Divine Philosophy
“Christ.. the wisdom of God.” — 1 Con. i. 24.
Our age is eager in its pursuit of knowledge. It professes to be a truth-loving, and a truthseeking age. It is quite awake to science, and thoroughly in love with its marvels and mysteries. It has obtained a far insight into the dark processes of that which is called “nature.” It has witnessed one substance, and another, and another, yielding up their hidden wonders; it has seen earth, and sea, and air giving out their treasures; and, by patient inquiry, it has wrung the deepest secrets from every region of being. It has taken possession of unreclaimed territory all over space, and covered the waste places of former days with verdure, and fragrance, and beauty.
Its fields of discovery lie all around us, near and far. Wherever it has turned its steps, it has found stores of truth. What a profundity of miracle there is contained in every ray of light, every drop of dew, every pebble of the brook, every fragment of rock, every blade of grass; what an exemplification of order and law there is revealed in every
natural process, — the motion of earth, and sun, and stars, the shock of earthquakes, the flow of tides, the rush of the breeze, the braiding of the rainbow on the cloud, the change of seasons, the springing, growth, blossoming, and fruit-bearing of flower, and shrub, and tree!
These are the works of God, the laws of God, the daily miracles of God. In all of them wisdom is seen; divine wisdom; wisdom as profound as it is perfect, as incomprehensible as it is glorious, as magnificent in its minuteness as in its vastness, in the grain of sand as in the mighty mountain, in the blush of the unnoticed desert-flower as in the splendour of a new-lighted star.
In all this there is wisdom; wisdom which we do well to study. Yet all these are but parts, — mere fragments; and, even when gathered together, they still form but the minutest portion of a whole, whose dimensions are vaster than the created universe, — a whole, of which nothing less than the infinity of Godhead is the measure. There is some proportion between the fragments of the split planet, that astronomy has detected in their wanderings, and the planet itself, of which they are the broken parts; there is some proportion between a drop and the ocean, between the stream and the fountain, between a beam and the sun, between a moment and a million of ages; but there is no proportion between the fragments of wisdom that lie scattered over creation and the great whole, which can be contained in no treasure-house save that which is infinite and divine.
Hence it is that, while, in all the regions and departments of creation, may be seen portions of this wisdom, only in the Son of God, — in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Word. — is the mighty whole contained. He, and he only, is (i the Wisdom of God.”
By the expression, “the Wisdom of God,” thus applied to Christ, is not merely meant that he is wue, infinitely wise, but something much more comprehensive. To say that he is infinitely wise is one thing, but to say that he is the wisdom of God is another. We say of the Father, he is infinitely wise; but we cannot say of him, he is the wisdom of God. Of the Son alone, the Christ of God, can this be said. Both things are true of him. He is infinitely wise, and he is the wisdom of God. Only of him can we affirm that he has, and he is, “the wisdom of God.” Suppose we have an able architect, and a goodly palace planned and built by him, into which he has thrown his whole mind, and skill, and genius; we say of himself, he is skilful, but we say of his work, there is his skill, there is the outward personification of all that is in him, and without which you could not have known what is in him. Of other buildings erected by him, we may say there is some skill; but only of his chief work, his masterpiece, should we say that it is the skill or the wisdom of the man. Suppose we have the poet, and the poem into which he has poured his whole soul; we say of him, he is the poet, of his work, this is the poetry; of him we say he has genius, of his poem, it is genius; it is the full embodiment, in the
3G DIVINE PHILOSOPHY.
most perfect form of speech, of all the soul, the mind, the thought, the fancy, the fire, the love, the power, that were wrapt up in him.
Thus is it with regard to Christ. He is the wisdom of God. All that is in God, all that can come forth out of God, is contained in him. He is the full representative of the invisible and incomprehensible Jehovah. He is the brightness of Jehovah’s glory, and the express image of his person. In the works of creation God has displayed fragments or portions of his wTisdom: but in Christ he has summed up and put forth the whole of it; so that it can be said of this Christ, he is the wisdom of God. Hence it is that the knowledge of Christ not only transcends all other knowledge, but includes them all; the study of this wondrous embodiment of all that is in God is not only superior to, but actually embraces, all other studies. Here we cannot fathom this; hereafter we may. Here we cannot see how a discovered Christ should be the discovery of all other things, all science, all nature, all things in heaven and earth; hereafter we shall find it so.
