Tozer: Sinful People May Now Become One With God

I have been thinking and reading a lot about one verse recently. It is a striking verse and one we perhaps do not think about enough, its implications are astonishing. I will share the verse in two versions. I will no doubt be sharing a lot about this with you over the next few months:

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3-4, ESV)

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.” (2 Peter 1:3-4, NLT)

I will let Tozer kick off our time of meditating about this, although of course, Newton’s description we looked at a few days back of the Christian as “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see” is highly relevant to this idea of regeneration. Even the most terrible sinner in the World is invited to be forgiven.

Tozer describes this mystery of us sharing in the very nature of God as follows:

“There is something far inside the mysterious depths of a human life which is unknown except as God and the individual know it . . . In this far-in secret sanctuary, God reveals Himself to the individual as a “birth,” bringing forth a new creation by the regenerating act of the Holy Spirit. Thus we receive from Christ the very nature of God (2 Peter 1:4) and are spiritually prepared for the full revelation of Christ in us, the hope of glory.”

Tozer, A.W. and Foster, M.E. (2007) Tozer on the Holy Spirit: A 366-day devotional. Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread.

This really is remarkable, and elsewhere Tozer elaborates as follows:

Here is the whole final message of the New Testament: Through the atonement in Jesus’ blood sinful men may now become one with God. Deity indwelling men! That is Christianity in its fullest effectuation, and even those greater glories of the world to come will be in essence but a greater and more perfect experience of the soul’s union with God . . .no man has experienced rightly the power of Christian belief until he has known this for himself as a living reality . . .

Now, it is of course important to stress that this work of God in uniting us to Christ sometimes happens to us in a way that we are not very aware of. A secret change in our heart leads to us believing the very gospel we used to mock, and wanting to do things we never wanted to do. We are not always conscious of that, but the desire of what Tozer is saying here is that we can and should long to FEEL God more and more at work in our lives. It is no wonder that thinking abut this wonder that reminded me suddenly of they hymn Breathe on me, Breath of God, Fill me with life anew,” Tozer continues:

Everything else is preliminary to this. Incarnation, atonement, justification, regeneration—what are these but acts of God preparatory to the work of invading and the act of indwelling the redeemed human soul? Man, who moved out of the heart of God by sin, now moves back into the heart of God by redemption. God, who moved out of the heart of man because of sin, now enters again His ancient dwelling to drive out His enemies and once more make the place of His feet glorious.

This is such a wonderful way to put it, we are to dwell in and abide in Christ, whilst HE also “moves back” into our hearts to establish his kingdom! A greater awareness of God’s power at work in us should transform us, and all our relationships.

That visible fire on the day of Pentecost had for the Church a deep and tender significance, for it told to all ages that they upon whose heads it sat were men and women apart. . .The mark of the fire was the sign of divinity . . . One of the most telling blows which the enemy ever struck at the life of the Church was to create in her a fear of the Holy Spirit. No one who mingles with Christians in these times will deny that such a fear exists. Few there are who without restraint will open their whole heart to the blessed Comforter. He has been and is so widely misunderstood that the very mention of His name in some circles is enough to frighten many people into resistance. The source of this unreasoning fear may easily by traced, but it would be fruitless labor to do it here. Sufficient to say that the fear is groundless.

Tozer, A.W. (2007) God’s pursuit of man. Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, pp. 100–101.w

We must not let the excesses of some in the charismatic movement make us fearful of the Holy Spirit. Often described as a gentleman or in Scripture as like a dove, he will not impose himself on us more than we really want him to and ask him to. If we want to mature in God, and become more effective in our walk with him and in our ministry to others, we must get over such fear and urgently cry out to him to fill us with more of his life-transforming power. And before you say that you are already full of the Holy Spirit and have no need for more of him, I will allow Lloyd-Jones to challenge us all:

Got it all? Well, if you have ‘got it all’ I simply ask in the name of God, why are you as you are? If you have got it all, why are you so unlike the New Testament Christians? Got it all! Got it at your conversion! Well, where is it, I ask?

Westminster Record, September 1964 cited in Sargent, T. (2007) Gems from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Anthology of Quotations from “the Doctor.” Milton Keynes, England; Colorado Springs, CO; Hyderabad, AP: Paternoster., p. 20.