The Wisdom of God in Salvation

Definition.

H. B. Smith defines the divine wisdom as “that attribute of God whereby He produces the best possible results with the best possible means.” We may be a little more specific and call it that perfection of God whereby He applies His knowledge to the attainment of His ends in a way which glorifies Him most. It implies a final end to which all secondary ends are subordinate; and according to Scripture this final end is the glory of God, Rom. 11:33; 14:7, 8; Eph. 1:11, 12; Col. 1:16.

Edward Leigh defines:

“Wisdom as an ability to fit all things to their ends. He that worketh for a worthy and good end, and fitteth every thing unto it, worketh wisely.”

We learned last time that God is wise of necessity. To be God is to be wise.

He is wise of himself, eternally and unchangeably.

He is not wise here, but not there. His wisdom is perfect, never lacking, never wanting, nor waxing or waining.

It extends to all creatures and always. He will never not put forth the best means for his glory and our good.

His wisdom is incomprehensible like himself. Even though he gives us many good tokens by which we may truly apprehend his wisdom, at the end of the day, we are to adore and praise his wisdom when comprehension eludes us.

We saw God’s wisdom in the creation of all things, the variety, the purpose they are created with. Nothing wasted. Nothing is pointless. And he has given beauty and variety to be enjoyed.

Further, all things are wonderfully governed by God and sing together like a skillful symphony. All of the different spheres of existence. The heavens, the earth, the plants and animals, the seas and all it contains. The seasons, the son and moon, rain and snow and the ongoing production of plants and fruit. Angels and humans and their respective ranks and rolls. We could go on.

And it’s all first and foremost for his own glory. He never consulted any one. He didn’t ask permission to create or to create as such. To permit the fall. To redeem or to redeem as such. He took counsel with no one. And there is no plan A or B, there is only “The Plan”.

We want to consider an erroneous view this morning in contrast to the Biblical. Listen to how the New Apostolic Reformation(a cult that has had influence inside evangelicalism) defines the fall in this paragraph.

Here’s one of it’s leaders statement’s doctrine: “have little or no desire to traverse many of the traditional pathways laid down by professional academic theologians.”

God’s Plan A and the Fall

“The NAR holds that before creating the world and forming Adam, God determined that to create truly free and self-determining creatures, he would not be able to fully know the future for himself. Though God would remain in a sense sovereign over his creation, he would have to choose to limit his ability to know the decisions and actions of human beings. When God created Adam and Eve in his image, he gave them authority to take dominion and reign over his creation (Gen. 1:28). But unforeseen to God, Adam and Eve fell into sin[[whoops]]. Because of their disobedience, the gift of earthly dominion given to Adam and Eve was surrendered entirely to Satan. Satan became the ruler of this world, along with all the evil powers aligned with him, while God continued to reign in heaven.”

So God is in a legit give and take with the devil? This is like the coyote and the rode runner. God is up in heaven plotting how he might regain the power the devil snatched. What an abominable thought. This is not the all-wise God of the Bible.

God’s Detour, Plan B

They believe that God now needed a new plan to restore creation to his original purpose and to reclaim for humanity the authority and dominion lost to Satan. God determined to partner with humanity to implement his new will for the earth. He listened to the pleas of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Israel, changing his mind and relenting. Wagner appeals to Exodus 32, stating,

As we know, Moses then interceded on behalf of his people and said, “Don’t be so angry. Reconsider your decision to bring this disaster on your people” (verse 12, GOD’S WORD). The outcome? “So the Lord reconsidered his threat to destroy his people” (verse 14, GOD’S WORD). It would be difficult to understand this dialogue and the emotions involved if God already knew exactly what He would do ahead of time. It would seem as if God was playing games with Moses. But it makes perfect sense if we assume that God had an open mind.

This is ridiculous, this is open theism( God is changing and becoming along with creation). But the sad thing is is that many can easily fall into this thinking because they don’t have the foundations right. Namely, who God is. The foundation needs to be secure or this stuff will toss us around live the waves.

There is one plan. God’s eternal decree. All things whatsoever come to pass, do so as a consequence of his decreeing it. Even down to the fall, and every sin. The very sins that put to death our Lord and Savior. If that’s not the case, then there can be no sure confidence in God. If someone or something can elude his wise providence, then we have no hope. But it’s not praise be to God.

1)God’s wisdom in redemption and salvation.

As we consider God’s wisdom in the salvation of sinners, what two attributes appear to be in conflict in recovering the sinner from ruin after the fall?(From our perspective)

Mercy and Justice

Mercy

What does mercy say? What is mercy’s plea?

