This is a fourth in a series of devotional readings written in preparation for the "Waiting 2018" gathering next week, which many of us are planning to attend. To read Devotion #3, click here. To read from the beginning of the series, click here.
Our devotional reading yesterday was from A.W. Tozer's masterful work "The Knowledge of the Holy," on the attributes of God. We continue today with selections from that book. Today's portion is taken from the chapter "The Infinitude of God."
Of
all that can be thought or said about God, His Infinitude is the most
difficult to grasp. Even to try to conceive of it would appear to be
self-contradictory, for such conceptualization requires us to
undertake something which we know at the outset we can never
accomplish. Yet we must try, for the Holy Scriptures teach that God
is infinite and, if we accept His other attributes, we must of
necessity accept this one too...
Infinitude,
of course, means limitlessness, and it is obviously impossible for a
limited mind to grasp the Unlimited….
The
reason for our dilemma has been suggested before. We are trying to
envision a mode of being altogether foreign to us, and wholly unlike
anything we have known in our familiar world of matter, space, and
time...
When
we say that God is infinite we mean that He knows no bounds. Whatever
God is and all that God is, He is without limit. And here... we must
break away from the popular meaning of words. ”Unlimited wealth”
and ”boundless energy” are...examples of the misuse of words. Of
course no wealth is unlimited and no energy boundless unless we are
speaking of the wealth and energy of God.
Again,
to say that God is infinite is to say that He is measureless.
Measurement is the way created things have of accounting for
themselves. It describes limitations, imperfections, and cannot apply
to God. Weight describes the gravitational pull of the earth upon
material bodies; distance describes intervals between bodies in
space; length means extension in space, and there are other familiar
measurements such as those for liquid, energy, sound, light, and
numbers for pluralities. We also try to measure abstract qualities,
and speak of great or little faith, high or low intelligence, large
or meager talents.
It
is not plain that all this does not and cannot apply to God? It is
the way we see the works of His hands, but not the way we see Him. He
is above all this, outside of it, beyond it. Our concepts of
measurement embrace mountains and men, atoms and stars, gravity,
energy, numbers, speed, but never God. We cannot speak of measure or
amount or size or weight and at the same time be speaking of God, for
these tell of degrees and there are no degrees in God. All that He is
He is without growth or addition or development. Nothing in God is
less or more, or large or small. He is what He is in Himself,
without qualifying thought or word. He is simply God...
...God’s infinitude belongs to us and is made known to us for our
everlasting profit. Yet, just what does it mean to us beyond the mere
wonder of thinking about it? Much every way, and more as we come to
know ourselves and God better.
Because
God’s nature is infinite, everything that flows out of it is
infinite also. We poor human creatures are constantly being
frustrated by limitations imposed upon us from without and within.
The days of the years of our lives are few, and swifter than a
weaver’s shuttle. Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a
concert we cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained
some proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down. There is
simply not time enough to think, to become, to perform what the
constitution of our natures indicates we are capable of.
How
completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has
none. Eternal years lie in His heart. For Him time does not pass, it
remains; and those who are in Christ share with Him all the riches of
limitless time and endless years. God never hurries. There are no
deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet
our spirits and relax our nerves. For those out of Christ, time is a
devouring beast; before the sons of the new creation time crouches
and purrs and licks their hands. The foe of the old human race
becomes the friend of the new, and the stars in their courses fight
for the man God delights to honor. This we may learn from the divine
infinitude.
But
there is more. God’s gifts in nature have their limitations. They
are finite because they have been
created, but the gift of eternal
life in Christ Jesus is as limitless as God. The Christian man
possesses God’s own life and shares His infinitude with Him. In God
there is life enough for all and time enough to enjoy it. Whatever is
possessed of natural life runs through its cycle from birth to death
and ceases to be, but the life of God returns upon itself and ceases
never. And this is life eternal: to know the one true God, and Jesus
Christ whom He has sent.
The
mercy of God is infinite too, and the man who has felt the grinding
pain of inward guilt knows that this is more than academic. "Where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Abounding sin is the
terror of the world, but abounding grace is the hope of mankind.
however sin may abound it still has its limits, for it is the product
of finite minds and hearts; but God’s much more” introduces us to
infinitude. Against our deep creature-sickness stands God’s
infinite ability to cure.
The
Christian witness through the centuries has been that ”God so loved
the world . . .”; it remains for us to see that love in the light
of God’s infinitude. His love is measureless. It is more: it is
boundless. It has no bounds because it is not a thing but a facet of
the essential nature of God. His love is something He is, and because
He is infinite that love can enfold the whole created world in itself
and have room for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds beside.
This,
this is the God we adore,
Our faithful, unchangeable
Friend,
Whose love is as great as His power,
And neither
knows measure nor end.
‘Tis
Jesus, the first and the last,
Whose Spirit shall guide us safe
home;
We’ praise Him for all that is past,
And trust Him
for all that’s to come.
Joseph Hart
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