Attributes of God (Series 2): The Self-Existence of God — A.W. Tozer

The Divine Name and God's Self-Existence

Exodus the third chapter. Exodus chapter 3. Moses said unto God, beginning with verse 11, Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?

And God said, Certainly I will be with thee, and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee, and thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name?

What shall I say to them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. The translators in verse 14 set the words, I am that I am in large capitals. For that is the name of God and God's memorial throughout all generations.

And that of course means, I am, I am the self-existent one. So I'm to speak tonight about God's self-existence or God's selfhood, I'll use both of those terms and probably some others. But I suppose that before I go on into it, I ought to say a little bit about a divine attribute and what an attribute is and what an attribute isn't.

Now, an attribute of God is not that of which God is composed. You see, the very fact that God is God indicates that God isn't composed at all. Now, you and I are composed, we are composed of body and soul and mind and spirit and imagination and thought and memory.

We're a composition. There was someone there to compose us, you see. God took clay and he took his own breath and he took all that he needed to use, and as an artist brings the paints and the lines and outlines to the canvas, God brought all of his genius to all of his genius, the matter out of which man is made, the spirit out of which man is made, and he composed man.

And so the attributes of man are the component parts that compose the man. But when we talk about the attributes of God, we have no such idea in mind at all, because God said, I am that I am. You see, if there was anybody to compose God, then somebody would be there before God was there, and that one would be God and not God.

Do you get me there? If there was anybody there to compose God, then we'd have to go to that one who was before God was, because if that which is composed, or he who is composed, is second to the one who composed him.

And therefore, if God the Father Almighty had been composed, somebody would have had to be out there and say, well, I'll make a God, and he would make God. But God is not made, and therefore we cannot say that the attributes of God are the parts of which God is made, because God is not made of parts.

God exists in simple unity. Now, I'm a Unitarian, and I'm also a Trinitarian, you see. I believe in the unity of God. And when we say that God is one, if we're scriptural, we do not mean that there's only one God, although that also is true.

But we mean that God is one with himself without parts, that God is like a diamond, the diamond is one with itself, God is like gold or any element, is one with itself, only that's a poor, cheap illustration, God is infinitely above all that.

So God's attributes are not God. That's another thought I'd like to get to you, and this is what distinguishes my poor little effort from that of the average fundamentalist preacher, although the fundamentalists agree with me but don't do much about it.

It is that the attributes of God are not God. That is, I say that God is self-existent, but that's something that I posit about God. That isn't God. I say that God is holy, but holiness is not God. I say that God is wisdom, but wisdom is not God.

God is God. And the attributes are simply—well, let me give you a definition now. Would you like a definition of attribute, as I shall use it? Now, I would upset the theologians, I'm sure. I'm writing a book, I have finished a book on this subject, and one of the greatest minds in the evangelical world said to me about it, he said, Don't you know that you'll have the systematic theologians down on you?

And I said, I fully expect the systematic theologians to find fault with me, my book and my sermons. But I don't mind that at all. So I'll give you my definition of an attribute of God. It is something which God has declared to be true of himself.

It is that which God has declared to be true of himself. And one thing here God's declared to be true of himself is, I am that I am. I exist. Not I will exist, but I do exist. Not I did exist, but I do exist.

I exist. That's what God says. And you know, there's such a thing as the doctrine of existentialism which begins with, I exist. And then there is no God. I exist. But the Christian believes that God is the original existence, that he said, I am.

And because God is, everything else that is, is. Now, an attribute of God is something that we can know about God. That is, it's knowing what kind of God God is. I don't think too many people know what kind of God God is or what God is like.

In this study, the attributes will try to teach what God is like. Reason must always fall short of God. Always fall short of God. I was talking to this very same brain, I forget where it was, out in Long Beach, California.

We were standing outside a meeting. He was to speak, and I was chatting with him out in the hall. And I said to him, you don't believe, do you, that all that God is can be grasped by our intellects? He said, if I didn't, I would be an agnostic.

