Recently I’ve been digging me some A.W. Tozer Knowledge of the Holy, a survey of the character of God. Yeah, it’s a light read. Tozer’s two main assertions are 1) What you think about God is the most important thing about you and 2) that God can’t be fully known. It stands to reason that our concept of God would inform our actions, our character, our very being as we are derivative creatures. We would only know ourselves in relation to our knowledge of our Creator. How can a creature know itself in any other way?
Tozer’s second point is more perplexing. God can’t be fully known. He’s too big. He’s infinite. The finite can never fully know the infinite. Only the infinite has the capacity to know itself. This sort of magnitude resonates in the scripture:
The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.
Only the infinite, all powerful, all present God has the right to be king over the whole earth. Only He can be one. He’s big.
But Tozer makes a third assertion and here’s where things get tough for me: All of God’s qualities are one. His traits are inseparable from one another. It is incorrect to speak of his love, justice, mercy, holiness, faithfulness, wisdom, as separate and distinct things. They are no different from one another because God himself is One. We must simply pull them apart because we are only familiar with distinct qualities. God is not that way.
Here’s my snag: How could God be big, infinite, all powerful and also be my friend?
I don’t need to unload the barrel of scripture about God knowing me, my innermost being; thinking good thoughts towards me. A high priest who knows our struggles; who empathizes.
But how can God’s infinitude and intimacy be one and the same?
Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.
Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.
All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.
John 17 makes it indelibly clear that the fullness of God dwells in Christ. Jesus reveals that his glory and the Father’s glory are co-dependent. There is no distinction between the Father’s glory, the Son’s good nor in the either direction. There is astounding intimacy. Infinite intimacy.
But the glory of the trinity does not stop short of the Father-Son relationship: “And glory has come to me through them.” This glory extends out towards us–in us.
I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.
The unity that exists in God is offered and available today through Christ.
Hallelujah, brought near to the heart of God through the blood of the Lamb.
Glory and honor be to Him who has severed the tie between God and man.
Thank you, Jesus, friend. Lover. Who dwells within me, and in whom the Father dwells. May the truth of your life in me leak its way out today.
Sixty-six books in a year 