What is God like?
Can we even answer that question? In truth, no; however, thanks to glimpses given to us through the Word and the Holy Spirit, we have an idea that provides us pictures, similarities, and likenesses. Even wise and inspired men have had difficulty expressing what God is like; often times (actually, at all times) this is because the revealed description of God is wholly or in part delivered to those who are a part of the natural world. Despite the recipient's insight and/or wisdom, the revelation is of a God and a world that is above and outside of nature. This is why in scripture, we find so many times in which writers, having no frame of reference for what they've been shown, describe their visions and insights in terms of what it is like or similar to, rather than what it really is because they are unable to describe what they have been shown. An interesting point that AW Tozer brings up is that while the scripture says that man was made in the image of God, we are not to infer that it means we were created in the "exact image of God." Remember that much of this study is looking at the character and attributes of God, those things which set Him apart as unique in His Greatness; if we were made in the exact image of God, a replica of God, we would "lose the unicity of God and end with no God at all." It comes back to AW Tozer's distinction between That-which-is-God and that-which-is-not-God. When we lose that distinction between the two, we degrade our image of God to something no greater than the created being.
At this point, though, we arrive at a conundrum: our minds strive to discern what God is like, but our minds are limited and constrained from doing so because we can only really understand the ideas of that-which-is-not-God. We are instructed to have no other Gods before Him, but to have an image of God that is other than He is borders on idolatry, however ignorant or unintentional it may be. Again, we are stuck. If God is incomprehensible as the Apostle's Creed states He is, or unapproachable, as the Apostle Paul states He is, how can we ever understand what He is like rightly? How can we acquaint ourselves with Him who is too high to know and how are we to be accountable to seek and know That which can't be known? Paraphrasing Zophar the Namathite: "Can you find out God by searching? Can you know the Almighty perfectly? It is high as heaven; what can you do? It is deeper than hell; what can you know?" Jesus answers these questions in John: "No man knows the Father, except the Son, and also to whomever the Son reveals Him." Paul also says in I Corinthians that God can only be known as the Holy Spirit, in the seeking heart, "performs... an act of self-disclosure." God reveals Himself, what He is like, through Jesus... but He does so, not to the reasoning mind, but to the seeking heart moving in faith and love. Tozer states, "Faith is an organ of knowledge, and love an organ of experience. God came to us in the incarnation; in atonement He reconciled us to Himself, and by faith and love we enter and lay hold on Him."
In the end, there is no acceptable answer to the question, "What is God like?" There is, however, a more acceptable and relevant question which is, "What has God disclosed about Himself that the reverent reason can comprehend?" Even though the name of God is withheld and His essential nature is outside our ability to comprehend, in His "condescending love", He has revealed certain things about Himself to be true... "These are we call His attributes."
Monday, March 7, 2016
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Preface and Chapter 1: Thinking Rightly About God
In our own present day experience, has our view of God become so "low and ignoble, as to be totally unworthy of thinking, worshiping men?" Have we surrendered our lofty concept of God? For that matter, was our own concept of God ever lofty to begin with? At first glance I would hesitate in answering this question, not because I would have to search for occasions of this act, but because I am hesitant to explore past a surface which may loosely cover an unwanted conclusion. Tozer points out in the early 1960's that Christians entertained such a low view of God as a result of a "hundred lesser evils"; do we in our own time, in fact are we in our own lives, guilty of making "minor concessions" for sin, things only slightly noticeable, which over time have diminished our awe and reverence of the Almighty? Tozer also points out that if you took all of the problems of the world and confronted them at once, their magnitude would not compare to the "overwhelming problem of God: that He is, what He is like, and what we as moral beings must do about Him," or how we respond to Him. Often I think that we have that last part down; however, when you start to put real searching thought to the first two, His Absolute Existence and His incomprehensible components, or attributes, you begin to see that your supposedly acceptable response (your worship) is utterly and completely unacceptable. Without a right thinking about God, called "Orthodoxy", where you really understand "what God is like", you risk imagining God as something He is not, forming in your mind something other than the God of Israel, ending up in an unfortunate idolatrous state. What it all comes down to is that at some point the church allowed the corruption of simple basic theology - she got the wrong answer to the question: "What is God like?"