I didn't say it, chiefly because I didn't think to say it at the time we were discussing many things. But afterward, I thought, well, if you believe that everything that God is can be grasped by the intellect, you're not an agnostic, but you're a rationalist.

For that is rationalism, pure and simple. Rationalism means that I can understand anything God can say. I can understand anything that God is, if there is a God. And that my brain is the criterion of all things.

That's rationalism. And rationalism almost always follows a rigid, hard orthodoxy, because it says, in effect, I know God, I understand God, I can grasp God. But, oh, my brother and my friend and sister, the truth is that God rises transcendentally above all that we can understand, and the human mind must kneel before the great God Almighty, and what God is can never quite be grasped by the mind.

It can only be revealed by the Holy Ghost. If the Holy Ghost does not reveal what I'm trying to tell you about God, then you only know about God. The little song says, more about Jesus would I know, more, more about Jesus.

Well, it isn't more about Jesus that the heart craves after, it's Jesus himself. It is the knowledge of God, not the knowledge about God. I might know all about Diefenbaker, but I don't know him, I've never met him.

From what I can hear and read and the speeches I've heard him make, I suppose he's a fine gentleman, and if I were to live with him a while, travel with him, and eat with him, talk with him, I suppose I'd get to know him.

So I would know him. But now I know about him, that's all. I know approximately his age, approximately his racial background, I know approximately about him, but I don't know him. So when we talk about the attributes of God, we're not talking about God, we're talking, that is, the essential essence which he says, I am.

But we're talking about that which the intellect can grasp, and thank God there are some things the intellect can know about God. And even though we can't know except by the Holy Ghost about God, yet the mind is never better employed than when it is seeking to know this great God Almighty.

And if even the imperfect knowledge that you and I can have of our Father which art in heaven, even if that imperfect knowledge raises us to such rapture and satisfies so deeply the roots of our being, then what must it be in that day when we look on his face?

What will it be in the day when we no longer depend upon our minds, but when with the inner eyes of our souls we look without mediation upon the face of God himself? Wonderful, wonderful time. And do you know, my friends, it's good to get acquainted with God now in order that at that time you won't be embarrassed in his presence.

The Trinity and the Equality of the Divine Persons

Now I'd like to point out something here, that everything that's true of God is true of the three persons of the Trinity. Let me give you here something which you'll be happy that I gave it to you. I pointed out to it once before in a previous sermon some year or so ago.

But you know there was a day when the idea of Jesus being God, being truly God, was believed by one branch of the Church, but it was not believed by another. A man named Arius came along and began to teach that Jesus was a good man and superior man and the superior man, but he wasn't God.

And then they had a convention or a conference. They met together, a council they called it, and they studied up and they gave us the creeds. Well, now, this Athanasian Creed, that's a big long word and sounds as if I want to take a walk and not listen to it.

But here's what they arrived at, and I'll never get over thanking God for these wonderful, learned and godly men. They said, We worship one God in Trinity in unity. I said I was a Unitarian and some of you swallowed your Adam's apple, but I am a Unitarian in that I believe in the unity of God.

I am a Trinitarian in that I believe in the Trinity of God, and they are not contrary one to the other. We worship one God in Trinity in unity, and neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.

For there is one person of the Father, another person of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is but one, the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal.

Now, I don't know whether you'll agree with me on this or not, or whether you'll enjoy this, but this to me is just like music, to hear these old, godly, serious-minded fathers set this out for all the ages, for the next 1 ,600 years the ages have feasted on this.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father infinite, the Son infinite, and the Holy Ghost infinite.

The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. Yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal. So there are not three uncreated, nor three infinite, but one uncreated and one infinite.

So also the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost is almighty. Yet there are not three almighties, but one almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, yet there are not three gods, but one God.

Now, that's what we believe, my brethren. We believe in the three Persons, but we believe in the one God. And the three Persons are three, but the one God is one. And this we believe, so that when I talk about God, I mean the three Persons of the Trinity.

