A.W. Tozer - And He Dwelt Among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John

2009 James L. Snyder

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Bethany House Publishers edition published 2014

ISBN 978-1-4412-6739-9

Previously published by Regal Books

Ebook edition originally created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version. Authorized King James Version.

Other version used is RSVFrom the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission.

CONTENTS

Those familiar with A. W. Tozer usually regard him as the voice of a prophet. He was that for many years, and through his writings, he still is a prophetic voice to the Church of Jesus Christ. However, in And He Dwelt Among Us, we hear a slightly different voice from Tozer. Here he ministers not as a prophet but as a pastor with a passion to reach those who are lost.

For more than a year, Dr. Tozer preached weekly on the Gospel of John, one of his favorite books of the Bible. Although he never laid out the entire series of sermons, week by week the Gospel took possession of his mind and soul. One week, a phrase or even a word would capture his heart, and he would lift his congregation to the heights of Spirit-anointed preaching. The Gospel captured his imagination, and he could not turn away from it.

More people acknowledged new life in Christ during this series of sermons than any series Tozer ever preached in Chicago. Always, no matter where he started, he was the shepherd searching for the lost sheep. Oftentimes after the sermon concluded, the congregation would sit in silence because of the intensity of the truth he had expounded. After one such sermon, a longtime member of the congregation confided, He out Davided David, meaning, of course, that like David, Tozer had a way of presenting truth in a musical frame that set the heart to singing.

Such an effort was daunting even to Tozer. In fact, the series was so elevated in spiritual flavor that it stretched his own preaching ability. It is going to be a pleasure to expound on this book, he told his congregation, but a sense of inadequacy has come over me so stunning that I am not able now to call it a pleasure. The impossibility of a man like me saying anything worthwhile about the writings of a man like John has me, quite literally after all these years, paralyzed. But perhaps this will be Gods way of reducing the flesh to a minimum and giving the Holy Spirit the best possible opportunity to do His eternal work.

Many congregations would not have the patience to stick with a series such as this for over a year, but in these sermons we see Tozer at his best. There is a temperament in the apostle John that definitely resonated within his own heart, and in this series of teachings we see him reflecting that temperament. While he had no problem challenging Christians on their faith or pointing out the heresies infesting the true Church, in this book he is not simply defending sound doctrine but rather rising to doctrines high and lofty conclusion.

To Tozer, any doctrine that did not rise to the height of identification with the Lord Jesus Christ was either misunderstood or not properly rooted in Scripture. He believed that there were two sides to doctrine. First, doctrine establishes truth and helps us to recognize developing heresies within the Church and how to deal with them. Second, doctrine is a path to the intimate knowledge of God. All things must point to Him who dwelt among us. Based on a foundation of sound doctrine, the apostle John rises into the rarefied atmosphere of adoration, and Dr. Tozer follows closely in his train.

Tozer believed that John represented the best of the mystical thinkers. Of course, describing John in this manner introduces a term that is grossly misunderstood by many today. Tozer realized this fact, but he often said that he would never allow somebody to rob him of anything simply because he or she misused it. He was not afraid to identify with the great host of Christian mystics, going all the way back to the apostle John. And Tozer knew them all.

Although Tozer greatly admired the theology of the apostle Paul, he had a great affinity for the mystical bent of John the apostle. In the mind of John, he said, God found a harp that wanted to sit in the window and catch the wind. He found that John had a bird-like sense about him that wanted to take flight all the time. God allowed John, starting from the same premise as the theologian Paul, to mount and soar and sing.

To Tozer, John was like the lark that rose at the break of day, shook the dew of night from its wings and soared to heavens gate in song. It was not that John soared any higher than Paul, just that he sang a bit sweeter. Paul, the theologian, laid the foundation. Once his foundation had been laid, John got up on the parapet, flapped his wings and took off.

This, perhaps, is why Tozer felt it was so difficult to preach on the Gospel of John. Without a clear, solid doctrinal foundation, it was too easy to go off on some emotional tangent. Tozer was a mystic with his feet on solid doctrinal ground. Without that foundation, he would have been susceptible to making silly and erroneous conclusions. And Tozer did not want to fall into that trap.

With the doctrinal emphasis of the apostle Paul, one could become quite legalistic and cold spiritually. And with the mystical emphasis of the apostle John, one could become so heavenly minded that he was of no earthly good. The combination of these two provided the kind of spiritual experience that was healthy for maturing Christians. Tozer was careful to balance the two.

A great concern of Dr. Tozers, which he addresses in this book, was in this area of what he called spiritual boredom. Simply put, this occurs when Christians become addicted to the activity of the world around them to the exclusion of helpful spiritual disciplines. Tozer was concerned that many Christians were more interested in the world around them than the Eternal Word within them.

According to Tozer, spiritual boredom is the consequence of immaturity. The immature are easily bored with anything that is routine. They want to liven up their life with excitement, action and activity, whereas the Christian life should be nurtured by daily disciplines. And, of course, there is the danger that some people do the same thing over and over again and find themselves in some kind of spiritual rut. To maintain a balance in the Christian life is the great secret of maturity.