A KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY – A.W. Tozer — A Review

This little book—mine is copyrighted 1961—which I’ve had in my library for many years but never read, has now become an inspiration to me. I  pulled it off the shelf this January, with the hope that it would help me grow as a Christian. In the book, Tozer explores The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life (subtitle).

Chapters include discussion on God’s Infinitude, Wisdom, Omnipotence, Faithfulness, Goodness, Justice, Mercy, and many more, set forth with the idea that these attributes are not separate entities that stand on their own, but that altogether, they form a picture of God as He has chosen to reveal Himself to us through Scripture. (The Scriptures Tozer uses to illustrate his points are listed at the back of the book.)

Some of my favourite quotes from Tozer’s book:

• “He does not possess [the divine attributes] as qualities; they are how God is as He reveals Himself to His creatures.” (p. 22)
• “God has a voluntary relation to everything He has made, but He has no necessary relation to anything outside of Himself.” (p. 38)
• “To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfections; to doubt Him takes nothing away.” (p. 40)
• “The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshiping heart needs none.” (p. 65)
• “The attributes explain each other and prove that they are but glimpses the mind enjoys of the absolutely perfect Godhead…To magnify any attribute to the exclusion of another is to head straight for one of the dismal swamps of theology…” (p. 85)
• “Christ walked with men on earth that He might show them what God is like and make known the true nature of God to a race that had wrong ideas about Him…” (p. 90)
• “To fear and not be afraid—that is the paradox of faith.” (p. 91)
• “There is nothing in His justice which forbids the exercise of His mercy.” (p. 94)
• “It is a strange and beautiful eccentricity of the free God that He has allowed His heart to be emotionally identified with men.” (p. 107)
• “There is freedom to choose which side we shall be on but no freedom to negotiate the results of the choice once it is made.” (p. 119)

The last chapter offers, as the chapter title suggests, the Open Secret of how to grow Christ’s body, the church: Acquaint thyself with God. It must “begin with the individual.” Only as we acquaint and re-acquaint ourselves with God (read: lose some of our preconceived and sometimes false ideas of who He is), will we be able to properly represent Him here on this earth, and serve Him as we should.