‘Behold, the Lamb
of God’
ide
o amnos tou theou
College Study
55th teaching
11.25.2013
“God’s Wisdom: the most Precious Element”
Review:
So last week we had the pleasure of a fine dinner
together and a time of sharing our testimonies. But before that, in our last study, we concluded a three-part series on
what subject? God’s Grace also concluded what section of His attributes? So now
we’ve moved, then, into a consideration of His non-moral attributes.
But in reviewing our past study of Grace, what was the
problem with the Galatian church? The point of Galatians is we began in grace
as Christians and we must continue in grace as Christians. Who does Paul use as
an example in Galatians of receiving righteousness by grace through faith? What
are some ways in which Grace is better than the Law (think practically)? What
is the relationship between Grace and works? And the big question: What is the
current place of the Law in the Christian life? It provides moral structure, it
can help to discern God’s will, and it is written on our hearts, but it is a
retired schoolmaster, no longer a guardian over us. Lastly, what does it mean
to abuse the grace of God?
End
of Review
Gold is a precious metal. Gold is precious. It symbolizes
wealth, riches, money, luxury. Gold is a metal which is evocative of heaven.
And gold is so precious, consider, because it is rare.
But what’s more precious than gold? Well, platinum. It
typically costs much more than gold. It’s worth more than gold. What’s more, it
requires less maintenance, its sturdier, it can be used is a purer form than
gold, and… it is also rarer than gold.
That’s precious metals, but how about precious stones? Yes.
Please.
Gemstones and jewels are also worth incredible amounts of
money. The DeLong Star Ruby, last sold in 1937 so $21,400, a substantial amount
of money, especially back then! Or take this hunk of gorgeous-ness for example:
the Pink Star, an enormous diamond sold November 13, 2013 for 52 million
pounds, accounted as the highest price ever paid for a gemstone at auction.
Gems, they’re certainly beautiful to look at, but again, I
suggest to you, that one of the greatest contributions to the worth of these
precious stones, really what makes them precious, is their rarity. I mean, none
of us commonly stumble across diamonds and rubies and emeralds as we’re walking
down the street. If these were as common as plain old rocks and dirt, they
wouldn’t be worth much at all.
In the same way, there is something far more precious than
gold or platinum, than diamonds and rubies, which I believe is all the more
precious because it is so very rare. And that is the element of Wisdom.
Turn to Proverbs 3.
The book of Proverbs is known famously and rightfully as
the biblical book of wisdom. Indeed wisdom is the central subject and a primary
theme of the book of Proverbs. The second verse that opens the book says “To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive
the words of understanding…”
Why do we have this book of Proverbs? To know wisdom,
instruction and perceive the words of understanding. Wisdom is the focus of
Proverbs, and the worth of Wisdom is something which Proverbs pronounces and
proclaims throughout.
Look at Proverbs
3:13-18
How much is wisdom worth? Well, according to the writer of
Proverbs, wisdom is more previous than rubies, nothing compares to wisdom. And
lest we forget, King Solomon, who had
the rubies and the diamonds and the gold and the silver, as well as wisdom, was the one who penned these words. If anybody
ever knew of the value of wisdom in comparison to physical wealth, it was
Solomon.
And so, Solomon writes in the following chapter, Proverbs 4:7: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your
getting, get understanding.”
In the mad grab and consuming of life, in all the things
that we work for and spend time to get, in all our getting, we ought to aim to
get Wisdom. It is more valuable, more precious, and rarer than gold, than silver, than gemstones. We spend a great deal
of our adult lives with buying, getting, attaining, earning things, stuff,
materials that in the end will be largely if not totally worthless. But wisdom
is to be pursued, sought for and got more so than anything else we aim to get.
Proverbs 16:16
echoes: “How much better to get wisdom
than gold!”
But why? It’s all fine and dandy to say that. But why is
Wisdom so valuable? Why should we get it? What’s so great about Wisdom?
Or a better question, a more essential question: What is
Wisdom anyways? And that leads us to our first of several points:
1.
What is Wisdom?
