing, to me, compared with the power which He exercises upon Himself when He endures the provocations of ungodly men, the hardness of their hearts, their rejection of Christ and, oftentimes, their blasphemous speeches and their unclean deeds. O Sinner when you are sinning with a high hand and with an outstretched arm is it not a wonder of wonders that God does not cut you down and end your insolence?” (Spurgeon)

Yet God does not just refrain from destroying us his is an outstretched arm that gathers.

Isaiah 40:11 “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

Deuteronomy 33:27,"The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.



We must realize that God is for us. God is not the angry avenger who is peering at earth looking for wayward sinners that he can condemn. God is constantly working to renew and to restore.

It is really saying that human strength is not enough to meet our needs. We need the mighty arm of God around us to redeem us, restore us, comfort and strengthen us.