Listten to William Bates:

Heaven itself seemed to be divided. Mercy inclined to save, but justice interposed for satisfaction. Mercy regarded man with respect to his misery, and the pleas of it are, Shall the Almighty build to ruin? Shall the most excellent creature in the lower world perish, the fault not being solely his? Shall the enemy triumph for ever, and raise his trophies from the works of the Most High? Shall the reasonable creature lose the fruition of God, and God the subjection and service of the creature, and all mankind be made in vain?

Glorify your mercy Lord!

But then justice enters in and cries out:

The wages of sin is death. Man has offended the infinite God, and shall he go unpunished. He must render what is due. And the holiness, majesty, the truthfulness of God all add to the necessity of the just sentence to be pronounced. “God is of purer eyes to behold iniquity”. “For in the day you eat of it, you will surely die”.

The purity of God, cannot mix with the pollution of sinful man. God cannot dwell with man in this state. These contrary things cannot go together.

How will these conflicting attributes go together? Who or what does God need to overcome in this situation?(I say this from our perspective)

In Gods all wise decree, in his all wise plan. Are you ready for this:

God overcomes God, by God sending God, in the power of God, to appease God, and bring fallen image bearers back to God. All to the glory of God alone!

This is God’s wisdom in the gospel. This is the tension that slowly builds from the fall throughout the OT into the NT. How will God finally and fully dwell with his people? He himself does it. He accomplishes what man couldn’t do for himself.

This wisdom of God in redemption is foolishness to unbelievers.

Don’t be surprised that the vast majority of the world does not believe this. This is foolishness to the world. 1 Cor 1:20-25.

God’s wisdom in salvation is hidden from the eyes of unbelief. Don’t be surprised.

If you have seen God’s wisdom in salvation, it is not your own flesh that has revealed it to you. It is the Father, by the Holy Spirit who has shown Christ to you. Not only as a suffering one, but the One who conquered through suffering! The One in who’s life and work mercy and justice kiss.

When I used to do Bible study at the homeless shelter in Fargo. This man was drunk and in a fit of rage. And he was angered at the fact that the Jews killed Jesus. He was saying that if he was there he would have killed those Jews and pulled Jesus down from the cross.

It sounds silly to us, but what does Peter do? Rebukes Jesus, cuts off the ear of a soldier. What do the disciples do on the road to Emmaus? We had thought…….but now he’s dead. That’s where everyone is naturally as they stand at the foot of the cross. We are naturally “theologians of glory”, we call it what it looks like. A cursed man suffering and dying, and people don’t come back from the dead. End of story. But the eyes of faith. The eyes illuminated by the regenerating work of the Spirit of Christ, see in Christ the wisdom of God and the power of God

5) Jesus is the wisdom of God. And has become such for you and me.

It is only in Christ that the Wisdom of God is revealed to anyone. This is what we have been discovering in John. The Fathers mind and wisdom concerning the salvation of His people in Christ is being made known. It lay in darkness and hidden in the OT, but now in Christ, it is being revealed and unfolded.

Consider once again:

John 3:14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,”

Double-meaning “lifted-up”

The Wisdom of God, has Jesus lifted up to die on the cross in apparent shame, humiliation, curse and defeat. “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”. But the double meaning has the ability to flip every one of those descriptions to it’s counterpart. “Lifted up” to exaltation. Because his lifting up is victory, his lifting up his is “it is finished”, redemption is complete, his lifting up is his exaltation. His lifting up as a curse is his undoing the curse. His lifting up will momentarily lead to His ascension on high to the Fathers right hand in power.

See the wonderful wisdom of God in Christ!

Listen to John Owen:

"It is in Christ alone that we can discern anything of it;[i.e.,God’s Wisdom] for him has the Father chosen and sealed to represent it unto us. All the treasures of this wisdom are hid, laid up, and laid out in him.”

Further, we have become “the wisdom and righteousness of God in Christ”. “Not many wise, not many mighty, but the weak and foolish has God chosen”….. We are a spectacle of the Wisdom of God to the world, for the purpose that God might have us proclaim it to the world, and that others might see it in us and ask us to give a reason for the hope in us. We are little Christ’s to a fallen and lost world, as some have said. Christ in you is the closest some will come to the power and wisdom of God. Consider that this week. How are we displaying that to others?

There is something strange about you. Strangely attractive. The way you deal with people, the way you handle difficulty, the peacefulness and meekness I see in you is so strange, it is so other worldly.

We don’t want to confuse hiddenness with complicated. God makes his wisdom in salvation plain to the simple ones. The message of salvation in the Scriptures is perspicuous. Though there are other matters that are deep and heavy. The simplest of children can grab hold of and explain the gospel of Christ.

Because we are in Christ by his Spirit.

We have access to the Fount of all wisdom.