You see, you can't separate them. Not dividing the substance, said these old fathers. Not dividing the substance. You can't have God the Father except you have God the Son. You can't have God the Spirit unless you have the Father and the Son.

For the Spirit proceedeth from the Father and the Son. So when I'm talking about God, I'm talking about Christ. When I'm talking about Christ, I'm talking about the Father and the Son. Not confusing their Persons, for there are three Persons.

But everything that's true of the Father is true of the Son. And everything that's true of the Son is true of the Holy Ghost. And everything that's true of the Son and this Holy Ghost is true of the Father.

So now let's get that settled before we go any further. Now, God is self-existent selfhood. In Ovation, the Church Father said, God has no origin. Just studying on that, just those four words, God has no origin, that in itself would be an education to the average person.

God as the Uncaused Cause

God has no origin. Origin, you see, is a creature word. Everything came from somewhere. One of the questions that every child asks is, where did I come from? And then you have your job on your hands. Where did I come from?

And it won't be enough to tell him he came from Jesus, because when he gets a little older he'll say, how did I come from Jesus? So everything has an origin. Everything has an origin. When you hear a bird sing, you know that once that bird was packed into a tiny little blue or spotted egg.

It came from somewhere. Well, it came from an egg. Where did the egg come from? It came from another little bird like that. And where did that bird come from? From another little egg like that one. And where did that egg come from?

From another bird like these two. And so back and back and back and back and back you go to the heart of God. When God said, let the heavens bring forth, let the earth bring forth and let the waters and let the dry land appear.

So you go back to the origins. But that's a creature word you know. And for God to have an origin would mean that there was something there to originate God. For instance, you pick up a song and you say, well, once that song wasn't, and then a man wrote it, and somebody else wrote the music, and they originated it.

It had an origin. So everything had an origin. That's a creature word. The trees had origin. Space had origin. And mountains and seas and all things have origin. But when you come back to God, you come back to the one who has an origin.

He is the cause of all things and the uncaused cause. You know everything. Everything is a cause and an effect. For instance, there's a man walking down the street leading a little boy. Well, the man is the cause of the little boy.

But the man is also an effect. He is caused by something else. And his father, who may now be dead, or who still may be around, he is the biological cause. It's cause and effect, cause and effect, down the years, cause and effect.

And when you come back to the cause, that is cause of all causes, and then you have God. God is the uncaused cause of everything. He is the origin that had no origin. When you take Jesus, lover of my soul, you say, that originated in the mind of Charles Wesley.

All right. Charles Wesley was the origin. He was the one from which this came. But when you talk about God, there was no one from whom he could come. This same Athanasian Creed says, The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.

The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten. And the Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding. I'd much rather think and pray and study and meditate over that, and learn the language of the place where I'm going.

I'm going up there where the Father is, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and all the great company of the redeemed, and the blood-washed, and the regenerated, and the sanctified. And when I get there, I want to be able to speak the language of that place without an accent.

I don't want to have an American accent when I get to heaven. I want to be able to know the language of the place where I'm going. And the origin of the language is God, and the origin of heaven is God.

God himself has no origin, but he is the originator of everything else. He is the uncaused cause of everything. So, God is the original. He said, I am that I am. I remember once reading about essence, and I said to myself, you know, that word essence must be the same word as the word be and am.

And I looked it up. Sure enough, it's the same word. S-C-B, Latin, it means I am. It's this, I being. So God can say, I am that I am, and nobody can deny it. See, God is not derived from anything. Everything is derived.

You're a derivation from your ancestors. These flowers are derived from other flowers. Everybody is derived from somebody else, and everything is derived from some other thing. But when you come to God, God is underrived, uncreated.

And if God had derived from something else, then that something else would have antedated God. That's why one of the silliest expressions that was ever used in all the wide world is to say that Mary is the mother of God.

How could Mary be the mother of God when God is the original essence back of which you cannot? Mary wasn't back there before God was. She's the mother of the body of Jesus, and she's nothing more than that.

