“But by His doing you are in
Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and
sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who
boasts, boast in the Lord.”” (1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31).
Note that in speaking of what
Christ Jesus has become to us from God that “wisdom” comes first. We might naturally
think that redemption would come first, and then righteousness bringing with it
justification, then followed by sanctification and wisdom; but no, in this
context Paul places wisdom first. Does it matter?
Consider the context. In Chapter
1 Paul has been writing about God’s wisdom, contrasting it with the wisdom of
the world. This contrast is developed further in Chapter 2. The pride and ego
causing division is, at least in part, traced to the wisdom of the world – to looking
elsewhere, apart from Christ, for distinguishing knowledge and wisdom; it is as
if the milieu of competitive Greek philosophy has been imported into the
Corinthian church.
There were many philosophical schools
in the ancient word, and Corinth, sitting south of Athens – the heartbeat of
philosophy, would have deeply imbibed this spirit of the age. How natural to
fall into the trap of thinking that within the Church there ought to be a “school”
of Paul, and one of Apollos, and one of Peter; and one, especially holding
itself aloft from others, of Christ. Of course we, in our own age, would never
venture down this road!
But wisdom is to be found in a
Person, Jesus Christ. Here we touch a great mystery, for in Christ wisdom is
transmitted to us not so much didactically as relationally in a manner and fashion that we simply cannot
comprehend. Yes, the Word teaches via words, but the Word also teaches beyond
words as we live in the Trinity and the Trinity lives in us. The Word takes
form through and in words, as through thoughts and actions and motives; but the Word
is more than the words and the thoughts and the actions and the motives – for the
WORD IS. I AM THAT I AM shall always transcend and encompass and envelop us
beyond our understanding. We do not form God, God forms us into the likeness of
His Son Jesus Christ.
Perhaps there is a sense in which
the didactic provides the container for the Word – and yet the Word is the
Creator of the didactic container. When we live beyond the container we
transgress the Word – God’s Word and God’s words are ever in unity and harmony
and woe to the person who seeks foolishly to separate them for it leads to, “Has
God really said you will not do this or that?”
As Proverbs Chapter 8
illustrates, Wisdom is a Person, and as we reflect on 1 Corinthians 1:30 we can
say, “That Person is Christ.”
When we are with a person the “presence”
of that person can be communicated to us. When we are with a person that person
may speak, and yet the person’s “presence” may never touch us in a meaningful
way. What a joy it is to be with a godly person whose “presence” and words are
a seamless unity – if this is true of men and women, how much more true is it
when we are with Jesus Christ?
Surely the Biblical words, “in Christ,”
convey our identity, our center of gravity, our biosphere, the transcendent
reality in which the saints of God in Christ live and breathe and have their
existence. Surely it is “in Christ” that we find “all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).
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