We have become God’s wisdom in Christ, and we come by the Spirit through Christ to God who gives us wisdom freely and abundantly. He gives it liberally. You all know what its like when you ask someone for something and they make you feel it. Or when they ask you and you make them feel it. Can I get a hand from you today with this task? Oh, yeah I suppose I could set aside the other 100 things I’m working on to help you…..or yeah, I can do it this time….It’s not like that with our God. God gives freely, without hesitation or regret.

Lastly, Further consider the harmony of all of God’s attributes.

Remember that God is simple. We aren’t counting attributes but for our sake alone. All that is in God, is God. In God, what he is(wise) and that he is, are identical. To exist and exist as he is(wise), is one and the same thing. So we should not be surprised that nothing that we consider of God is ever at odds. It can’t be.

Listen to the 2LCF 2:1. Please turn there:

Note: a good reader of the confession will note 2 things. 1) the opening paragraph is almost always a summary of the rest of the chapter, with the preceding paragraphs unfolding the first.

2) to our point. Often, the confession will tip you or point you ahead to whats to come, or it will call to mind something that’s come before. They want us to know that these statements have a coherence, a symmetry, and order to them. This is not a hodge-podge document. It constantly points the reader forward and backward in wonderful demonstrating its unified structure.

Or perhaps you prefer the woven tapestry illistration. The backside of a tapestry can look like a jumbled mess of tangled strings, but when turned over, you see that it’s actually a beautiful piece of embroidery. A beautiful palace or building that you couldn’t recognize from the back. The confession is like that. God is a God of order. And the Scriptures are a faithful, infallible, and sufficient revelation of our all-wise God of order. And in these great confessions, these writers want to aid us in summarizing these great doctrines and truths that we find in the Scriptures. And in summarizing, showing us again their inner connectedness.

So what is 2LCF 2:1 doing in the middle of the paragraph?

What it’s doing is pointing us ahead to the decree as it often does. The writers are saying listen, this is important, they want us to know that the God who decrees, the God who acts, the God who creates is the same God confessed here. He doesn’t need to alter himself to create. He need not and could not. It’s no problem for him. The builder of the house doesn’t have to change himself to build the house. Nor does building it change him. It’s an expression of his mind. A spilling out of the creative imagination of the architect. How much more in God. When he acts he acts like himself. No change, no unusual added properties, no moral surprises.

Middle of P1:

What an amazing statement. I don’t know many statements better on God than this opening paragraph of Ch2. “The foundation of our communion and comfortable dependance on Him.” Several presbyterian Theologians tout our Ch 2 as superior to that of WCF fyi.

“To know the One True God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.” Contemplating this is part of that blessed fellowship that is ours now, and will be for eternity. Who sent Jesus? A needy God? A God starving for creative expression?

Starving for fellowship with a creature?

No. The God who stands eternally blessed. Eternally fruitful in and of himself. Who for the glory of His own goodness and love created, that he might manifest it to us and in us and for us. Freely. In his Son. To all eternity. This is the triune God, the only true God. Foundational for every other aspect of the Christian life. If you don’t get this chapter right, you don’t get any of the preceding chapters right. You go amiss on Salvation, Christian living, and worship. Everything you need to know concerning life and salvation is intimately connected to your view of God. The wrong view is at best idolatry, at worst heterodox. As we saw above.

To conclude,

As we learned earlier, God knows all things actual, and it is because he knows them that they come to exist.

In wisdom He orders the things he knows in the best and most fitting way. A way that brings most glory to himself, in the exaltation of the Son, and in bringing a people into his presence forever. As we’ll consider in the future, He does all of this in the most holy and just way, and according to his abundant goodness, kindness, and love.

He is not a megalomaniac, he is not a despot ruler. He is all-powerful and all-knowing, and skillfully wise in his rule. Skillfully wise, and yet still, he is just in his rule. Just and yet also good and kind and merciful and loving in his governing of all things whatsoever come to pass.

This is our God. Our God. Your God. The all-wise, condescending, incomprehensible Lord. “Who is like our God above.” “High above the heavens, yet condescending to the affairs of men.” No one!

I will be their God, and the shall be my people, and I will dwell among them. (Notice the possessive language). And the dwelling amongst us has already begun. This is our God who comes down to catch us up into the heavenlies in Christ and by his Spirit this Lords day. In His wise decree, he decreed that you would be here even today. To be blessed and fed by him. If you come by faith to the preaching and the supper, and the reading of the Scripture, you will not go away unchanged. You will go from strength to strength, from one degree of glory to the next.

This is Our Response. Worship. Praise.

Psalm 139:14 “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.”

That’s why we are here today. To worship and praise and bless our all-wise God. Everything he’s done this week was done in wisdom. Everything he’ll do in the coming week will be the same. We keep these things close to our hearts as we go through. That is how the Christian lives and dies well to the glory of God.