The Attributes

of GodA study based on AW Tozer’s

bookby the same name

God’s Attributes

“If you trace effect back to cause and that cause back to

another cause and so on, back through the long dim corridors of the past until

you come to the primordial atom out of which all things were made, you will find the One who made them—you’ll

find God.”

Romans1:21-24

“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or

give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and

their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they

became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for

an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four- footed animals and crawling

creatures.

Romans1:21-24

“Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity,

so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”“The only way to have restored

confidence in God is to have restored knowledge of God”

1. Christianity has lost its dignity.2. Christianity has lost its inwardness.

“We must see God again; we must feel God again; we must know God again; we must hear God again. Nothing less than this will save us.”

TwoThoughts

God’s Attribut

es

Attributes

“An attribute of God is something He has declared to be true about Himself.”

“An attribute of God is something we can know about God. It is knowing what kind of God God is”

“The goal is not just knowledge ABOUT God but knowledge OF God.”

God’s Attribut

es

God’s Self Existence

God said to Moses, “ I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘ I AM has sent me to you. Exodus 3:14

‘An attribute of God is not that of which God is composed.

The very fact that God is God indicates that God isn’t

“composed” at all.’

1. God’s SelfExistence

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

God has no origin

“When you come back to God, you come back to the One who has no origin. He is the Cause of all things, the uncaused Cause”

“Before the world was—the stars, the mountains, the seas, the rivers, the plains or the forests—God was! God is the originating Self. God’s selfhood is His holy being—His unsupported, independent existence.”

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

God’s Selfhood and Prayer

“Our Heavenly Father is very, very kind and He tells us that we are to ask. Whatever we ask in the name of His Son He’ll give us, if it’s within the confines of His will. And His will is as broad as the whole world. Still, we must think of God as the Holy One, not just as the One from whom we can get things.

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

God’s Selfhood and Man

“God has no Creator, no planner, nobody that thought him out: he just is. Man can say, in a modest humble voice, “I am,” but only God can say in capital letters, “I AM THAT I AM.” Man has forgotten that and that is sin.”

So what is God like? God is not like anything you know, in that God is self- existent and nothing else is.

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

“Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame,

From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.

When heaven and earth were yet unmade,

When time was yet unknown,Thou in Thy bliss and majesty

Didst live and love alone!Thou wert not born; there was no

fount from which thy being flowed; There is no end which

Thou canst reach: But Thou art simply God.”

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

God’s Transcendence

“Transcend simply means to go above, to rise above, to be above. Of course, it’s very difficult to think of God as transcendent and also as immanent or omnipresent at the same time. It is difficult to understand how He can be here with us, in us, pervading all things, but at the same time transcending all things.

2. God’sTranscendence

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

God Is Near

“God is always nearer than you may imagine Him to be. God is so near that your thoughts are not as near as God; your breath is not as near as God; your very soul is not as near to you as God is.”

“And yet because He is God, His uncreated Being is so far above us that no thought can conceive it nor words express it.”

2. God’sTranscendence

God’s Transcenden

ceI Chronicles 29:11

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and

the majesty, indeed everything that is in the

heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head

over all.”

God’s Transcenden

ceJob 11:7,8

“Can you discover the depths of God?

Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? “ They are high as the

heavens, what can you do?Deeper than Sheol,

what can you know?”

God’s Transcenden

ceJob 26:14

“Behold, these are the fringes of His ways;

And how faint a word we hear of Him!

But His mighty thunder, who can understand?”

God’s Transcenden

ce

Psalm 145:3“Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,And His greatness is unsearchable.”

God’s Transcenden

ceIsaiah 55:8,9““For My thoughts

are not your thoughts,Nor are your ways My ways,”

declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher

than the earth,So are My ways higher

than your waysAnd My thoughts than your

thoughts.”

God’s Transcenden

ce

I Timothy 6:16“who alone possesses

immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal

dominion! Amen.”

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

The Dread of God

“When you meet God, you get over the dangers and fears of this world. But the fear, the dread that is God, is not a sense of danger. It’s a sense of being in the presence of someone very awful, very wonderful, transcendent and highly lifted up. It’s a sense of creature consciousness.”

Genesis 18:27

2. God’sTranscendence

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

Ignorance and Weakness

“We need to recover that feeling of ignorance. We know too much. There should be a speechless humility among us in the presence of the Mystery Inexpressible.”

“You will never know how utterly weak you are until you have stood in the presence of that great plentitude of strength, that great fullness of infinite power that we call God”

2. God’sTranscendence

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

The Great Gulf

“A great gulf lies between me and the transcendent God, who is so high I cannot think of Him, so lofty that I cannot speak of Him, before whom I must fall down in trembling fear and adoration. I can’t climb up to Him; I can’t soar in any man- made vehicle to Him. I can’t pray my way up to Him. There is only one way: “Near, near thee, my son, is that old wayside cross.” And the cross bridges the gulf that separates God from man”

2. God’sTranscendence

God’s Attribut

es1. God’s Self

Existence

The Great Gulf

“I must needs go home by the way of the cross, There’s no other way but this; I shall ne’er get sight of the gates of light,If the way of the cross I miss.The way of the cross leads home.So I offer you the cross. I offer you first of all that great God:Lost in Thy greatness, Lord! I live,As in some gorgeous maze;Thy sea of unbegotten lightBlinds me, and yet I gaze.”

2. God’sTranscendence