(from Men’s Healing and Growth Group SPCC 2003: Men of Wisdom)
Devotion 2: Knowing God Through Wisdom
Introduction
It is a matter of observation that the church as we know it is in a state of crisis. Despite our disposition to focus on cultural issues, this crisis is not one of numbers, influence or leadership but a spiritual one. What is lacking is an understanding of the ways of God as distinguished from the works of God (Psalm 103:7). The inner being has priority over the outer world. If we would understand the working of God in our own lives we must begin with who he is on the inside and proceed to his outer works.
Wisdom and Knowledge are United in God
The union of wisdom and knowledge is a common theme in the New Testament.
1. In the overarching plan of God (Rom 11:33)
2. In the person of Christ (Col 2:2 -3)
3. In Paul’s prayers for the church (Eph 1:17; Phil 1:9; Col 1:9- 10)
4. In the spiritual gift list of 1 Cor 12 (v.8)
Wisdom and Knowledge are Divided by Sin
In the Garden of Delight (Eden), Adam and Eve must have possessed as full a possible knowledge of God and the reality of the goodness of the external world as was possible under the circumstances. This was something that was given to them, without any personal effort. It was not a state of maturity because it was not a state of the exercise of personal freedom-in-love.
The temptation of the devil worked by building on something that God knew but did not share with the first couple, i.e. the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17; 3:22). It did not seem to have entered the mind/heart of Adam and Eve that perhaps there was knowledge that God possessed that he had not willed. Nowhere does the Bible suggest that God ever desired the existence of evil, therefore the knowledge of good and evil came into his experience unwillingly. (Though he certainly permitted it, allowing it seems an angelic fall prior to the creation of humanity.)
The essence of God’s wisdom in the prohibition of the experience of good and evil (Gen 2:17) is that there are some things we should never seek to know, and that this is a matter to be taken on trust. God knew that the knowledge of good and evil would kill Adam and Eve, and eventually him too (1 Pet 1:18- 20; Rev 13:8).
The demonic wisdom states that it is a matter of first importance that we “know things for ourselves” (Gen 3:2- 6). The sad fact is, that when faith is broken and we come to know things by experience there is no going back to a previous state of innocence. When the will is committed to an evil act the individual’s conscience is imprinted with the reality of what is experienced. Inside we know that God is not present in the state of affairs that have come into existence by a choice made apart from the goodness of the divine will. The result of the knowledge of good and evil is the shame and guilt of godlessness (Gen 3:7- 10; Eph 2:12; 4:18).
The first pair should have been like little children guided in their first steps by God. If Adam and Eve had chosen not to know good and evil then they would have advanced in the way of wisdom because they would have willingly chosen to trust God in a manner that was not given to them by their immediate experience. They would have gone beyond the works of God, the meaning of which is always corruptible because it belongs to the external world (Rom 1:21 -23). They would have entered into the inner reality of the wisdom of God in himself. If they had trusted in the LORD with all their hearts they would have been established in the ways of God and had nothing to fear (Prov 3:5 -7). In other words, they would have been internally united to God and it would have been Satan rather than them who was banished from Eden (Rom 16:19- 20).
The casting forth of the first couple out of the Garden (Gen 3:23 – 24) seemed to have permanently shut down the possibility of sharing God’s wisdom. Without access to the tree of life they could not live forever, and with a sinful will they could not be united to the will of God. However, this banishment must be seen as an example of God’s wisdom that cannot be ultimately frustrated by the wickedness of humanity and will ultimately prevail more gloriously because of the entry of the knowledge of evil into the world (Ps 146:9; Prov 22:12; Rom 11:33 – 36; 1 Cor 1:19).
Application: do we willingly accept that there are many things that it is better for us not to know? (This could be things about God’s timing, other people, ourselves etc.) Or do we have areas of life in which personally initiated self – knowledge is treated as primary? As Christians we must choose against the knowledge of good and evil again and again.
