The Knowledge of the Holy: The Self Existence of God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
What separates God from every other thing in the universe is He has no beginning. Being the creator of time, He exists outside of it. Our all too human quest to understand the origins of everything stem from our experience that everything we interact with had a beginning. We start to get out of our depth when we start dealing with the One who has none. And because God has existed without assistance for all of eternity, He is sits above every created thing.
The self existence of God becomes really “real” when we understand that it’s around this topic that conflict between God and man arises. The essence of sin is an assertion of our self, our will, our way on God. We challenge God’s “self-existence” with our “self.” The beginning of holiness, Tozer argues, is the true submission of man to God. To use Tozer’s analogy, God is always the sun of our galaxy and we are a planet in beneficial orbit. Sin, at its root, is beginning to think of ourselves as a sun and not acknowledging our proper place submitted to God who has always existed and around whom we orbit. “The natural man is a sinner because he challenges God’s selfhood in relation to his own.”
Tozer goes on to explain the only hope for a man who as a planet thinks himself a sun: The gospel must birth in our hearts new desires. As we see Jesus and repent, a new nature is born in us. This new nature, far from just being a more moral person, is actually able to submit the self to God’s self. He no longer challenges God’s existence with his own, but willingly crucifies the self and let’s Christ live through Him.
What I’ve been struck by in this whole discussion is the reality of how subtle the fight against God is in our own soul. And so much of our fight comes from the fact that we fail to see the beauty, power, and holiness of a God who was, is, and is to come. This is one of those areas where we are way too comfortable with a God who we barely understand.
My other thought this morning was this: We serve a God who didn’t make us out of need. He made us to share His life and love with humans. This should stagger us, but the revelation of a God who exists without us is that He didn’t need to make us. But He chose to. He chose relationship. He chose to create to share His life. He isn’t a needy God, but He moves out of love for relationship. This differs greatly from how God is portrayed: needy of humans and uninterested in relationship. My time reading this morning has left me convicted that I need to draw near to a powerful and intimate God who I can offer nothing, but who wants to meet with me regardless. He wants to meet with you, too.
So, thanks for reading. My thoughts are here for you, but this conversation is really helped when you share yours too. Leave a comment and let us know what you’re learning.
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 7: The Eternity of God
Day 8: God’s Infinitude
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: The Holy Trinity
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Today Tozer invites us to peer into one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith: the Trinity. It’s such a great mystery, that he spends about half the chapter encouraging us to believe that which we cannot fully explain. And this is what I love about Tozer: He wholeheartedly submits to a God He doesn’t fully understand. This is unthinkable for most of us, but it’s the nature of trust. Tozer goes on to layout the depth of the oneness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and invites us to wonder at God who is simultaneously one but three.
Tozer also calls us back from some of the various heresies the church embraces without knowing it: God has always been One. God has always been three persons. None of them have ever been any less than the other. Even as we have typically assigned the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit different roles, Tozer is quick to point out that God in His totality was involved.
There are always some deep mysteries involved in this discussion and a very narrow way forward that doesn’t involve heresy. But what I love about the truth of God as One is that built into the very nature of God is a type of unity that does not involve submission or hierarchy. It involves love and oneness of vision. In this way, not only can we worship with our words and song, but we can worship with our lives in the way we relate to other believers. While we cannot become one in substance with the body of Christ, we are called to a oneness of love and purpose that looks very much like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How do we do this? It starts from our unity with Christ in God. Jesus in John 17 prayed to His Father that we would be one. And in the course of the prayer, He says we will be “in Him” and He will be “in God” and that we will receive a glory that makes us one, just as Jesus and the Father are one (see John 17:20-23). Friends, we are called into a deep relationship with the Trinity through the sacrifice of Christ. If we will walk in this Oneness with Christ (being “in Him”) we will inevitably experience a kind of glory and love that causes to walk in oneness with other believers that transcends hierarchy. We will experience the very nature of God in ourselves and in our relationships with others.
So, that’s a different route than I expected to take, but that’s my thoughts. What’s your takeaway from today? Let us know in the contents.
Also, for a fun little exercise in understanding the Trinity, you can watch this video here.
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 4: The Holy Trinity
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 7: The Eternity of God
Day 8: God’s Infinitude
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Today’s chapter is Tozer’s follow up to his last. If God is incomprehensible in the sense that we cannot fully understand Him but loves to reveal Himself to us, how does He do it? According to Tozer, God reveals to us His attributes. “An attribute, as we can know it, is a mental concept, an intellectual response to God’s self-revelation. It is an answer to a question, the reply God makes to our interrogation concerning Himself.”
This can sound really boring and academic if we let it. But Tozer would be the first to walk us back from this being a study instead of an encounter. Consider some of these quotes from the chapter: “…we might be wise to follow the insight of the enraptured heart rather than the more cautious reasonings of the theological mind…” and “To our questions God has provided answers; not all the answers, certainly, but enough to satisfy our intellects and ravish our hearts.” This study will feed our minds to a certain degree but the aim is to feed our hearts and bring us face to face with God Himself.
Tozer goes on to describe that our study in the attributes of God is not an attempt to dissect God into parts. But the attributes of God are things that God is in his totality. God doesn’t have love, He is the definition of it and we learn what love is by looking at Him. God is both just and merciful, but these are not two parts of God that wrestle with each other. God is both without either attribute winning or loosing at certain points in time.
If these concepts cause you to step back, scratch your head, and look confused, then you’ve been paying attention. Part of trying to know God is realizing that at a certain point we are peering into mystery. These mysteries, far from discouraging or confusing us, should cause us to worship. It should bring us to the place of acknowledging how much bigger than us our God is. And as we love this God that seems so shrouded in mystery, He gives light to our heart to understand Him more.
My take away: This is a journey in encountering all of God. We cannot go on a journey of dissecting God like a dead man on a table to find out what makes Him tick. Instead, we are being called into a relationship with the most unique person in the universe. And those encounters with the answers to our questions should provoke an even greater sense of longing and worship of God in Christ. There is no one like God. That’s what makes Him holy. And its into this journey of mystery and longing and worship that we are now about to embark.
Forgive me for waxing poetic this morning. My hope is your heart gets caught up in this journey and waxes a little poetic about Jesus, too.
How about you? What’s your takeaway for the day? Leave a comment so we can journey together!
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 4: The Holy Trinity
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 7: The Eternity of God
Day 8: God’s Infinitude
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 