Wisdom is one of the last things which we are in the habit of connecting with the name of Christ. We connect with it salvation, pardon, life, righteousness, love, but not wisdom. Yet it is wisdom that God so especially associates with Christ. “He, of God, is made unto us wisdom.” “In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” When God looks at him, that whiah he especially sees in him is wisdom. When he bids us look at Him and admire him, it is because he is the Wisdom. He is the perfection of all perfection; but specially the perfection of wisdom; so that, while each perfection is in him, it is in him in such a way as to manifest the wisdom of God. Holiness is in him; but then, it is in him in such a way, and manifests itself in such a way, as to shew forth not only itself, but wisdom as well. Each perfection becomes thus not merely a display of itself, but an illustration, or embodiment, of wisdom.
It is of this Wisdom that the “wise man” speaks in the Proverbs so frequently. It is this Wisdom which utters its voice, and says, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” Sometimes the name given is the “Wisdom of God;” sometimes it is the “Word of God.”
The subject is a very wide one; we take up here only that section of it which relates to the Person of the Christ.
In this there are two parts, the divine and the human, the heavenly and the earthly, the invisible and the visible, the infinite and the finite, the uncreated and the created; and these., both in themselves and in their union, distinction, adjustment, co-operation, harmony, make up that glorious Person, Son of God and Son of Man, of whom it is affirmed that he is the “Wisdom of God.” The whole Creator is in him, and the whole creature is in him; yet both retaining their properties distinct and unchanged by the union.
On the subject of the divine and the human, philosophy, and Mysticism, and metaphysics, and theology, have speculated. Various and strange have been the ideas which man has held regarding himself and God. Sometimes he would spiritualize all matter, as if the created and the human were mere ideas, or shadows projected from the Godhead; sometimes he would materialize all spirit, not only making the soul of man a mere part of his body, but bringing down the Godhead to the level and form of creaturehood, as if the Creator and the creation were one; every part of nature, animate and inanimate, being fragments of Godhead. Such is human wisdom. It cannot comprehend either the earthly or the heavenly, either the nature of man or God, nor adjust the connection between them, without destroying and confounding both.
God takes another way; a way which not merely preserves, unchanged and distinct, both natures, while uniting them in one, but which brings forth to view, in glorious fulness, the true properties of each. In man is seen God, very God; in God is seen man, very man. All that is glorious in the Godhead, and ail that is excellent in manhood, is gathered into one person, and fully exhibited in him. The Word is made flesh; yet the Word is still the Word, and flesh is still flesh. The heavenlv becomes earthly; yet both are preserved; nor is the one lost in the other. The Creator becomes the creature; yet Creator and creature, though conjoined in one person, remain still distinct. The Eternal becomes a Being of time, yet continuing Eternal. The Infinite becomes finite, yet abiding Infinite. The Immortal becomes mortal, yet continuing Immortal. The Omnipotent becomes the helpless child of clay, yet remaining Omnipotent still. The Prince of Life becomes the heir of death, yet abides still, the Prince of Life, the Living One, the life of the boundless universe!
Thus the two parts of the great universe are brought together, yet kept distinct. Thus they are linked to each other by a new tie, closer than that of creation; for the union which creation produces is not half so close or dear as that which is brought about by incarnation and redemption. By this union these two parts are revealed to each other; heaven is revealed to earth, and earth is revealed to heaven. Earth now knows what Godhead is, by its coming down and dwelling here; heaven knows what manhood is, by the human nature being taken up to sit at God’s right hand, in the person of the Christ.
It seems to be union only at a single point; for it is with one body and one soul that the Godhead is united. But that single point is enough; that one link unites the nature. In order to moor a ship we do not require a thousand cables, each fastened to a separate plank or spar; one strong cable, fixed at one point, makes fast the whole, and connects the entire vessel with its anchor. So the incarnation of Christ, whereby Godhead took into union with itself a human soul and body, is the fastening or mooring of the whole nature to the throne of the universe, — to the great fountain-head of life and being.
Nor was it with one particular stage of our being that this union was formed; but with all; from the first moment of conception in the womb to death and the grave. Had the Son of God united himself with manhood in its maturity, there would have been no union and no sympathy with the different stages of human life and growth. But he enters the Virgin’s womb and begins life just where we begin it, thus joining himself to us at the very commencement of human existence; taking the first small invisible thread of mortal life and weaving it into his own Godhead. He is made of a woman; and that links him to woman, and woman to him, in everlasting bonds. He is a man; and that links him to man, and man to him, in eternal union. He was an infant; and that links infancy to him, and him to infancy. He was a child, a boy, a youth; and that links childhood, boyhood, youth to him, and him to them. He passed through all the stages of humanity, uniting himself to us at these different points, and consecrating these steps of human development.
What a marvel of wisdom is here! What treasures of knowledge are thus spread out before heaven and earth! Trulv he is “the wisdom of God!”