What is it? Is it an old man sitting on the top of a
mountain meditating? That’s the image we get in our minds culturally.
But culture aside, Wisdom is in fact something which has a
very practical basis. Wisdom isn’t something that sits on its butt all day,
meditating the mysteries of the universe. Wisdom is practical.
Aristotle interestingly defined wisdom as “the
understanding of causes, knowing why
thing are the way they are, rather than just knowing that things are the way they are.”
In modern terms, however, wisdom can be defined as good
judgment and understanding. Wisdom involves an understanding of things,
knowledge of things, which then makes a right judgment based on that knowledge.
So there’s the difference between wisdom and knowledge: Knowledge has to do
with the facts, but Wisdom has to do with making right use of those facts.
And so you see an incredible amount of knowledgeable people
in this world, but not many who are wise. There are many people in this world
who have had their education, who can talk to you for hours on their given
subjects, who can lecture on the subtleties of quantum physics, of medieval
histories, of Western and Eastern philosophy, of advanced mathematics… but they
may not necessarily be wise people, though they have an abundance of knowledge.
Remember, Wisdom is rare. Knowledge isn’t anywhere near as
rare. Think of it, we’re in the information age, the digital age. I can find
nearly any fact I want at the touch of a few keystrokes. Wanna know how many
moons Jupiter has? Want to know the diameter of Earth? Want to know when the
Dodo became extinct? Want to know when the Vietnam war ended? Want to know when
Roosevelt died? You can find tons of knowledge at a whim, but Wisdom is far
more elusive.
You cannot just look up wisdom in the same way that you
research knowledge.
I like what Norman Geisler says “Wisdom has to do with the
ability to choose the right means for the desires ends. Knowledge is the
apprehension of truth in the mind, while wisdom is the application of truth to
one’s life…”
So knowledge is getting the true facts, but Wisdom is the
application of knowledge, understanding the facts in order to make judgments
and decisions. Wisdom involves understanding the facts in such a way that we
are able to make right choices. Wisdom is understanding truth in order to make
a judgment.
*In the Greek language, the word for Wisdom is the word Sophia, which is a common name for girls
today. Socrates, the mentor of Plato and a Greek philosopher, considered a
philosopher to be a friend or lover of Wisdom. The word philosophy comes from
the Greek words phileo, which means
friendly or community love, and Sophia,
wisdom. So a philosopher, which Socrates was identified as, was a lover of
Wisdom. Socrates, being Greek, was all about wisdom. That’s all the Greeks ever
wanted to hear: wisdom and philosophy. They worshiped and personified Wisdom.
That was their thing.
Supposedly, a priestess of Apollo, known as the Pythian
Oracle, was once asked “who is the wisest man of Greece?” to which she replied
“Socrates!” Socrates was the man who coined the phrase “I know that I know
nothing”.
And you may hear that today, from atheists or agnostics.
Some may say it’s too audacious, too arrogant to claim that we know anything
about the mysteries of God or the universe, and that its wiser to say “true
knowledge is knowing I know nothing”.
But certainly what Socrate’s words of wisdom meant were not
that he was ignorant, not that he knew nothing at all. Rather, this Socratic
statement means that his skepticism towards his own self-made constructions of
knowledge left him free to receive true
Wisdom as a spontaneous insight or inspiration. In other words, Socrates was
skeptical about something he thought about until he found it to be true, until
actual, provable Wisdom was revealed to him. He wasn’t a guy who denied
everything, refusing to believe, but rather he wisely would not believe until
it could be revealed that truth was proven to him.
So when someone tells you “knowledge is knowing you know
nothing”, tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about. It is wise to
know nothing until it can be proven. Know nothing until you have seen what is
true.
*To summarize: what is wisdom? Wisdom is the application of
knowledge. While knowledge is getting the facts, wisdom is using the facts
rightly. Knowledge receives the truth, wisdom acts upon the truth. Knowledge
has to do with what you learn, wisdom has to do with what to do with what you
learn.
Next, question and next point:
2.
Who is Wisdom?
Earlier I mentioned that the Greeks personified Wisdom.
