What does wisdom have to do with salvation?

Some may ask, “How can we control self?” The answer is blessedly simple: “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me” (Phil. 4). Have we not gotten salvation in Christ? Yes, blessed be God, we have. And what does this wondrous word include? Is it mere deliverance from the wrath to come? Is it merely the pardon of our sins and the assurance of exemption from the lake that burns with fire and brimstone? It is far more than these, precious and priceless though they be. In a word, “salvation” implies a full and hearty acceptance of Christ as my “wisdom” to guide me out of folly's dark and devious paths, into paths of heavenly light and peace; as my “righteousness” to justify me in the sight of a holy God; as my “sanctification” to make me practically holy in all my ways; and as my “redemption” to give me final deliverance from all the power of death, and entrance upon the eternal fields of glory.

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.

I have already spoken of wisdom as that quality in man by which he understands the true nature of things, and their relationship to one another. Now where a man has in power in his soul the consciousness that he is an intelligent creature of God, responsible to yield to Him implicit and unquestioning obedience, that God is holy and righteous, unable, because of these attributes, to forgo His claims upon His creature, that death lies upon Him as the righteous judgment of God, and that he has no hope of evading that judgment, or of being able to render to God an equivalent for his sinful life; then the fear of God enters his soul, and compels him to hearken to God’s terms of salvation. This is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10).

In the next place, observe that the scriptures are the means of imparting that wisdom "that is from above." This is the wisdom which is inseparably connected with eternal salvation. What Eve vainly sought in the fruit of the forbidden tree (Gen. 3:6). is promised in the word of God.

This brings us to verses 18 to 24, a great passage wherein the real force and bearing of the cross of Christ is revealed to us: the cross, that is, as passing the sentence of condemnation upon man, and of destruction upon his wisdom; while at the same time it brings in the power and wisdom of God for the salvation of those who believe. The cross of Christ is the point at which in supreme measure the world took upon itself to join issue with God. It put the Son of God to death, a death of extremes" contempt and shame. God accepted the challenge, and in result the cross also became the supreme proof of the folly of human wisdom, of the disqualification and repudiation by God of even the greatest and wisest of men. Because of this, Paul was sent to preach the Gospel in a way that gave no quarter to human wisdom.

Thus in God's wisdom ends the world's wisdom: He is unknown, the knowledge of whom in Christ is eternal life. And what did God in presence of this pretentious wisdom which was thus the guiltiest folly? "It pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe." The world had either adopted the most degrading notions of polytheism, or it had tried to escape superstition by the dreary blank of pantheism and even atheism. Man being now fallen was not prevented (at least after the flood) from thus in his presumption proving his ignorance of God; but God showed His grace as matchless as His wisdom; for when the world's wisdom had spent itself weary and worn in its idolatrous devices or in the waste of scepticism which those abominations provoked, God was pleased, not to close the revolting theatre of man's rebellion, whether religious or irreligious, by judgment, but contrariwise to save. And as salvation to be open and effectual for sinners must be by grace, so could it only be by faith. (Compare the reasoning of Rom. 4.) In this way alone could it be sure to all that believe; for the essence of faith is that the worth is found in the object believed, the efficacy lies in what He, the Saviour, has wrought for us, not we for Him, however truly we do, when believers, seek to please and serve Him. Thus is God glorified in this as in all things by Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:22 that "the Greeks seek after wisdom," but in the cross, in which the wisdom of God is to be seen, they only see foolishness. Nothing can be more foolish to the wise of this world than to tell them that the only way of salvation is faith in the crucified Son of God. Yet it is through the cross that God has procured in Christ blessing for men. The wisdom of God devised the plan that has made salvation available to men by trusting Him who died on the cross for our sins. Man's wisdom, not even the wisdom of a Solomon, could have devised such a plan; when the wise of this world have it brought before them in the Gospel, they account it as foolishness.

How cheerfully people sit down to ponder over the great thoughts of men, which in most cases are absolutely valueless and forgetting that the great thoughts of God are near at hand! But to appreciate the thoughts of God one must have a nature very different from the nature of the first and fallen Adam, who in his effort to get wisdom did nothing but play the fool. “The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” The apostle asks the Corinthians, “Where is the wise? Where is the Scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God; it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe.” The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. He says: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” He does this by the gospel of His grace. He wakes up the conscience of the sinner, gives him to feel his need of a Saviour, in the gospel makes known to him Jesus as that Saviour; his need brings him to the feet of that Saviour, and he receives the salvation that is in Him which carries with it eternal glory (2 Tim. 2:10). He is justified by faith, stands in grace, and rejoices in hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5:1-2). The love of God is also shed abroad in His heart by the Holy Spirit who is given to him.

When Paul came to Corinth to preach the Gospel he did not endeavour to present his message in such a way as would naturally appeal to the learned Greeks. He preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified, telling them that the only way of procuring eternal salvation for their souls was to accept that Jesus died for their sins on the cross, and that He rose from the dead. It was foolishness to the learned of this world, asking them to believe in a Man who died upon a malefactor's cross, crucified in weakness. But what was foolishness to man was the wisdom and the power of God; for the cross was the fruit of God's wisdom, the means whereby His glory in regard to sin was secured and it was the power that brought salvation to ruined sinners.

The true and humble-hearted have but to go on unmoved in the midst of these changing fashions of hostile opinion, cleaving to God and to the word of His grace, while eschewing every plausible plea of man. For the true ground is not man's right to the scriptures, or man's competency to interpret them, but God's title to deal in the Bible with every heart and conscience, which the Holy Spirit alone can guide into any and all truth. Those who interdict the free reading of scripture are blindly striving to hinder God from addressing Himself to man. Let them judge how great such a sin is against God as well as man. They may reason now, but what will they say another day for their rebellion against His rights? Surely the apostle was as far as possible from rationalism. He did not believe in the power of man to make divine truth his own. Even the sacred writings are only able to make wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus. This however they are. Without faith in Christ salvation and wisdom from above are alike impossible.