So, with all that said, what are we to do about it? What is the root of the problem? OUR DEFACED CONCEPT OF GOD! In a nutshell, we must "purify and elevate" our concept, or understanding, of God until it once again reflects the true character and nature of God.
So, with all that said, what are we to do about it? What is the root of the problem? OUR DEFACED CONCEPT OF GOD! In a nutshell, we must "purify and elevate" our concept, or understanding, of God until it once again reflects the true character and nature of God.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Introductory Thoughts
Prior to jumping in with my thoughts on The Knowledge of the Holy, I wanted to share with you a journal entry I wrote about six months ago, that sort of shares my heart and why I wanted to lead this class.
03Aug2009 - Intro to Psalms / Thoughts on Worship
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about worship and prayer and "correct" thought on who God is and how we should rightly approach Him in worship. Pastor Tom has been talking to me for a while now about helping to lead a study revolving around this concept, so it has really been stirring in my head.
When most people talk about worship, the first thought that comes to mind is corporate worship as it pertains to our own church fellowships and congregations. This however is only part of it; there is the rest of our week when we are away from our scheduled time of group worship, in which we engage in worship of another kind. This can be exhibited in a number of ways but can be manifested in prayer, attitude/outlook, personal discipline, as well as many other ways which are not always at the forefront of our minds and less often associated with worship. What is prayer, if it is not worship? It could be said that prayer is not worship, but communication with God. A very good definition that I once heard for "worship" is that it is man's response when encountering the Holy God. At the heart of prayer, communication with God Himself, is our desire to God and His attributes. Often we don't realize it because we allow that communication to become so shallow and so weak, either through stale ritual or just plain apathy, that it ceases to even resemble worship and becomes pointless altogether. As David Crowder writes in his book, Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi, we need to make a habit of of genuine worship to God, but we don't want to get into a rut or a habit just for the sake of doing it. Prayer and worship must be a lifestyle, something that is ingrained within us; however, if our practices, eve if they began as genuine and well-intended, become stale and rehearsed, then we must discard the stale and develop something fresh. This is not to say at all that we must re-invent our theology or come up with a new orthodoxy, but that we must attempt to continually assess our own thoughts to judge the integrity and sincerity of our attitudes toward and responses to God. As an individual, if your prayer life is stale, you must come up with a way to breathe new life into it. For many people this means simply devoting time to it, as most people don't even do that. For others, it means getting together with a small group who meets for the sole purpose of coming to the Lord in prayer, so that they can provide each other with accountability and shared testimony.
As someone who has a passion for leading others in the act of corporate (group) worship, I often get frustrated because others do not respond in the same ways that I do to the presence of God. Some people, I believe, honestly worship God in "contrite" spirit and in the quiet of their heart. I also believe though, that others are simply self-conscious or uncertain as to what is "okay" when it comes to the worship of God. The best Biblical examples of sincere and godly worship come from King David, who was known as " a man after God's own heart." When David felt the need to worship God, he did. Often this was manifested in prayer and fasting, because to David, and rightfully so, these were acts of worship. David was not perfect and when he sinned, God let him know. However, what was exemplary of David was that despite his shortcomings, he always returned to the Lord, and his return was frequently accompanied by an outward act of worship.
Personally, I am most at home in worship through music, and I often find myself absolutely wrecked by God through the words or even a tune in one song or another. The important thing to recognize is how we respond when God's Spirit touches our own and we realize that we are occupying the very same space as the Almighty. This experience, or being "wrecked" or "broken", is not necessarily something crazy or chaotic, as some insist is necessary, but is something that is real and MUST be responded to. It is at this point of brokenness, when a response is required, that I would ask the worshiper in what way do they respond? Does the "quiet worshiper" do so as a cover to abstain from outward worship due to fear or some other justified reason? Does the overly outward worshiper do so inversely because they are under the presumption that this is what you do when you worship, for worship to be "good"? We all have our own conceptions of what "worship" is, but the real question should be this - do we, as worshipers, understand who it is that we worship? This is a main portion of A.W. Tozer's book, The Knowledge of the Holy. In this book, Tozer talks about how much of the church has given up its high and lofty view of God (based on His revealed attributes) for a lesser version that is easier to pack into a nice little box.
