A Journey into the Father’s Heart

One of the many posthumously published compilations of A.W. Tozer sermons, The Attributes of God, Vol. 1 is a calm, pastorly treatise not only on God’s attributes, but also on why they matter. I chose to work my own way through this book while also teaching a course on Systematic Theology, specifically during the section titled “Theology Proper,” where we discussed what can crassly be described as “God in general” and then more specifically “God the Father.”

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of Tozer’s book (and theology) is his constant mantra regarding God’s attributes in this book, which goes something like this: “An attribute is something God is, not something God has.” (86) This is an apt description of how Tozer approaches each of the attributes covered in this book, and it’s an amazing way of viewing them! God doesn’t behave righteously because some law outside of Himself called “Justice” dictates the unbreakable rules which He must follow: God behaves righteously because God is justice, just as “God is love.” When we approach God or theology with this kind of thinking, we cannot doubt His actions (consider the oft pooh-poohed “regret” passages of the O.T.). Instead we understand why we must worship Him for His mighty thoughts and ways that are so high above our own.

While there were many insights in this book that I’ve already saved to my “Quotes” files, my favorite sections of the entire book are those in which He describes God’s immanence. I don’t know if these insights hit me so hard because God’s presence happened to be a topic of discussion in my class, or (more likely) because I sometimes sense a spiritual remoteness from Him. Whatever the case, the teachings from Tozer were timely and effective in my life, and so I’d like to share them below. [If these quotations are too long for copyright rules, please let me know. I’ll edit them down.]

God is above, but He’s not pushed up. He’s beneath, but He’s not pressed down. He’s outside, but He’s not excluded. He’s inside, but He’s not confined. God is above all things presiding, beneath all things sustaining, outside of all things embracing and inside of all things filling. That is the immanence of God. (Tozer, The Attributes of God Volume 1, 21)

Why then this serious problem among real Christians—this feeling that God is far away or that we are far away from God? It’s hard to rejoice if you’re suffering from that sense of remoteness. I believe that most Christians do suffer from a sense of divine remoteness. They know God is with them and they’re sure they’re God’s children. They can take you to their marked New Testament and prove to you seriously and soberly that they’re justified and regenerated, that they belong to God, that heaven is going to be their home and that Christ is their Advocate above. They’ve got the theology; they know all this in their head, but they’re suffering from a sense of remoteness. To know something in your head is one thing; to feel it in your heart is another. And I think most Christians are trying to be happy without having a sense of the Presence. (Tozer, The Attributes of God Volume 1, 121)

Why then do we feel Him in the distance? It’s the dissimilarity in our natures; it’s the unlikeness. We’ve got enough likeness that God can commune with us and call us His children and we can say, “Abba, Father.” But in the practical working out of it, we sense our dissimilarity, and that is why God seems remote. What I’m trying to get across is simply this: nearness to God is not a geographical or an astronomical thing. It is not a spatial thing. It is a spiritual thing, having to do with nature. And so when we pray “God, draw me nearer,” or “God, come nearer,” we’re not praying (if we’re good theologians) for God to come down from some remote distance. We know God’s here now. Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). The Lord is here. Jacob said, “God is in this place and I didn’t know it” (see Genesis 28:16). He didn’t say, “God came to this place”; he said, “God is in this place.” What are we praying for, then? We are praying for a manifestation of the presence of God. Not the presence, but the manifestation of the presence. Why don’t we have the manifestation? Because we allow unlikenesses. We allow moral dissimilarity. That “sense” of absence is the result of the remaining unlikeness within us. This desire, this yearning to be near to God is, in fact, a yearning to be like Him. It’s the yearning of the ransomed heart to be like God so there can be perfect communion, so the heart and God can come together in a fellowship that is divine. (Tozer, The Attributes of God Volume 1, 123)

Have you any tears for your unlikeness? Have you any tears for that distance between you and God that you know isn’t there and yet feel is there? You’re not diminishing in any way the things God has already done in your life. You’re grateful and thankful for every blessing, for justification, for the good grace of God on your life. But you can’t escape that sense of remoteness, and many a day is a heavy one because God seems far from you. You know He isn’t but you feel He is. He can’t show His face. You’ve allowed self-indulgence, harshness, a vengeful spirit, lukewarmness, pride and worldliness to put a cloud over the face of God. I think that repentance is called for. We need to repent of unlikeness; of unholiness in the presence of the holy; of self-indulgence in the presence of the selfless Christ; of harshness in the presence of the kind Christ; of hardness in the presence of the forgiving Christ; of lukewarmness in the presence of the zealous Christ, burning like a fiery flame; of worldliness and earthliness in the presence of the heavenly Christ. I think we ought to repent. (Tozer, The Attributes of God Volume 1, 131)

What a powerful, convicting message from such a godly man! I hope that these quotations can help true believers make sense of any feelings of distance from God they have or remoteness in the Christian life. True believers can feel this way—it’s absolutely true. Just read the Psalms. For more of the same, encouraging teachings from Tozer about the God Who Is, I highly recommend this book.

©2018 E.T.