The Wisdom of the Old Covenant
The Old Testament has large swathes of wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). All of this in one form or another teaches the primacy of being taught the way of wisdom by the LORD. The great limitation of the Old Testament teaching on wisdom however is that it never becomes a fully personal reality within the lives of the people. As long as God is thought of as dwelling in his temple in Zion (2 Chron 7: 16; Ps 27:4 – 5; 74:7; 76:2) or in heaven (2 Chron 8:30, 39, 43, 49; Ps 33:13 -14; etc.) he does not abide within the lives of his people.
Wisdom existed in the heart of the greatest wise man of all, Solomon (2 Chron 9:23), who also possessed great human knowledge of the world (1 Ki 4:29 – 34). Yet this wisdom was neither permanent nor incorruptible (1 Ki 11:4, 9), for Solomon himself was not able to be God’s habitation, that is, the temple of God, upon the earth. It appears that Solomon lost favour with God because he was blinded by his own material success, the breadth of his knowledge and his politically – based compromise with other gods (idolatry). These all related to a wisdom in dealing with the external world considered apart from God’s presence in Solomon’s most notable achievement, the temple. The deep contradiction between the great work of Solomon the builder and his failure to stay true to the ways of God casts a shadow over all the wisdom expectations of the Old Testament.
The experience of the destruction of the dwelling place of God with Israel and the subsequent idolatry pushed the expectation of the fulfilment of wisdom into another age purges from evil and free from the limits of this era. In the history of Israel, the fulfilment of wisdom is progressively associated with the sending of the Messiah who will be the permanent recipient of the Spirit of God and so divine wisdom (Isa 11:1- 5). This will be depend upon such a person “delighting in the fear of the LORD” (Isa 11:3).
Application: how is the church of which we are a part in western culture threatened by the forces that undermined Solomon’s relationship with God?
Wisdom Triumphant in Christ and his Cross
Jesus is embraced in the way of wisdom from his earliest days (Luke 2:40). Even as a child his destiny is linked with temple as the Father’s house (Luke 2:49, 52). This vocation will subsequently be revealed as completing God’s plan for the restoration of the divine dwelling in humanity. Besides the offices of prophet, priest and king, Jesus is the perfectly wise man. This is revealed in many ways, for example, by his speech: “No -one ever spoke the way this man does.” (John 7:46).
Jesus’ point of conflict with the Pharisees is very much over whom possesses the divine wisdom. Is this wisdom contained in their interpretation of the law or is the key to unlocking God’s truth found somewhere else? He attacks the lawyers for “taking away the key of knowledge” and preventing others from entering in (Luke 11:52); this is a reference to them treating the law as a self -interpreting or self – enclosed entity. The key to knowledge is the person of Jesus himself. It is Jesus who has the authority to send forth new “wise men” of God (Matt 23:34). (Matthew 23:34 parallels Luke 11:49 so that it becomes evident that the “apostles” are these new messengers.) This implies a claim that Jesus possesses divine authority as the embodiment of God’s wisdom that Israel was meant to be seeking.
Much of Jesus’ teaching takes the form of wisdom. His parables are wisdom presentations that confront the accepted (Pharisaic) wisdom of the day. Jesus’ teaching was connected to the reality of the presence of the kingdom of God in his own person in a way that had unique authority (Mark 1:21-27). Through him the works of God perfectly revealed the way of God because they always led to himself (John 14:6). He practised what the scribes could only preach because the truth did not dwell in them (Matt 23:1 – 4; Jn 5:38; 8:37) as it did in him (John 14:6). Only those who came to Jesus as the key to the kingdom could understand any of his parables, without this grace everything about God remains external (Mark 4:9-12). Men may search for God through signs but this only reveals that they do not understand God’s true wisdom.
Those who did receive that the sign of the kingdom was Jesus were those considered as the despised and foolish of the time: women, children, poor, prostitutes etc. (Matt 10:20 -30; Luke 10:21- 22). What these people had in common was a lack of external resources. In their case, “wisdom is justified by her children” (Matt 11:19).