Like so many things in the polytheistic, pagan cultures throughout history,
Wisdom was envisioned as a person. Just as they had a god that represented war,
a god for the harvest, a god for the thunder, a god for the rain, a god for
learning, a god for the forest, so too they had a deity to represent Wisdom.
The Greeks called her Athena. She was said to have sprung
from the head of Zeus. She represented not only wisdom, but courage,
inspiration, mathematics, justice, skill and the arts.
Following the myths of the Greeks, the Romans also valued
wisdom and personified it in the goddess Minerva, said to be born from
Jupiter’s brain. She represented skillful knowledge and virtue, trade and
defense. History note: ever wonder why the owl is often associated with wisdom?
Owls aren’t particularly smarter than other birds. But the Roman goddess
Minerva had as her symbol the owl because it could see in the darkness.
The owl is able to discern between objects and distances in
the darkness, and to the Romans that was a great icon to represent the
discernment of wisdom in making good judgments. So the owl became the symbol of
the Roman goddess of wisdom and of course the owl still represents wisdom to
this day, long after the last temple of Minerva had been reduced to ruins and
the Roman empire that worshiped her is no more.
But where the Greeks and the Romans were so close, they were also so very far away. Romans 1:21-23 explains what happened
with the Greeks and the Romans: “…because,
although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but
became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and
four-footed animals and creeping things.”
The Greeks and later the Romans recognized that Wisdom is a
great thing, that it is glorious, but they missed that the glory of Wisdom is
that it is found in God, that Wisdom is an attribute of God. God is the source
of Wisdom. But rather than worship the source of wisdom, they made wisdom the
focus of their worship, personifying it rather than worshiping the One who
possessed it.
Now where they also missed the mark was in a mistaking of
persons. The Greeks and Romans were right to think of a personification for
Wisdom. But they failed in trying to think
up a personification, rather than discover
who the personification of Wisdom really is. They made up names for their fake
goddess, rather than learn the name of the God of Wisdom, for it is Jesus
Christ who is the personification and example of the Wisdom of God.
Oh? Yes indeed. I
Corinthians 1:24, a passage we’ll refer to again later, says: “…Christ the power of God and the wisdom of
God.”
Now we are on the subject of the wisdom of God, and we find
that the wisdom of God is found in a Person, the very personification of
wisdom, who is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Who is Wisdom? Jesus.
3.
Biblical Basis for God’s Wisdom
Before moving any further, let’s consider some Scripture
references about the wisdom of God. Anyone find their Project Scriptura verses?
Note that the fancy theological term for God’s wisdom is omnisapience, which literally means all-wise.
How can God be all-wise, indeed infinitely wise since He is
essentially infinite? Because He has all knowledge, omniscience. God is
perfectly wise because He perfectly understands all the facts. And He is able
to determine what is the best possible outcome, the best possible decision,
based upon His knowledge of all things.
Consider, God makes perfect judgments because of His
perfect wisdom based on His perfect knowledge.
4.
Wisdom and Christ
Now that we’ve read some passages of Scripture, let’s
consider how Christ exemplifies wisdom. What are some similarities between
Christ and wisdom?
Turn again the book of Proverbs
1:20.
1:20, Wisdom is
repeatedly personified as a woman throughout the book of Proverbs. “But I
thought Wisdom was personified in the Man, Jesus Christ!” Indeed, Wisdom is.
Don’t forget that Proverbs is poetry. It’s not indicating here that Wisdom is a
literal female deity, as some mystics would have us think. Rather, it’s using
poetic language to describe Wisdom, here as a woman.
1:21, just as
the proverbial Wisdom speaks, so too the physical Wisdom, the incarnated Son of
God, came to Earth and spoke. His words form the basis of all Christian
teaching and the foundation of the four Gospels of the New Testament. Wisdom
speaks, and so Christ came to the Earth not to meditate on a mountain but to
speak to mankind.
