"Knowing God" [III]

- God Only Wise -

"To be truly wise, in the Bible sense, one's intelligence and cleverness must be harnessed to a right end. Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it."

"[We] cannot recognise God's wisdom unless we know the end for which He is working. Here many go wrong. Misunderstanding what the Bible means when it says that God is love (see 1 John 4:8-10), they think that God intends a trouble-free life for all, irrespective of their moral and spiritual state, and hence they conclude that anything painful and upsetting (illness, accident, injury, loss of a job, the suffering of a loved one) indicates either that God's wisdom, or power, or both, have broken down, or that God, after all, does not exist. But this idea of God's intention is a complete mistake. God's wisdom is not, and never was, pledged to keep a fallen world happy, or to make ungodliness comfortable. Not even to Christians has He promised a trouble-free life; rather the reverse. He has other ends in view for life in this world than simply to make it easy for everyone."

The Aims and Goals of God. "What is [God] after, then? What is His goal? What does He aim at? When He made man, His purpose was that man should love and honour Him, praising Him for the wonderfully ordered complexity and variety of His world, using it according to His will, and so enjoying both it and Him. And though man has fallen, God has not abandoned His first purpose. Still He plans that a great host of mankind should come to love and honour Him. His ultimate objective is to bring them to a state in which they please Him entirely and praise Him adequately, a state in which He is all in all to them, and He and they rejoice continually in the knowledge of each other's love--men rejoicing in the saving love of God, set upon them from all eternity, and God rejoicing in the responsive love of men, drawn out of them by grace through the gospel. This will be God's 'glory', and man's 'glory' too, in every sense which that weighty word can bear. But it will only be fully realised in the next world, in the context of a transformation of the whole created order. Meanwhile, however, God works steadily towards it. His immediate objectives are to draw individual men and women into a relationship of faith, hope, and love, towards Himself, delivering them from sin and showing for in their lives the power of His grace; to defend His people against the forces of evil; and to spread throughout the world the gospel by means of which He saves."

When Bad Things Happen. "We should not... be too taken aback when unexpected and upsetting and discouraging things happen to us now, [for they have happened to all the saints throughout time]. What do [these troubling things] mean? Why, simply that God in His wisdom means to make something of us which we have not attained yet, and is dealing with us accordingly. Perhaps He means to strengthen us in patience, good humour, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice exercising these graces under specially difficult conditions. Perhaps He has new lessons in self-denial and self-distrust to teach us. Perhaps He wishes to break us of complacency, or un-reality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit. Perhaps His purpose is simply to draw us closer to Himself in conscious communion with Him; for it is often the case, as all the saints known, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is the most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest."

"'[God] knows the way He taketh,' even if for the moment we do not. We may be frankly bewildered at things that happen to us, but God knows exactly what He is doing, and what He is after, in His handling of our affairs. Always, and in everything, He is wise: we shall see that hereafter, even where we never saw it here. (Job in heaven knows the full reason why he was afflicted, though he never knew it in his life.) Meanwhile, we ought not to hesitate to trust His wisdom, even when He leaves us in the dark."

"[How] are we to meet these baffling and trying situations, if we cannot for the moment see God's purpose in them? First, by taking them as from God, and asking ourselves what reactions to them, and in them, the gospel of God requires of us; second, by seeking God's face specifically about them. If we do these two things, we shall never find ourselves wholly in the dark as to God's purpose in our troubles."

- God's Wisdom and Ours -

Two Steps Towards Wisdom. "Whence comes wisdom? What steps must a man take to lay hold of this gift? There are two prerequisites, according to Scripture. First, one must learn to reverence God. 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10; cf. Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7; 15:33). Not till we have become humble and teachable, standing in aw of God's holiness and sovereignty... acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours. It is to be feared that many Christians spend all their lives in too unhumbled and conceited a frame of mind ever to gain wisdom from God at all. Not for nothing does Scripture say, 'with the lowly is wisdom' (Prov. 11:2). Then, second, one must learn to receive God's word. Wisdom is divinely sought in those, and those only, who apply themselves to God's revelation. '[Ps. 111:99 f.; Col 3:16; 2 Tim. 3:15-17)."

"To live wisely, you have to be clear-sighted and realistic--ruthlessly so--in looking at life as it is. Wisdom will not go with comforting illusions, false sentiment, or the use of rose-coloured spectacles. Most of us live in a dream world, with our heads in the clouds and our feet off the ground; we never see the world, and our lives in it, as they really are. This deep-seated, sin-bread unrealism is one reason why there is so little wisdom among us--even the soundest and most orthodox of us. It takes more than sound doctrine to cure us of realism."

