This Week's Focus Passage

This Week’s Focus Passage: Proverbs 8:22-31 ‘When He established the heavens, I was there.’

This Week’s Focus Passage: Proverbs 8:22-31

‘When He established the heavens, I was there.’

 

      The eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs contains one of the most glorious passages in the Word of God. It has often been spoken of in a connection with the even better known prologue of John’s gospel, John 1:1-5. That prologue is well worth an often repeated thoughtful reading by every believer in the Lord Jesus.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. 

This passage, of course, begins the Evangelist John’s account of the life and activity of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth, but in the first five verses, he has written of the pre-existence of the second Person of the Trinity, even from ‘in the beginning.’ This blessed passage, in particular these five verses, remind those with a familiarity of the Older Testament, of the eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs, a passage which many believe, including ourselves, speaks of the pre-existent One, even Jesus. However, while John, consistently and repeatedly, refers to the pre-existent One, as the Logos, or the Word, even the Word of God, the writer of most of the Proverbs, including this eighth chapter, and believed to be Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, has made use of a different figure for the pre-existent One. One commentator on ‘The Gospel according to John,’ has made the observation, that, “There are other components in the Old Testament background to the term logos. The ‘Wisdom’ of God is highly personified in some passages (especially Pr. 8:22ff.), becoming an agent of creation and a wonderful gift.”—Carson. This comparison is understandable and may even suggest that the Personification, ‘Wisdom,’ could be made use of as something of an anticipatory explication, or commentary, of our prologue in John. Consider the similarities; reckon the Pre-existent Logos speaking in Proverbs eight, even as He spoke in Psalm 40, saying, Then said I, Lo, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me.—vs. 7. So consider Christ, in Proverbs eight, personified as Wisdom, and in His pre-incarnate Person, uttering the words of that very Proverb. He begins in the beginning, with Doth not Wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? Proceeding from there, the writer speaks rather ‘personally’ to readers, of the wonderful qualities of ‘Wisdom.’ One writer has referred to this as ‘Wisdom’s Self-commendation.’ ‘No brag, just fact!’ But, in verse 22, he begins giving, what may be considered, a historical sketch of His being, as He has written, Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old. Does this not have a ring of, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God? It does not seem violent, in any way, to suggest, In the beginning was Wisdom, and the Wisdom was God. Logos and Wisdom are both personifications of Christ; are they not? Can we not hear the voice of the pre-existing One, in the statements of Proverbs eight? Do we not hear the voice of the Word, and Wisdom, uttering these marvelous words?

Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, Before the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills was I brought forth; While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, Nor the beginning of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there: When he set a circle upon the face of the deep, When he made firm the skies above, When the fountains of the deep became strong, When he gave to the sea its bound, That the waters should not transgress his commandment, When he marked out the foundations of the earth; Then I was by him, as a master workman; And I was daily his delight, Rejoicing always before him, Rejoicing in his habitable earth; And my delight was with the sons of men.

One writer has clearly stated his views, “This Wisdom [namely the Wisdom spoken of in Proverbs 8] has been generally understood in the Christian church to mean the Lord Jesus Christ—the Word (Logos) spoken of by John who ascribes to Him under that name several of those glories which are here ascribed to Wisdom.”—G. Lawson.

    Glory be to God, believers are able to read elsewhere in the Holy Scriptures, not only that Christ is our Wisdom, but that He is our Redemption, He is our Atonement, He is our Vicarious Substitute; the One who has satisfied the Justice of the Father that was condemning us for our sins. Christ is our All in All. We read this from the pens of Paul and others, in the New Testament; such as 1 Corinthians 1:30, But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God; in Colossians 2:2-3, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. And Paul has spoken before of this mystery. Back to 1 Corinthians, and 2:7, referring to the Gospel, he says, But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory. Who is ever spoken of as a mystery, other that our Savior? Paul, again, this time in his first epistle to his young ‘child in the faith,’ Timothy, has written, of Christ, in 3:16, And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. Of whom here does the apostle speak? He goes on; He who was manifested in the fleshJustified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory. Yea, Jesus Christ, the King of Glory. The Wisdom of God. 

“The Wisdom of the Father was in the beginning, but had no beginning to His own existence. The Father Himself did not exist before the only-begotten Son, and He that spread abroad the earth by Himself, without the assistance of other beings, or the agency of instruments, did not create the world without the everlasting Word.” When we survey the earth and the waters, the mountains and the valleys, and consider that they had a beginning, we are led by the Scripture to adore the Word which was with God, and was God, when these creatures that make so good a figure in our eyes were nothing.

       We surely cannot grasp the communion between the Father and the Son and God the Holy Spirit; it is beyond our ken, as they used to say in Bonnie Scotland long ago. Yet, here in our focus passage we read, not only of the ‘delight’ that the Father had with His Son, in verse 30, And I was daily his delight, but shortly afterward, we read of that which is incredibly more amazing [yea, amazing grace; I’m sure], when we read, of Christ, in the very next verse, v. 31; Rejoicing in his habitable earth; And my delight was with the sons of men. All the more, beyond our ken. This is one of the certain verses that, even more than others, should convince the gainsayer that this Proverb speaks of Jesus Christ, as Wisdom, and not some wisdom in the abstract. The final verse is also equal to this task of convincing doubters. For we read at that last utterance from this eighth chapter, He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death. Could that ever be spoken of anything, or any One, beside the Lord of Glory? The One who is without sin. The One whom sinners instinctively recoil from, because of His absolute purity. Christ is Wisdom, indeed. Yea, we cry with Wisdom at the beginning of this lovely chapter, where it begins, Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice?—questioning, ‘How can these things be? How can it be that the Holy One of Israel should ever delight in sinners such as ourselves? How can it be that God the Absolutely Holy Spirit would condescend to indwell such as us? How can it be? But, praise our God and Father; and pray our Lord Jesus Christ; and praise God the Holy Spirit; it is so. Amen.

David Farmer, elder

Fellowship Bible Church

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