God's Self-Existence — A.W. Tozer

Moses Asks for God's Name

The third chapter, Exodus chapter 3. Moses, beginning with verse 11, Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth out of Egypt? And God said, Certainly I will be with thee, and this shall be a token unto thee.

For now hath 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, 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. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. And God said, Moreover, 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 11 set the words, I am that I am, in large cathedrals. For I am God, and God's memorial throughout all generations.

God's Self-Existence and Divine Attributes

And that, of course, means I am, I am the self-existent one. So I'm to speak tonight about God's self-existent 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 divine attribute, and what an attribute is and what an attribute isn't.

Now, an attribute 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. We're composed of body and soul and mind and spirit and imagination and thought, and we're a composition.

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

And so the attributes of man are the component parts that compose the man. But when we say the attributes of God, we have no such idea in mind at all, because God said, I am that I am. You see, if we 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 somebody there to compose God, then we'd have to go to that one who was before God was, because that which is composed, or he who is second to the one who composed him.

And therefore, if God the Father Almighty had been composed, somebody would be 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, because God is not made of parts.

God exists in simple unity. Now, I'm a Unitarian, and I'm also a Trinitarian. 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 is 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, is one with itself. God is like gold or any element, is one with itself, only that's a poor, cheap illustration, 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 distincts a 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 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. I say that God is holy, but holiness is not God. I say that God is wisdom, but wisdom is not God.

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? The theologians, I'm sure, I talked when I was—I'm writing a book, I have finished a book on this subject.

And one of the greatest minds in the political 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 have 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 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. The thing here God declared to be true of himself is, I am that I am.

I exist. Not I will exist, but 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 exists. And then there is no God.

I exist. But the Christian believes that God is the original existence, that he said because God is everything else that is, is. Now an attribute of God is something that we can know about God. 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. And this study of the attributes, what God is like. Reason must always fall short of God. Always fall short of this very, this very same brain.

The Limits of Rationalism and the Revelation of the Holy Ghost

I forget, I was out in Long Beach, California. We were standing outside a meeting, and I was chatting with him out in the hall. And he said, he said, I said to him, you don't, you don't believe, do you, that all, all that can, 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 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 criterion of all things.

That's rationalism. And rationalism almost always follows a rigid, hard orthodoxy, because in effect, I know God, I understand God, I, I can grasp God. But oh, my brother and my friend and sister, is that God rises transcendently above all that we can understand, and the human mind must kneel before God Almighty.

And what God is can never quite be grasped by the mind. It can only be revealed by the Holy Ghost. 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 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 about God. I might know all about Diefenbaker, but I don't know him, I've never met him. I, from what I can read in the speeches I've heard him make, I suppose he's a fine gentleman.

And if I were to, to live with him a while, travel with him and, and with him, I suppose I'd get to know him. So I wouldn't know him, but now I know about him, that's all. I know approximately his age, approximately his racial background, approximately about him, but I don't know him.

And so when we talk about the attributes of God, we're not talking about God, that is the essential essence which it says I am, but we're talking about that which the intellect can grasp. And thank God there are some things in our God.

And even though we can't know except by the Holy Ghost about God, yet the mind is never better employed than 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, 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 and the eyes of our souls? We look without mediation upon the face of God himself. 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 in Unity

Not something here, that everything that's true of God is true of the three persons of the Trinity. Let me think, which you'll be happy that I gave it to you. I pointed out to it once before in the previous sermon some year or so.

But you know there was a day when the idea of Jesus being God, being truly God, was not one branch of the church, but it was not believed by another. A man named Arius came along, began to teach that Jesus was a good 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, studied up and they gave us the creeds. Well now, that's Athanasian Creed, that's a big long word and sounds as if you can not listen to it.

But here's what they arrived at, and I'll never get over thanking God for these wonderful learned men's God. 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.

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're not contrary. We worship one God in Trinity in unity and neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.

For there's one person of the Father, one and another of the Holy Ghost, but the Godhead of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost is but one, the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal. 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 God-minded fathers set this out for the whole, all the ages, for the next 1 ,600 years, have feasted on this. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father 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 infinite. 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 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, and God is 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 if we put the one God is one, and this we believe. So that when I talk about God, I mean the three Persons.

You see, you can't separate them. Not dividing the substance, said these old fathers. Not dividing the substance. You can't have the God, except you have God the Son. You can't have the God the Spirit, unless you have the Father and the Son, for the Spirit proceedeth from 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 three 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 the Holy Ghost is true of the Father. So now let's get that settled before we go any further. This is self-existent selfhood. In Ovation, the Church Fathers said, God has no origin.

God as the Uncaused Cause

You know, just those four words, God has no origin, that in itself would be an education to the average person. God has no origin, you see, is a creature word. Everything came from somewhere. One of the questions that every child asks is, where did 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, 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 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 egg come from? From another bird like these two. And so 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 Israel and of care 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.