I guess my point to all of this is that God IS to be worshiped and if we are not doing that with all the honesty, sincerity, and understanding that we can muster, than something is wrong and we need to figure out how to rectify it. Only after we come into a right understanding of God and what He's done for us, can we appropriately worship Him.
"All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of GOD: That He is, what He is like, and what we as moral beings must do about Him." A.W. Tozer
03Aug2009 - Intro to Psalms / Thoughts on Worship
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about worship and prayer and "correct" thought on who God is and how we should rightly approach Him in worship. Pastor Tom has been talking to me for a while now about helping to lead a study revolving around this concept, so it has really been stirring in my head.
When most people talk about worship, the first thought that comes to mind is corporate worship as it pertains to our own church fellowships and congregations. This however is only part of it; there is the rest of our week when we are away from our scheduled time of group worship, in which we engage in worship of another kind. This can be exhibited in a number of ways but can be manifested in prayer, attitude/outlook, personal discipline, as well as many other ways which are not always at the forefront of our minds and less often associated with worship. What is prayer, if it is not worship? It could be said that prayer is not worship, but communication with God. A very good definition that I once heard for "worship" is that it is man's response when encountering the Holy God. At the heart of prayer, communication with God Himself, is our desire to God and His attributes. Often we don't realize it because we allow that communication to become so shallow and so weak, either through stale ritual or just plain apathy, that it ceases to even resemble worship and becomes pointless altogether. As David Crowder writes in his book, Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi, we need to make a habit of of genuine worship to God, but we don't want to get into a rut or a habit just for the sake of doing it. Prayer and worship must be a lifestyle, something that is ingrained within us; however, if our practices, eve if they began as genuine and well-intended, become stale and rehearsed, then we must discard the stale and develop something fresh. This is not to say at all that we must re-invent our theology or come up with a new orthodoxy, but that we must attempt to continually assess our own thoughts to judge the integrity and sincerity of our attitudes toward and responses to God. As an individual, if your prayer life is stale, you must come up with a way to breathe new life into it. For many people this means simply devoting time to it, as most people don't even do that. For others, it means getting together with a small group who meets for the sole purpose of coming to the Lord in prayer, so that they can provide each other with accountability and shared testimony.
As someone who has a passion for leading others in the act of corporate (group) worship, I often get frustrated because others do not respond in the same ways that I do to the presence of God. Some people, I believe, honestly worship God in "contrite" spirit and in the quiet of their heart. I also believe though, that others are simply self-conscious or uncertain as to what is "okay" when it comes to the worship of God. The best Biblical examples of sincere and godly worship come from King David, who was known as " a man after God's own heart." When David felt the need to worship God, he did. Often this was manifested in prayer and fasting, because to David, and rightfully so, these were acts of worship. David was not perfect and when he sinned, God let him know. However, what was exemplary of David was that despite his shortcomings, he always returned to the Lord, and his return was frequently accompanied by an outward act of worship.
Personally, I am most at home in worship through music, and I often find myself absolutely wrecked by God through the words or even a tune in one song or another. The important thing to recognize is how we respond when God's Spirit touches our own and we realize that we are occupying the very same space as the Almighty. This experience, or being "wrecked" or "broken", is not necessarily something crazy or chaotic, as some insist is necessary, but is something that is real and MUST be responded to. It is at this point of brokenness, when a response is required, that I would ask the worshiper in what way do they respond? Does the "quiet worshiper" do so as a cover to abstain from outward worship due to fear or some other justified reason? Does the overly outward worshiper do so inversely because they are under the presumption that this is what you do when you worship, for worship to be "good"? We all have our own conceptions of what "worship" is, but the real question should be this - do we, as worshipers, understand who it is that we worship? This is a main portion of A.W. Tozer's book, The Knowledge of the Holy. In this book, Tozer talks about how much of the church has given up its high and lofty view of God (based on His revealed attributes) for a lesser version that is easier to pack into a nice little box.
I guess my point to all of this is that God IS to be worshiped and if we are not doing that with all the honesty, sincerity, and understanding that we can muster, than something is wrong and we need to figure out how to rectify it. Only after we come into a right understanding of God and what He's done for us, can we appropriately worship Him.
"All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of GOD: That He is, what He is like, and what we as moral beings must do about Him." A.W. Tozer
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