Concerning wisdom, we read, “Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living .... seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living. ... Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom” (Job 28:13,21,28). The fear of the Lord is the setting aside of our own will, so that the will of God as expressed in the Word directs our path.
“After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching [that is, the actual thing preached] to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21).
Before Creation
Wisdom was before creation (Prov. 8), and creation displayed it (Psa. 104:24). Wisdom entered this world in the person of Christ, but man by his wisdom knew Him not (Acts 13:27). The world in its “wisdom” rejected Him. His death is the complete setting aside of the first man (2 Cor. 5:14-18), for in new creation, “all things are of God.” The pathway of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ on earth is the path of wisdom in a world where fallen man, by his lust and his “wisdom,” corrupts himself and rejects God, revealed in Christ. The natural man is the slave of his lusts (John 8:34), and his mind is at enmity against God (Rom. 8:7).
Christ, the perfect, obedient Man, lived “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). He has left those of us that are His own an example that we should “follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). The “sermon on the mount” (Matt. 5-7) is the wisdom of God in a world of evil. The new nature in the child of God will manifest these moral excellencies, in the measure in which the old nature is kept in the place of death (2 Cor. 4:10).
Perfect in Knowledge
God’s wisdom is perfect, because of His perfect knowledge of all things. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counselor” (Rom. 11:33-34). Man can never discover the things that belong to revelation. This is just the theme in the Book of Ecclesiastes. It shows us the extent of man’s wisdom “under the sun” apart from God’s revelation. Creation and resurrection are two things that belong to revelation. The wisdom of man could never discover either the one or the other, as we see from Acts 17:23-32.
Man is a fallen creature and his fallen nature loves sin. He is at enmity with God and does not want God’s wisdom. To him “stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Prov. 9:17), but this same Book of Proverbs shows us that “the way of transgressors is hard” (Prov. 13:15). This is because Proverbs shows the way of wisdom in an evil world. It is heavenly wisdom in which man is called to walk, instead of yielding to the evil of a fallen nature. These moral principles are of immense value for young and old in the pathway of life.
New Life
Now Christianity supplies that which is needed to walk rightly in these ways, by giving the believer a new life, a new power, and an object for the affections of his heart. Christ is now our life (Col. 3:4), the Holy Spirit that dwells within us is the power for godliness (Rom. 8:4), while Christ in glory is the end of the path for faith (Phil. 3:14). He who knows all and has understanding of all, has given us in the Book of Proverbs the way of wisdom in all the various relationships, temptations and vexations that are met along the pathway of life.
Now the wisdom of God is not an extension of man’s wisdom, neither is it an improvement upon it. It is always the very opposite of man’s wisdom. Apart from the revelation of truth found in the Word of God, man makes the world in which he lives the horizon of all his thoughts. His whole life is governed by these worldly motives. Now the voice of wisdom, as found in the Word, would teach us to learn God’s wisdom.
Natural Relationships
Natural relationships form beautiful pictures of the wisdom of the ways of God. The parent has authority given of God (Eph. 6:1), but it is authority to be used in loving wisdom to do the child good all the days of his life. Love is here the motive spring of authority rightly used. Now it is the love of God that moved His heart to give us this wisdom from Himself to guide our feet through a world filled with evil, and with the subtlety of an enemy who would use the fallen nature within us to lead in the paths of sin and folly.
The relationship of husband and wife, too, is a picture of Christ and the church. If every husband would remember that his relationship is to be patterned in the manner of Christ’s love to the church and if every wife would remember her place of submission is to be as the church is to Christ, what a blessing it would be! No relationship in life can be ordered aright without this wisdom from God. Alas, many a dear child of God has neglected it in his home life, even though he may have, at the same time, shown diligence in other ways of service to the Lord. But our whole Christian life is to be characterized by pleasing God, not pleasing self.
Reason and Revelation
Let those who attend school and college ever remember that the things that belong to revelation are beyond reason. Reason must begin with facts. It can never give you the facts. Nothing that is known as a fact is the fruit of reason; it is always the fruit of testimony or experience. There are things in the Word of God beyond reason, and indeed it must be so because they come from God. A God whom man’s reason is equal to is not God at all. A man must be master of a subject to know it rightly, and he cannot be this of God. God and His wisdom are utterly beyond man.
When we come to something we cannot understand, we should just say with David in Psalm 139:6, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” Let us ever come to the Word of God as newborn babes and allow our thoughts to be formed by the precious wisdom of God. “Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deut. 8:3).
H. E. Hayhoe (adapted)