For instance, you pick up a song and you say, well, once that song wasn't, and then a man wrote it, somebody else wrote the music, and they originated it. So everything had an origin, that's a creature word.

The trees had origin, space had origin, and mountains and seas 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, 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 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, down the years, cause and effect. And so you come back to the cause, that is, cause of all causes, God. God is the uncaused cause of everything. He is the origin that had no origin.

When you take a 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. When you talk about God, there was no one from whom he could come.

This theme, this theme as an Asian creed says, the Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor begotten. And the Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding.

You know, 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 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'll 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. 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. He is the uncaused cause of everything. So God is the original. He said, I am that I am. I remember once I reading about essence, I'm reading about that word essence, essence.

And I said to myself, you know, that word essence must be the same, be and am. And I looked it up, sure enough, the same word, S-C-B, Latin, it means I am, it's this, I being. So God can say I am and nobody, nobody can deny.

See God is not derived from anything. Everything is derived. You're a derivation of ancestors. These flowers are derived from other flowers. Everybody's derived from somebody else and everything is a thing.

But when you come to God, God is underrived, uncreated. And if God had been, had derived from something else, would have antedated God. That's why one of the silliest expressions that was ever used in all the wide world 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. 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 all night 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 channeled to come to this world of ours.

But before Mary was, God was. And before Abraham 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 will ever be.

So God is the originating self. Now God's selfhood is his holy being, supported independent existence. Did you ever think about God? Did you ever get down on your knees and not beg? Most of us when we are on 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 company's coming and we're in a fix that we run to the something.

God's Goodness and the Worship of Self

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 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. I hope that we'll not imagine that God exists simply to answer the prayers of people. A businessman wants to act and so he goes to God and says, God, give me. And a young kid in school wants to get a good grade and she goes to God and says, give me.

And we want, 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 thing, what we want. Now our Heavenly Father is very, very kind and he tells us that we are to ask whatever with 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 give God as the one, the Holy One, and not always as the one from whom we can go.

God is not a glorified crisscrinkle or a Santa Claus or Father Christmas who gives us everything we want and then fades out and lets us run. 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, he gives you himself, and after you've used up the answer or don't need it anymore, you still have God. You see, there's 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 is not a 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 only God, therefore God's self is not sin.

The poet says, In thy praise of self and thy perfection shine,. Self-sufficient, self-admiring, such life must be thine. Glorifying self, yet blameless, 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 one another.

You know, in the olden times and back when men were thinkers instead of imitators, and in the confines of the Bible, incidentally, I am not giving you this series trying to think my way up to God. You can't think your way up to God.

I am 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 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 go to England, but after you get there you can think about England. So I can't think my way up to God, but if I am in 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, because I do believe. There's 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 self-conscious life.

Humanity as God's Image and the Meaning of “I Am”

You know, you and I say I Am. There are some people that are so very afraid of saying I Am that they very rarely use the word I. They've been told that it's bad ever to say I, and so they always say one.

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

He knew that I meant self, and a fallen self is a sinful thing, so he didn't believe in I. And he would always say one, and he'd been a missionary to China, and he'd say, when one was in China, one remembered 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, if he'd been writing the Lord's, or the Shepherd's Psalm, the 23rd Psalm, he'd have made it read like this, The Lord is one shepherd, one shall not want.

He maketh one to lusters, he leadeth one besides this still waters, one shall not want. Well, it's all right to say I, I am, but you know when you always put it in lower case letters, that is little letters.

But when God said I am, he put it in capitals, there's the difference. God says I 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 a child, a child that's like its parents? I told some friends this, and I'll tell you 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 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'm over there. He said, all right. And he was a great heavy, ugly looking, crude, rough fellow who talked out of the...

And he looked like a gangster. I know, 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 Seventieth and Union safe.

I'll be glad to pay this man, get rid of him. He looked like what Chicago's got a reputation for. And we were driving along, and he said, oh, looky, I bet them's twins. And he pointed. And here was an...

And she had two little girls, one in each hand. And she was leading him along the sidewalk, and the whole, his whole spirit changed, 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 like a pretty woman leading a pretty kid. He said, you know, I had a little girl once, a girl. But one day I came home from driving my cab, and my wife had gone and had took 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... I've never gone out with any other woman. He said, I'm waiting. And it whole 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 unquestionably didn't look like him, yet there was something about her that had come down, that had ridden down the genes from the day God made Adam, to bring forth and multiply and increase and fill the earth.

Now it is a beautiful sight to me, and I agree with this text, 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 little boy that looks like him.

God’s Pride in Job and His People

I believe that God is very, very proud of his children. I believe that throughout all the vastness of his universe, God is happy to call his people his people. Do you remember when the devil came up before the sun?