1:22-23a, Wisdom
rebukes? Oh yes, certainly. If there is wisdom, then there is a right way and a
wrong way, a right decision and a wrong decision, the one which is wise and the
other which is foolish. So Wisdom would rebuke he that goes the way of the
foolish, who makes foolish decisions. Did Christ rebuke anyone? Certainly. He
rebuked the disciples. He rebuked the Pharisees. He rebuked the scribes. By
showing wisdom, He showed that there is a right way and He rebuked those who
were going the wrong way.
1:23b,
interesting that Wisdom promises to pour out her spirit. Acts 2:17, “And it shall come to pass in the last days,
says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh…” What did Christ
say in John 14:26? “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your
remembrance all things that I said to you.” The Holy Spirit, sent by the
Father in the name of wisdom, in the name of Jesus, is poured out upon the
church of God.
1:24-25, even
more interesting! The words of Wisdom are pictured in Proverbs as being
disregarded and disdained, refused and rejected. John 1:10-11 says of Christ “He
was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not
know Him. he came to His own, and His own did not receive Him…” Like the
voice of wisdom, Jesus Christ Himself was “despised
and rejected of men” Isaiah 53:3.
*Jumping forward
in Proverbs to 3:15, Wisdom is
portrayed as extremely valuable. We ought to desire wisdom. And so too, Jesus
is to be our desire, our goal, our aim, our treasure sought for. A prophetic
title of Jesus out of Haggai 2:7 is
“the Desire of all nations”. Jesus is the desire of all yearning sinners, the
solution to the problems of the world, the wisdom sought for by the nations,
though they do not know that it is He that they’re searching for.
3:16, Proverbs
claims that wisdom is associated with length of days, long life and riches. Ephesians 1:3 says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places in Christ…” Philippians 4:19,
“But my God shall supply all your need,
according to His riches in glory by Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 2:7, “…that in the
ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus.”
How rich are you? That question cannot be truthfully
answered aside from a consideration of Jesus Christ. Through Him and in Him, we
have all the exceeding riches made available to us from God. We have the hope
of eternal life. We have the promises of God. We have the peace of God. We have
freedom from law and sin. We have the calling and destiny placed upon our
lives. We have the fruit of the Spirit. We have the crowns awaiting us in
glory. We have the supreme honor of glorifying God with our lives.
One last comparison of Christ and Wisdom out of Proverbs.
Look at Proverbs
3:19-20. Next, turn over to Proverbs
8:22-31. Here we see a fascinating similarity: Wisdom is poetically
described as the eternal agent by which God created the universe. The LORD laid
the Earth’s foundations by wisdom. This bears a direct connection to the
opening chapter of the Gospel of John.
John 1:1-3, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All
things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” In other words, everything that ever
began to exist was made through the creative agent of the Son of God. Jesus
Christ was at the beginning, with the Father co-eternal, there laying down the
blueprints of reality and building and creating the universe. God spoke and there it was. God’s Word came
and there it was, this same Word who would become flesh and dwell among us,
this same Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God, who founded the worlds.
Ancient philosophers used the Greek term logos, which means speech, word and reason. The Stoic philosophers said that
logos was the divine animating
principle pervading the universe, this grand concept that the universe was
ordered and sustained and given life by this Word, by the logos, this orderly principle.
The next person to take up the development of this concept
of the logos was a Hellenized Jew
(which means a Jew who took on the culture and manners of the Greeks) by the
name of Philo of Alexandria. Philo, being Hellenistic, adopted the Greek Stoic
concept logos into Jewish philosophy.
He called this logos the “first-born
of God”, an intermediary divine being that bridged the gap between perfect idea
(God) and imperfect matter (the universe). This logos according to Philo was a mediator, therefore. Philo said “the
Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together
and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and
separated.”
And finally, it was John who came onto this philosophical
scene and took the concept even further, bringing the truth into the light. The
true Logos was not just an animating
principle, not just an intermediary divine being, but actually the Person of
the Son of God. And this Logos didn’t
just make the world and hold it together, but became flesh and ironically
entered the very world He had created!
Truth is stranger than fiction. What the Stoics groped for
in the dark and what Philo of Alexandria discovered hints of, John revealed as
the “gospel truth”: that the Logos,
the Word, the wisdom of God, the Son of God, was the creative agent of the
world, the sustainer of the world and that He became flesh and entered into the
world for the purpose that He might pay the penalty demanded by God’s justice
for our sins that offended His own holiness so we could be reconciled to
Himself.