It was in the holy womb of the Virgin Mary that the great God Almighty compressed himself into the form of a babe. And so she is, and we honor her and respect her highly, for she's blessed among women as the one that God used as a channel to come to this world of ours.

But before Mary was, God was. And before Abraham was, God was. And before Adam was, God was. And before the world was, or the stars, or the mountains, or the seas, or the rivers, or the plains, or the forests, God was, and God is, and God will ever be.

So God is the originating self. Now God says that his selfhood is his holy being, unsupported, independent existence. Did you ever think about God? Did you ever get down on your knees and not beg? Most of us when we pray, we bring our grocery list and we say, Lord, we'd like this and we'd like this and we'd like this and we'd like this.

And usually when companies come in and we're in a fix that we run to the corner to get something. And God has been dragged down in our thinking to the one that gives us what we want when we're in trouble.

Now he does give us what we want. He's that kind of God as we shall see later on. Not tonight, but later. He's a good God. God's goodness is one of his attributes. But I hope that we'll not imagine that God exists simply to answer the prayers of people.

A businessman wants to get a contract and so he goes to God and says, God, gimme. And a young kid in school wants to get a good grade and she goes to God and says, gimme. And a young man wants the girl to say yes and so he gets on his knees and says, Father, give her to me.

And so we just use God as a kind of source of getting what we want. Now our Heavenly Father is very, very kind. And he tells us that we have 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 one, the holy one, and not always as the one from whom we can go. God is not a glorified giver, a glorified crisscrinkle or a Santa Claus or Father Christmas who gives us everything we want and then fades out and lets us run our own way.

He gives us, but in giving us, he gives us himself, too. And the best gift God ever gives you is when he gives you himself. He gives you answers to prayer, and then with the answer he gives you himself.

And after you've used up the answer or don't need it anymore, you still have God. In God's self is no sin. We preachers, properly and rightly and scripturally, have everything to say against self, selfishness.

It's the great sin. Self is the great sin. But God's self is no sin because God was the originator of all our fallen self. It is only our fallen self that is a sin, and because God is the original and unfallen holy God, therefore God's self is not sin.

The poet says,. In thy praise of self untiring,. Thy perfection shine,. Self-sufficient, self-admiring,. Such life must be thine,. Glorifying self, yet blameless,. With the sanctity all shameless,. It is so divine.

God loves himself, the Father loves the Son,. The Son loves the Father,. And the Son and the Father love the Holy Ghost. You know, in the olden times, and back when men were thinkers instead of imitators, and they thought within the confines of the Bible, incidentally, I am not giving you this series trying to think my way up to God.

Knowing God Through Revelation and Faith

You can't think your way up to God any more than you can climb a moonbeam to the moon. You can't think your way up to God, but after you're in God, you can think about God. And after you're converted, you can think about the Kingdom of Heaven.

You can't think your way into the Kingdom of Heaven, you go in by faith, but after you're in, you can think about the Kingdom of Heaven. You can't think your way to England, but after you get there, you can think about England.

So I can't think my way up to God, but if by the grace of God and the blood of the Lamb, I am in God, then being in him, I can think about him. I think, said Anselm, not that I might believe, but I think because I do believe.

There is a difference, and it's a good difference, and we ought to remember it. So God loves himself, and he loves himself because he is the God who originated love, the essence of love, the I Am of love, and the essence of all holiness and the fountain of all self-conscious life.

You and I say, I Am. There are some people that are so very afraid of saying I that they very rarely use the word I. They have been told that it's bad ever to say I, and so they always say one. They never say I.

I told you about the dear old brother, God bless him, he's in Heaven now and he'll wear a crown so big it will come down over my shoulders, I'm sure of that. But he was a Scotsman, a good Scotsman, and he didn't believe much in saying I.

He knew that I meant self, and the fallen self is a sinful thing. So he didn't believe in I. He would always say one. He had been a missionary to China, and he would say, when one was in China, one remembered seeing a Chinaman going up the street, and one said this, and one didn't mean himself, you know.

