The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God (AW Tozer Series Book 2)

by A.W. Tozer

The mind looks backward in time till the dim past vanishes, then turns and looks into the future till thought and imagination collapses from exhaustion: and God is at both points, unaffected by either.

When time-words occur in the Scriptures they refer to our time, not to His.

God dwells in eternity but time dwells in God.

Time is known to us by a succession of events. It is the way we account for consecutive changes in the universe. Changes take place not all at once but in succession,

but God is not compelled so to wait. For Him everything that will happen has already happened.

He sees the end and the beginning in one view.

where later is one with earlier, where the end is one with the beginning,

since God is eternal, He can be and continue forever to be the one safe home for His time-driven children. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”

May the knowledge of Thy eternity not be wasted on me!

For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, and as responsible moral beings we must deal with both.

To be made for eternity and forced to dwell in time is for mankind a tragedy of huge proportions. All within us cries for life and permanence, and everything around us reminds us of mortality and change.

The ancient image of God whispers within every man of everlasting hope; somewhere he will continue to exist.

God’s eternity and man’s mortality join to persuade us that faith in Jesus Christ is not optional.

Whatever the cost to us in loss of friends or goods or length of days let us know Thee as Thou art, that we may adore Thee as we should.

This God we have made and because we have made him we can understand him; because we have created him he can never surprise us, never overwhelm us’, nor astonish us, nor transcend us.

Infinitude, of course, means limitlessness,

All our thoughts about Him will be less than He,

When we say that God is infinite we mean that He knows no bounds.

to say that God is infinite is to say that He is measureless.

Measurement is the way created things have of accounting for themselves. It describes limitations, imperfections, and cannot apply to God.

All that He is He is without growth or addition or development.

There is no reason for us to try to discover what has not been revealed. It is enough to know that God is God.

We poor human creatures are constantly being frustrated by limitations imposed upon us from without and within.

Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down. There is simply not time enough

How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none.

For Him time does not pass, it remains;

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The Christian man possesses God’s own life and shares His infinitude with Him. In God there is life enough for all and time enough to enjoy it.

“Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Abounding sin is the terror of the world, but abounding grace is the hope of mankind, however sin may abound it still has its limits, for it is the product of finite minds and hearts; but God’s much more” introduces us to infinitude.

Since God is self-existent, He is not composed. There are in Him no parts to be altered. And since He is self-sufficient, nothing can enter His being from without.

Thou art unity itself, indivisible by any conception.”

God is immutable, and in Him men of faith find at last eternal permanence.

In the meanwhile change works for the children of the kingdom, not against them. The changes that occur in them are wrought by the hand of the in-living Spirit.

Incoming to Him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood.

He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one.

God never changes moods or cools off in His affections or loses enthusiasm.

God will not compromise and He need not be coaxed.

In the light of Thy perfect knowledge I would be as artless as a little child.

God has never learned and cannot learn.

We have seen that God had no origin, that He had no beginning, that He requires no helpers, that He suffers no change, and that in His essential being there are no limitations.

that abrupt statement by God Himself, “I am the Lord, I change not,” tells us more about the divine omniscience than could be told in a ten-thousand word treatise,

God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creature hood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell.

Because God knows all things perfectly, He knows nothing better than any other thing, but all things equally well. He never discovers anything. He is never surprised, never amazed. He never wonders about anything nor (except when drawing men out for their own good) does He seek information or ask questions.

No talebearer can inform on us, no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us.

His knowledge of our afflictions and adversities is more than theoretic; it is personal, warm, and compassionate.

We turn from our wisdom as well as from our folly and flee to Thee, the wisdom of God and the power of God.

The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof and the worshipping heart needs none.

God is wise in Himself, and all the shining wisdom of men or angels is but a reflection of that uncreated effulgence which streams from the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.

The idea of God as infinitely wise is at the root of all truth. It is a datum of belief necessary to the soundness of all other beliefs about God.