In Proverbs 8 we find wisdom everywhere, for there Wisdom is personified as the Lord Jesus Himself. “The Lord possessed me” (vs. 22) from before all His works, before He had laid the foundations of the earth and the worlds. In Luke 1 the archangel announced His coming to Mary, and at His birth a multitude of angels and the heavenly host spread the glad tidings that unto men “is born a Savior in the city of David, which is Christ the Lord.” Simeon, in the power of the Holy Spirit, holds this Treasure from above in his arms and celebrates Him as God’s salvation to the very ends of the earth: “A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel.”
Wisdom utters her voice and begins to preach in the city, at the entering in of the gates and, in Luke 4, at Nazareth (where He had been brought up according to human reckoning). Jesus enters into the synagogue, and this Wisdom “stood up for to read.” He takes the book of God’s everlasting counsels and finds the place where it is written “the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me” (Luke 4:18-23).
The Delights in Men
Wisdom’s delights were in the habitable parts of the earth, too, and with the children of men. In Luke 5 He was in a certain city and a man full of leprosy meets Him. Wisdom in grace heals him and the man is clean. Wisdom is found in another city, and at the gates there was a dead man being carried forth, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow (Luke 7). Wisdom finds its new delights by meeting death, and, taking His place in the midst of this scene, in compassion said, “Weep not.” And He came and touched the bier...and delivered the young man to his mother. The time is now come for this Wisdom, in its turn, to be justified by one of its children, and who could do this but the woman of another city who was a sinner? She justifies Him by owning Him, as only a sinner can, and stood behind Him weeping (Luke 7:36-50). Simeon had Wisdom in his arms, but the sinner is at His feet, and He finds His best and sweetest delights with this woman. Wisdom is justified by this child in the house of the Pharisee, and she is justified by infinite wisdom and love: “He said to her, Thy sins are forgiven. ... Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace.”
On the Cross
In Luke 23, “Wisdom” takes another place on the cross in order that God might righteously assume the attitude of beseeching sinners to be reconciled to Himself and find His delight in so doing. He there did the work in death and blood, by which He became yet further the Wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes. Wisdom (as the fruit of this finished redemption) carries one of its children, a dying thief, away back into the heavens, as the trophy and witness that His delights were with the sons of men. This child justified Wisdom in his expiring breath, saying, “This man hath done nothing amiss,” adding, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Wisdom, in the boundlessness of its own delights, justified the thief by saying, “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!” The thief has gone up with Wisdom, as a sample to the heavens of what had been gathered from below, and God Himself can come down to make the cross of Christ a mercy seat (see Rom. 3:25) and proclaim Himself in righteousness a just God and the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus.
Christ Made Wisdom Unto/For Us
By the side of this Wisdom (as in 1 Corinthians 1) all the wisdom of man is foolishness with God and rejected by Wisdom’s children too. “Let no man deceive himself. If any man seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise” (1 Cor. 3:18). This Wisdom that God possessed from the beginning for Himself, He now makes, in sovereign grace and divine holiness, to be unto us our wisdom, for in 1 Corinthians 1:30 it is the hand of God who closes up the circle of our blessedness, by standing in the midst of Wisdom and all her children and saying, “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” May we glory in the Lord below and get outside everything that usurps His name and title, till He comes for His own and is justified by us, in the presence of principalities and powers in the high places of the heavens. The woman of the city who was a sinner brought the precious ointment and anointed Wisdom for herself in the house of the Pharisee, till the day comes when He will be anointed with the oil of gladness above all His fellows in the courts above!
The Remembrancer (adapted)