What does it mean that Jesus became wisdom from God (1 Corinthians 1:30)?

Christ has been made wisdom to us from God, for wisdom is the first question here; and it is now answered for the Christian in Christ, and Christ crucified, who alone thus put everyone and everything in its true place; and this it is the part of wisdom to see, as folly disarranges and misunderstands all. If philosophy left God out, it was necessarily all wrong; if it essayed to bring Him in, it subjected Him to man's mind, and this made matters, if possible, worse. Christ revealed God and blessed man, and this not by glossing over his state and sins but by suffering for them on the cross, so that God was glorified as much about evil in His death as about good in His life. He was thus made unto us wisdom from God. Not merely was the world's wisdom, flesh's wisdom set aside, but God's wisdom shown and given us in Him.

Nor is this all. We may have but little wisdom of our own; nevertheless, Christ is made to us wisdom. We need not turn for wisdom to philosophy, to wise men, or to our own fancied wisdom, for we have Christ. Having Christ we see at once what all the wisdom of the world can never teach us. Christ, on the Cross, has fully shown us our ruin and made God known in His love. Christ in the glory sets forth all the purposes of God. In Christ we see the wisdom of God in meeting our ruin and in fulfilling His purpose.

Christ Jesus, "has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness (sanctification), and redemption." When we got eternal life in Christ, there was death in us; but life is come, and that life is in the Son. Christ is made unto us of God "wisdom." What kind of wisdom? Divine wisdom. How could God love such an one as I am? There is Christ's wisdom. When Christ is made wisdom for me, I can do without my own, and learn of Him as a little child. How was He wisdom? He went down into the place where death reigned, and got the victory over death. The world sinned against God, and He is come into it in mercy: that is wisdom. Wickedness is going on in the world; why does He patiently bear with it? He is saving sinners by Christ the Lord: that is wisdom.

The second "of" in the verse is more literally "from." The Christ who was crucified is made to us these things from God. Wisdom naturally comes first, inasmuch as it is the point under discussion. We need it, for sin has plunged us into ignorance and folly. But then sin has equally plunged us into guilt and condemnation; hence we need righteousness. And into contamination and corruption; whence our need of sanctification. And into bondage and slavery; so that we need redemption. Redemption comes last, inasmuch as it is a term which includes the final thing, the redemption of our bodies at the coming of the Lord.

At the end of our chapter we get the fuller expression of what a Christian is: "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," v. 30. Not wisdom in the mind being acted upon and so I am wise about God, but "of him," that is of God, "are ye in Christ Jesus." I am of God, and I have my wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption of God, all in Christ. I am of God in Christ, and have all there of God in Christ. It comes from Him; it is not my thinking about Him. And so man is totally set aside, flesh is put down. The world by wisdom was not to know God, but I am in Christ as a new being, a new creature, created again; and I have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption all in Christ. These verses are a remarkably complete statement of what a Christian is, with full redemption itself at the end, body and all.

But the doctrine of this verse not only declares the believer's origin as a new man in Christ, but sets forth also with much distinctness the counterpart of that truth. If Christ is the believer's representative with God, He is also from God7 the full objective manifestation of His glory to His saints. This is expressed in the words which follow: "Who of God is made unto us wisdom; both righteousness, and sanctification, slid redemption."8 Before examining more closely these several terms, it may be noted that we have in this general declaration the triumphant answer of the Spirit to His own enquiry at verse 20. If it now be asked again, "Where is the wise?" the answer is, "In Christ." Made wise unto salvation by the teaching of the Scriptures, through faith which is in Christ Jesus,9 the believer who willingly arrays himself in the reproach of Christ, and for His sake passes for a fool among the children of this world, will walk before God in that name as in a garment of eternal praise.

On considering the "wisdom" which the Spirit thus presents in Christ objectively to our faith, we find that it offers in its three constituents, of "righteousness," "holiness," and "redemption," a rich and abounding answer to the utmost need of man. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, because, spite of all its acquisitions and pretensions, it leaves man still unrighteous, unholy, and unredeemed. God's wisdom as a Saviour consists in an effective manifestation of that which, when received as His own free gift, reverses for the believer, absolutely and on all its points, the previous condemnation of mankind as under sin. Nor is this by any means the whole of its effect. Of the three terms here employed by the apostle in his amplified definition of God's saving wisdom, the first alone at any time belonged to the natural man. It is written, that God created man upright;1 but holiness was not an attribute of Adam in a state of innocency. It could not be. His ignorance of evil rendered it impossible for holiness, or sanctification, implies both a knowledge and a judgment of what is contrary to itself. But this is inconsistent with a state of simple innocency. Adam first knew holiness when he proved it in his Maker through his own condemnation and exclusion from the garden of the Lord.

We who believe are in Christ Jesus, — filled up in all His fulness; and the wisdom which here we find manifests itself as truly that by its power to meet and put away all the disastrous consequences of the fall, and bring in an overcompensation of blessing that is indeed divine. And this is what the form of the sentence here conveys; "righteousness, as well as sanctification, and redemption," being the distinguishing blessings that are found in the wisdom that is from God, and which manifest its truly divine character.*

Verse 30 however shows that, though all mere human wisdom and work is reduced to nothing by the gospel of God's grace, yet the believing Corinthians were by this the recipients of the greatest possible blessing. It was God's doing that they were established "in Christ Jesus": God had brought them into a place of vital identification with Him, His own Son; and their full supply of every kind was perfectly provided in Himself, not by mere human instrumentality or effort. God has made Him "unto us, wisdom," moreover, this wisdom involves what man's wisdom ignores, that is,

And He is made unto us wisdom. All the wisdom of God centres in Him. It is in Him we learn it. Men of this world may be wise in their generation, and indeed they are, even much wiser than the children of light are in their generation, for the temporal interests of the worldling occupy all his thoughts, and it is not true of the child of light that his eternal interests are always paramount.

If in the cross we see the wisdom of God in Christ, we also find Christ as wisdom for us in the place He now occupies as risen from the dead and glorified at God's right hand, for the Scripture says, "Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom" (1 Cor. 1:30). Whether for us individually, or as the assembly of God, Christ is our wisdom, the One who will resolve all the problems of His own, and bring them through all their trials and difficulties. When the saints are confronted with exercises and things that perplex, they have Christ to whom to turn. We do not seek the wisdom or resources of the world, but find all we need in Christ.

There was nothing in Paul's preaching, neither in its substance nor in its presentation, that appealed to man's wisdom, but it was "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. 2:3-4). The wisdom that Paul valued, and spoke of, was a wisdom of which the world and its great men knew nothing, and of it he spoke to those who were matured in the things of God. It was wisdom that God hid from the men of this world, and for His own in the secret revelations of the Gospel. The very words that conveyed to His saints the deep secrets of His heart hid them from the men of this world. They were mysteries that belonged to eternity and they revealed, when communicated, that God had purposed to bring into glory those who believed in Christ. All these purposes centred in the "Lord of glory," whom the princes of this world crucified, and in so treating God's Christ they manifested that they were ignorant of God's wisdom.