There were the angels, and they were all passing in parade. And who's this coming here? Why, it was nobody but Satan himself, the brass, the arrogance, the traveling along with the unfallen sons of God.

And when he got out before the reviewing stand, God seen my servant Job, that he's a good man and has 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. 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, one of the most elevating, enlarging, magnanimous, and glorious doctrines that I know.

So 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, saying it as an echo from the original one who said first, I am.

The Fall and the Sin of Independent Self

Strange, isn't it, that the one who is called the Word, that God the Son was called the Word, and God enabled man to speak, and he enabled no other creatures to speak? Not that they 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 are able to talk, man alone, because only man has this thing we call the Logos, the Word. Now the essence of sin is independent self. You see, God sat on the throne, I am, and along came man and said, I will, and rose up 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 the world says, I am.

The sinful world is saying it, not remembering that they are an echo of the one above, but forgetting it in its 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 feeding on him.

A man who used to stand on the balcony and make big noisy bombastic speeches. But there's where sin is. Now if you want to sin, I'll give it to you. The definition of sin is fallen, fallen self. It is selfhood, like they say, the sun.

And around the sun there spins what we call the satellites, or the planets, round and round and round they go, held by the magnetic attraction of the sun. So God is the great son of righteousness, and around him, healed and blessed and lighted by his holy person, all his creatures move, all the air seraphim and cherubim, angels and children of God and watchers in the skies.

And then best of all, man made in his own image, we revolve around God and around its son. And then one day the little planet said, I'll be my own son, away with this God, 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 himself, and God was ruled out. And the Holy Apostle said they did not like to have God in their minds, or God gave them over to vile affections.

And all the evil, all that the police and the educators and the doctors and the 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 on his own, to be his own little God.

The Works of the Flesh and the Inner Disease of Sin

Now you think a little bit, if that isn't the way the average sinner acts, he's his own little God. He's himself in capital letters and forgets that there's anybody up there that'll judge him. Sin has symptoms of patients.

Cancer has certain manifestations. I've seen a few cancer victims in my time, and I've seen a few and they have their manifestations, but the symptoms are not the cancer. Some still have the cancer. So sin has manifestations, many manifestations.

Give us a back here, in the book of Galatians, that fifth chapter, that terrible, terrible thing. He says, Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, wince, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresy, envying, murders, drunkenness, revilings, and such like.

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

I read the books on existentialism. I could, I could, I could show 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, nobody that thought 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. 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 your lust that is sin, it is something deeper than that, that's but a symptom.

And so all the crime in Toronto, the continent, and all over the world, all the evil, the robberies, the rapes, the desertions, the assassinations, they're but the external manifestation of an inward disease.

And that inward disease is sin. Yet it's not to be so much as an attitude, a derangement. For there sat God upon his throne, the I am that I am, the sufficient self-existent one. And he made man to be like him, and gave him a will, and said man can do it.

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.

That's why it's to get people to become real Christians. You can get them to sign a card, or make a decision, or join a church, or do something. But to get people delivered from that is a pretty hard deal, because it means that I've got to get off that throne.

I've got to get off that throne. There's a throne there, and God belongs on that. Sin has pushed God off that throne and taken it over. Can you imagine when the great God Almighty maker of heaven and earth came throughout all generations, my memorial forever, I am that I am.

I never was created, I was not made. I am for my love. I made you to worship me. I made you to honor me and glorify me. I made you because I love to fondle something and give myself to something. So I made you, and you turned away from me.

And you've made yourself God, and you've put their sin, my brother. That's why the scripture says, except a man be born, enter the kingdom of heaven. What does born again mean? Born again, among other things, means of course a renewal, a rebirth.

But it means among other things, it means getting off of that throne and putting God on it. It means that the self-existent one, for who he is, reverently and humbly I kneel before his son, who died and rose and lives and pleads.

And I say, oh Lord Jesus, I've given it up. I am no longer going to sit on the throne and run my own life. I'm no longer going to trust to my own righteousness, which is only a filthy rag. I'm not anymore going to believe in my good works or in my religious act.

I'm going to trust thee, the good God, the God of grace, the God who gave thy son to die. So I trust the Lord Jesus Christ, the man in the glory, my Savior and Lord. And thus I am saved. Now, there was one time by the name of Lucifer, and God gave position higher than any other creature, at the very throne of God.

And one day prior to that, he said, I will arise, I will set my throne above God's throne. And he became proud, and that's the devil. And that was the devil that is leading the world now, the prince that worketh, the spirit that worketh in disobedience, right out here among our men, right among our politicians and our literary men and all the rest, not only in Canada, but on the day Adam sinned.

Repentance, Faith, and Putting God on the Throne

So we're guilty of Leah's majesty. We're guilty of insulting upon the eternal uncreated throne. We're guilty of sacrilege and rebellion. It isn't a question of your doing Jesus Christ, signing a card with a big grin.