The wisdom of God is fully revealed in the one great sign that God gives, the cross (Matt 12:38 -39). This is like no other work of God because it is the climax of the way of God himself in this world (8:42; 17:11). It is not some act external to the life of God. Ultimately, it is the cross that proves Jesus to be the true and greater king in wisdom than Solomon (Luke 11:31). Unlike Solomon he refuses to bow down before other gods or be enticed by the glories of this world (Matt 4:1 -11) because the cross awaits him.
Where the folly and unfaithfulness of the wisest man in the old covenant led to the loss of the presence of God, something that God never desired, Jesus paradoxically agrees to the destruction of the temple of his body (John 2:19-22). The will of God is that the way of God leads to the externalisation of the presence of God (Mark 14:35 – 36; 15:34). In the work of the cross Jesus embraces the fullness of ignorance, alienation and disorder that false human wisdom has brought into the world. To the ordinary human mind, the death of the Son of God is the height of foolishness (1 Cor 1:18, 25). Yet, what looks like the weakest of the acts of God, is in fact the most powerful (1 Cor 1:24-25).
That the cross is divine wisdom is manifested in the resurrection, but only to those who are chosen to understand this “secret and hidden” route to glory (1 Cor 2:8). That suffering is the way to glory is the secret of God’s wisdom, a matter that Jesus himself had taken on trust (Luke 24:26; John 12:20- 28; Heb 2:10; 1 Pet 1:11).
The resurrection body of Jesus is a “body of glory” (1 Cor 15:43; Phil 3:21). It is a body filled with all that God is (Col 1:19; 2:9). “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col 2:3). This is a “hiddenness” that consists of true spiritual understanding that is the opposite of the way of human wisdom and knowledge (Eph 1:17; Col 1:9) . This is a glory that does not belong to this world but is the gift of the Father (John 17:5; Rom 6:4). It is the glory of a new creation which, through the wisdom of God, is the final and incorruptible work of God (1 Cor 15:22; 1 Pet 1:4, 23).
Considered from its broadest perspective, the action of the incarnation reveals once for all what it means to be “like God”. The truth about divine wisdom is the opposite of the grasping to be equal with God in the Garden of Eden, it is the way of humiliation and exaltation under the hand of the Father revealed in the life of Jesus (Phil 2:5- 11). It is this way that reveals that Jesus is the true image of the invisible God (Col 1:15).
Application: do we centre on Jesus as the complete content of the wisdom of God that we need for every life-situation?
United to the Wisdom and Knowledge of God
According to the teaching of the New Testament, the apostles impart a wisdom to the “mature” (1 Cor 2:6). The content of this wisdom is Christ, who is “our righteousness (justification), holiness (sanctification) and redemption (salvation) (1 Cor 1:30). In other words, the content of God’s wisdom, or the fruit of his plan of salvation, is who we are in Christ (Eph 1:9-11).
As people who have been united with Jesus in his death, resurrection and exaltation (Rom 6:3 -6; Gal 2:20; Eph 2:5 – 6; Col 3:3) we are united with the wisdom of God, Christ is our life (Gal 2:20; Col 3:4). Since we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6; Col 3:3) we have access to the reality of this knowledge through the Spirit who is the permanent presence and gift of God within us and constitutes us as a holy temple (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 1:2-22). The recreation of the image of God in us (Col 3:10) means the permanent indwelling presence of the Spirit and wisdom.
What this requires of the believer is an ever – deepening death to the old life and submission to the new life (Rom 6:11-14; 12:2; Col 3:3-5). In this we enter more fully into the life of Jesus as the image of God (2 Cor 3:17-18) and turn away from other sources of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:8).
Conclusion
Wisdom is not some isolated or partial aspect of our relationship with God. To teach the saving way of God in Jesus, to proclaim the gospel, is to teach wisdom (Col 1:28). The basics of the Christian life, being filled with the Spirit and the word of Christ (Eph 5:15-19; Col 3:16) are the means God uses to grant us wisdom. The conclusion of this study is therefore simple and profound: the wise person will seek in everything to be centred on Christ, for in him we find the way of God and God’s greatest work.
Application: to what extent do we appreciate that becoming like Jesus is the sole object of our existence?