Now the cross, where that purpose was accomplished by God’s
wisdom, the Logos incarnate, the Son
of God… the cross is something which displays the wisdom of God but which is
denounced as foolishness by the world.
5. Cross-roads
of Folly and Wisdom
I recently watched a debate between two professors: a
theist named John Lennox and the famous atheist Richard Dawkins. Among Dawkins
opening statements was the claim that the transcendent God beyond the universe
is petty, in his opinion, to care about our the mistakes and shortcomings of
the people on this tiny planet in all the vastness of the universe, and that
its marvelous that God couldn’t think of anything better than coming to this
tiny planet to suffer and die. And Dawkins said that it seemed incredibly petty
and small-minded that God would care so and do so.
And his opinion is precisely what Scripture anticipates
from the world.
Turn over to I Corinthians
1:18-25
The cross is at once both offensive and foolish to
the unbeliever. Wouldn’t God have something more important to care about than
your sin or my sin? Why couldn’t He think of a better way to save us? Even
Dawkins poses the question: why couldn’t He just plain forgive humanity?
But no doubt you’ve realized over the course of our studies
of God’s attributes that it is not that simple. God Himself is not that simple.
All the depth of His justice is brought to bear upon the cross. All of His
holiness is there, His mercy, His love, His faithfulness, His whole Being
required satisfaction at every level and at every attribute. Plainly, God could
not have just forgiven. His Holiness and Justice would not allow that kind of
nonsense. Yet He loves us too much to demand that we perish for our own sins on
account of His wrath. So He shows us mercy and comes in the flesh, the King
descends from the throne Himself and dies in the place of the lowest member of
his court, the dirty outcast sentenced to death.
And thus far from being petty and small-minded, the cross
demonstrates the love of God, yes, but also the wisdom of God. Jesus Christ
Himself prayed in that dread garden the night of His betrayal: “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup
pass from Me…” But you see it was not possible. There was no other way. God
had accounted all the facts and His wisdom had decreed that the only way was to
send His Son, God in the flesh, and die in our place. So Christ submits: “…nevertheless, not as I will, but as You
will” (Matthew 26:39).
There was no other way to save the souls of humanity and to
satisfy each of God’s infinite attributes other than in the cross. Far from
being small-minded, the cross is the ultimate demonstration of ultimate wisdom.
6.
Getting Wisdom
Final point.
We’ve heard and read that Wisdom is of the utmost value,
that Wisdom is personified in the Person of Jesus Christ and that Wisdom was
demonstrated through His crucifixion. Therein lies the wisdom of God, the
omnisapience of the Lord.
But as far as practical godly wisdom, still the words of
Proverbs exhorts us: “In all your getting, get wisdom.”
So how are we to get wisdom? Consider the answer in light
of all we’ve studied tonight. If you wonder how to get wisdom, remember who
Wisdom is. If you want wisdom, you go to the Source.
Proverbs 2:6
says “For the LORD gives wisdom; from His
mouth come knowledge and understanding.”
The New Testament counterpart to the book of Proverbs, the
book of James 1:5 says clearly: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of
God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to
him.”
We sing “Come Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart
to sing Thy grace” possibly without realizing that we’re address God, the
Fountain of every blessing, Whose grace we sing. God is the Source of every
blessing, including wisdom. We need look no further than the One who is nearest
to us every moment of our Christian lives. We need look no further than God for
wisdom.
But I like was Pastor Jon Courson pointed out: “Many people
might have attained wisdom had they not assumed they already had it”.
That makes it all the rarer!
Do you need wisdom? Do you lack wisdom? Do you admit it? Or
are you wise in your own eyes?
Do you have trouble making decisions, balancing out the
facts, weighing the consequences? That’s what wisdom is for, and God gives
practical wisdom because He is the Source of it.
Don’t be the fool who thinks he needs nothing. Go to God
for it. Don’t miss out on wisdom because you think you already have it.
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