I do wonder what the context Tozer is speaking about. I respect him immensely as a teacher of God's word. So is he truly saying we do not need the Word of God. Or is he expounding the necessity and importance of being Spirit led, instead of dead to the Spirit, and lost in legalism?

Do you have a link, or a book where you got these two articles? I would be curious to read them in context. Thanks!

The wisdom of the fathers

RELIGION OF THE INTELLECT VERSUS RELIGION OF THE SPIRIT




There is a deeply spiritual and thoroughly mystical quality in New Testament religion that we cannot afford to ignore if we would be Christians in fact as well as in Name.

I think it well to let our worshipping hearts decide our theological questions. After the purity of the text has been established and the mind assured the translation is trustworthy, the best source of true light is always the Spirit-illuminated heart. A praying heart, aglow with love for God, will intuit truth, will pass behind the veil and see and hear that which is not lawful to be uttered, which indeed cannot be uttered or even intellectually understood...

Always the decisive conflict in religion will be where important concepts are joined in opposition, concepts so vital that they are capable of saving or wrecking the Christian faith in any given generation.

At this critical juncture in church history, the real conflict is between those who hold to an objective Christianity capable of being grasped in its entirety by the human intellect and those who believe that there are far-in areas of religious experience so highly spiritual, so removed from and exalted above mere reason, that it takes a special anointing of the Holy Spirit to make them understood by the human heart.

The difference is not academic merely. Should the advocates of religious intellectualism succeed in setting the direction for the church in this generation, the next generation of Christians will become helpless victims of orthodoxy.

One of the heaviest problems the enquiring Christian faces today is why so many good and apparently sincere religious leaders are going so far astray from the plain teachings and practices of the New Testament. Destructive elements are being innocently introduced into present-day worship and service by Bible-loving evangelicals, elements so opposed to the true genius of Christianity that the two are mutually exclusive. Either these new parasitic growth must be destroyed, or they will in a short time destroy the Christian faith. Yet these deadly things are encouraged in the churches by some of the most zealous orthodox leaders. Why?

The answer is simpler than we might suppose. These leaders ARE DEPENDING ON THEIR BRAIN to guide them in their religious practices. Then conceive the truth by doctrinal deposit, a kind of theological road map to lead them into heaven. They check the map to make sure they are going in the right direction, and after that they are on their own. No Unseen Guide is necessary. If they should be attacked by doubts, they need only stop under a lamp-post and reassure themselves that they have 'accepted' Christ. then they get underway again with complete confidence that they are on the same road as the apostles and the prophets...

The mysterious presence of the Spirit is vitally necessary if we are to avoid the pitfalls of religion. One text alone could improve mightily for us if we would but obey it: "Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

(from "We Travel an Appointed Way" by A. W. Tozer)