What Does Luke 18:27 Mean?
And he said, The things without strength for humankind are possible for God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.THE KEY
The verse makes “impossible” a measure of human capacity, then places it beside God’s capacity.
THE MEANING
Human capacity is real, and so are its limits; those limits do not define the whole field of possibility. What is impossible with people remains possible with God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“If no person can make this happen, it cannot happen at all.” The verse names human inability without making it the final measure of possibility.
THE ROOT
ἀδύνατα
adynata
GROWS FROM
δύναμαι
dýnamai
To be able; to have capacity.
“without strength” in this verse is adynata. The paired adjectives come from one word-family: ἀδύνατα adds a negative prefix to the language of ability, while δυνατά names what can be done. English gives two opposite labels; Greek lets you hear one capacity being denied among people and affirmed with God.
ALSO GROWS
dynatos: Able; possible.
δυνατός
This is the positive form behind “possible,” naming capacity rather than a separate kind of event.
adynatos: Unable; impossible.
ἀδύνατος
The negative prefix turns the same language of capacity into human inability.
dynamis: Power; ability.
δύναμις
This related word makes the shared idea of capacity audible beneath both sides of the verse.
THE PATTERN
Human limits do not set the boundary of what is possible with God.
Is any word too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will turn back to you, at this season of life, and Sarah will have a son.I know that you can do all things, and that no plan can be walled off from you.Now to him who is strong enough to do beyond all that we ask or perceive, overflowing past measure, according to the strength that works in us.THE THREAD
For with God nothing will be impossible.Luke 1:37 uses the same Greek ability-word with a negative: nothing is unable with God. Beside Luke 18:27, it shows the shared root of “impossible” and “possible” under both statements.
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