Thursday, November 2, 2017

A. W. Tozer on the Necessity of the Holy Spirit


A. W. Tozer, writing in The Counselor, published by Moody Publishers. The book is "an edited version of the Tozer classic formerly published under the titles When He is Come and The Tozer Pulpit, Vol. 2."

Tozer expounds fully on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a Christian's life, and its primacy:

     "Now, you can never piece Jesus together out of historic knowledge--it is impossible. It is possible to read your New Testament and still never find the living Christ in it. You may be convinced that He is the Son of God and still never find Him as the living Person He is. Jesus Christ must be revealed by the Holy Spirit--no man knows the things of God but by the Holy Spirit.
     I would like to make an emphasis here and make it clearly: A revelation of the Holy Spirit in one glorious flash of inward illumination would teach you more of Jesus than five years in a theological seminary--and I believe in the seminary! You can learn about Jesus in the seminary. You can learn a great deal about Him, and we ought to learn everything we can about Him. We ought to read everything we can read about Him, for reading about Him is legitimate and good--a part of Christianity. But the final flash that introduces your heart to Jesus must be by the illumination of the Holy Spirit Himself, or it isn't done at all.
     I am convinced that we only know Jesus Christ as well as the Holy spirit is pleased to reveal Him unto us, for He cannot be revealed in any other way. Even Paul said, 'Now know we Christ no longer after the flesh' (author paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 5:16)."

     "There are several evil consequences of believing that we can know God with our minds, with our intellectual capacity...
     The faith of our fathers has been identified with a number of questionable things. We must admit that one is philosophy, and I think that this modern neo-intellectual movement that is trying to resurrect the Church by means of learning is about as far off the track as it is possible to be, for you don't go to philosophy to find out about the Lord Jesus.
     Now, the apostle Paul did happen to be one of the most intellectual men who ever lived. He has been called by some to be one of the six greatest intellects who ever lived, but this man Paul said to the church in Corinth, 'And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom...but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power' (1 Corinthians 2:1, 4).
     If you have to be reasoned into Christianity, some wise fellow can reason you out of it! If you come to Christ by a flash of the Holy Spirit so that by intuition you know that you are God's child, you know it by the text but you also know it by the inner light, the inner illumination of the Spirit, and no one can ever reason you out of it." A.W. Tozer

"He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God." John 8:47

"And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." 1 Corinthians 2:12-14

"Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God..." 2 Corinthians 5:16-18a








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