He was afraid to say I. Well, I don't think so. I said about the dear old brother that if he had been writing the Lord's Shepherd Psalm, the 23rd Psalm, he would have made it read like this, The Lord is one shepherd, one shall not want.

He maketh one to lie down in green pastures, and he leadeth one beside thistle waters, and one shall not want. Well, it's all right to say I. I am. But you know when you say I am, you always put it in lowercase letters.

That is, little letters. But when God said I am, he put it in capitals. There's the difference. God says I am, and he did not derive from anywhere. He started the whole business. He was God. But when I say I am, I'm a little echo of God.

Don't you like to see a child, a child that's like its parents? I told some friends this, and I'll tell you now. I remember once being in the city of Chicago. I had a meeting at the church, and I had been at a funeral in Detroit, and I'd flown in, and we'd gotten in there just split-whisker time to get over to the church.

And I took a cab. There was one standing there, and I said, Run me to Seventieth and Union in a big hurry. I want to get over there. He said, All right. And he was a great, heavy, ugly-looking, crude, rough fellow who talked out of the corner of his mouth.

And he looked like a gangster. I don't suppose he was a gangster, but he looked like the pictures of gangsters. Greasy-faced, you know, and over-fat. And as we rode along there, he was growling out of the corner of his mouth to me, and I thought, Oh, boy, I hope he gets me to Seventh and Union safely, and I'll be glad to pay this man and get rid of him.

He looked like what Chicago's got a reputation for. And we were driving along, and suddenly he said, Oh, looky, I bet them's twins. And he pointed. Here was a nice-looking young woman, and she had two little girls, one in each hand.

And she was leading him along the sidewalk, and his whole spirit changed, the complexion of his voice changed, the timbre, everything. He melted down. He said, Look at them, I bet them's twins. He said, You know, there's nothing I like to see better than a pretty woman leading a pretty kid.

He said, You know, I had a little girl once, and I loved my little girl. But one day I came home from driving my cab, and my wife had gone and had took my little girl with her. That was seven years ago, and I've never seen either one of them since, and I don't know whether they're alive or dead.

I've never gone out with any other woman. He said, I'm waiting. And his whole everything changed. I saw a man then. I saw the man once made in the image of God. And I don't know what his little girl looked like, but I'm sure, though she was feminine and unquestionably didn't look like him, yet there was something about her that had come down, that had ridden down the jeans from the day God made Adam and Eve and said, Bring forth and multiply and increase and fill the earth.

Now it is a beautiful sight to me, and I agree with this taxi cab driver, it's a beautiful thing to see a pretty woman leading a pretty kid. I love it. And I love to see a man leading a pretty boy, a good-looking little boy that looks like him.

The Image of God and the Story of Job

I believe that God is very, very proud of his children. I believe that throughout all the vastly reaches of his universe, God is happy to call his people his people. Do you remember when the devil came up before the sons of God who were the angels, and they were all passing in parade?

And who is this coming here? Why, it was nobody but Satan himself, the brass, the arrogance that he had, traveling along with the unfallen sons of God. And when he got out before the reviewing stand, God said, Have you seen my servant Job, that he's a good man and has to choose evil?

Have you seen my servant Job? He was proud of Job. And so God is proud of his people, and he's proud to have us say, I am. Do you know who I am? He's proud to have us say, I am, in a little echo voice, because he is the original voice who says, I am that I am.

And the doctrine of the man made in the image of God is one of the basic doctrines of the Bible, and one of the most elevating and enlarging, magnanimous and glorious doctrines that I know. So there's nothing wrong with self-respect, there's nothing wrong with saying, I am, and I will, and I do, as long as we remember we're saying it in lowercase letters, we're saying it as an echo from the original one who said first, I am.

Strange, isn't it, that the one who is called the Word, God the Son was called the Word, and God enabled man to speak, and he enabled no other creatures to speak? Not the finest red dog can talk, not the finest minor bird, nor are they supposed to talk, but they don't know what they're saying.

Not the finest animals or birds can't talk, man alone, because only man has this thing we call the Logos, the Word. Now the essence of sin is what? The essence of sin is independent self. You see, God sat on the throne, the I am, and along came man and said, I will, and rose above, sought to rise above the throne of God, and disobeyed God and took the bit in his own teeth, and became little God in his own right.

And now when the sinful world says, I am, the sinful world is saying it, not remembering that they are an echo of the one above, but forgetting it, and saying it in their own right. Mussolini says, I'll make my life a masterpiece.

What a masterpiece he was, a big, bloated, arrogant gorilla. And now he lies rotting in the clay, and the worms are feasting on that man who used to stand on the balcony and make big, noisy, bombastic speeches.

There's what sin is. Now if you want to know the definition of sin, I'll give it to you. The definition of sin is fallen, fallen self. It is selfhood. God made us to be like the sun, and around the sun there spins what we call the satellites, or the planets, round and round and round they go, round the sun, held by the magnetic attraction of the sun.

So God is the great Son of Righteousness, and around him, warmed and healed and blessed and lighted by his holy person, all his creatures move, all the air seraphim and cherubim and angels and archangels and children of God and watchers in the skies.

And then, best of all, man made in his own image, we revolve around God as the planet around its sun. And then one day the little planet said, I'll be my own sun, away with this God. And so man fell. And that's what we call the fall of man.

That's where sin came in, when sin reached up and took God's self and said, I'll be self myself. And God was ruled out. And the holy apostle said they did not like to have God in their minds, and therefore God gave them over to vile affections.

And all the evil, all that the police and the educators and the doctors and the psychiatrists are worried about now, deviationism and sodomy and exhibitionism and all the rest, all came as a result of man not wanting to have this God in his mind or in his heart, not recognize him as being God.

And he went out on his own to be his own little God. You think a little bit of that isn't the way the average sinner acts. He's his own little God. He's the self. He puts himself in capital letters and forgets that there's anybody up there that will judge him.

Sin as Fallen Self and the Need for New Birth

Sin has symptoms, all right, manifestations. Cancer has certain manifestations. I've seen a few cancer victims in my time. My own father died of cancer. And I've seen a few, and they have their manifestations.

But the symptoms are not the cancer. If you could clear up the symptoms, you'd still have the cancer. So sin has manifestations, many manifestations. Paul gave us a list of them back here in the book of Galatians, the fifth chapter, that terrible, terrible sin.

Okay. Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, unseenness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revilings, and such like.

And yet he didn't tell us sin at all. He told us the symptoms of sin. These things are all symptoms of something deeper. And that which is deeper is our asserting self, asserting my created and derived self, putting myself on the throne and saying, I am self.

I am that I am. I read the books on existentialism. I could shudder and grieve that men can be so tragically mistaken as they are. And yet I knew they were because I read my Bible before. They say that man is.

Man is. Man wasn't created, man just is. And he's got to start from there, and he has no creator, no planner, nobody to part him out. He just is. And so they make man say what only God can say, I am that I am.

Man can say in a modest, humble voice, I am. But God can say in capital letters, I am that I am. Man's forgotten that, and that is sin. That is sin, sir. It's not your temper that's sin, it's something deeper than your temper.

That is the symptom of your sin. It's not your lust that is sin, it is something deeper than that. That's but a symptom of all the crime in Toronto, and all over the continent, and all over the world.

All the evil, the robberies, the rapes, the desertions, the assassinations, they are but the external manifestation of an inward disease. And that inward disease is sin. Yet it's not to be thought of as a disease, so much as an attitude, a derangement.

For there sat God upon his throne, the I am that I am, the eternal, self-sufficient, self-existent one. And he made man to be like him, and gave him a will, and said, man can do as he pleases. And he meant him to circle around the throne of God as the planets circle around the sun.

And I repeat, man said, I am that I am. And so he turned away from God and fallen self took over. No matter how many manifestations sin may have, remember that the liquid essence in the bottle is always self.