On Biblical Wisdom. "But what [is] wisdom?... 'Fear God, and keep his commandments' (Ecclesiastes 12:13); trust and obey Him, reverence Him, worship Him, be humble before Him, and never say more than you mean and will stand to when you pray to Him (5:1-7); do good (3:12); remember that God will some day take account of you (11:9; 12:14), so eschew, even in secret, things of which you will be ashamed when they come to light at God's assizes (12:14). Live in the present, and enjoy it thoroughly (7:14; 9:7 ff; 11:9 f); present pleasures are God's good gifts. Through Ecclesiastes condemns flippancy (cf. 7:4-6), he clearly has no time for the super-spirituality which is too proud, or 'pi', ever to leave and have fun. Seek grace to work hard at whatever life calls you to do (9:10), and enjoy your work as you do it (2:24; 3:12 f.; 5:18 ff; 8:15). Leave to God its issues; let Him measure its ultimate worth; your part is to use all the good sense and enterprise at your command in exploiting the opportunities that lie before you (11:1-6)."

"We can be sure that the God who made this marvelously complex world-order, and who compassed the great redemption from Egypt, and who later compassed the even greater redemption from sin and Satan, knows what He is doing, and 'doeth all things well', even if for the moment He hides His hand. We can trust Him and rejoice in Him, even when we cannot discern His path."

"What is the wisdom that [God] gives? [It] is not a sharing in all His knowledge, but a disposition to confess that He is wise, and to cleave to Him and live for Him in the light of His word through thick and thin. Thus the effect of His gift of wisdom is to make us more humble, more joyful, more godly, more quick-sighted as to His will, more resolute in the doing of it and less troubled (not less sensitive, but less bewildered) than we were at the dark and painful things of which our life in this fallen world is fool. The New Testament tells us that the fruit of wisdom is Christlikeness--peace, and humility, and love (Jas. 3:17)--and the root of it is faith in Chrost (1 Cor. 3:18; cf. 1 Tim. 3:15) as the manifested wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24, 30). Thus, the kind of wisdom that God waits to give to those who ask Him, is a wisdom that will bind us to Himself, a wisdom that will find expression in a spirit of faith and a life of faithfulness."

- Thy Word is Truth -

"Two facts about the Triune [God] are assumed, if not actually stated, in every single biblical passage. The first is that He is king--absolute monarch of the universe, ordering all its affairs, working out His will in all that happens within it. The second fact is that He speaks--uttering words that express His will in order to cause it to be done... An absolute ruler, such as all kings were in the ancient world, will in the ordinary course of things speak regularly on two levels, and for two purposes. On the one hand, he will enact regulations and laws which directly determines the environment--judicial, fiscal, cultural--within which his subjects must henceforth live. On the other hand, he will make public speeches, in order to establish, as far as possible, a personal link between himself and his subjects, and to evoke from them the maximum of support and co-operation in the things he is doing. The Bible pictures the word of God as having a similar twofold character. God is the king; we, His creatures, are His subjects. His word relates both to things around us and to us directly: God speaks both to determine our environment and to engage our minds and hearts."

The Nature of Instruction. "[In] the sphere in which God's word is addressed to us personally, the word takes the form of royal torah (the Hebrew word translated 'law' in our Old Testament, which actually denotes 'instruction' in all its manifold forms). Torah from God the king has a threefold character: some of it is law (in the narrow sense of commands, or prohibitions, with sanctions attached); some of it is promise (favourable or unfavourable, conditional or unconditional); [and] some of it is testimony (information given by God about Himself, and men, and their respective acts, purposes, natures, and prospects)." 

The Ultimate Aim of Revelation. "The word which God addresses directly to us is (like a royal speech, only more so) an instrument, not only of government, but also of fellowship. For, although God is a great king, it is not His wish to live at a distance from His subjects. Rather the reverse: He made us with the intention that He and we might walk together for ever in a love-relationship. But such a relationship can only exist when the parties involved know something of each other. God, our Maker, knows all about us before we say anything (Ps. 139:1-4); but we can know nothing about Him unless He tells us. Here, therefore, is a further reason why God speaks to us: not only to move us to do what He wants, but to enable us to know Him so that we may love Him. Therefore God sends His word to us in the character of both information and invitation. It comes to woo us as well as to instruct us; it not merely puts us in the picture of what God has done and is doing, but also calls us into personal communion with the loving Lord Himself."

"'All [God;s] commands are truth' (Ps. 119:151). why are they so described? First, because they have stability and permanence as setting forth what God wants to see in human lives in every age; second, because they tell us the unchanging truth about our own nature. For this is part of the purpose of God's law: it gives us a working definition of true humanity. It shows us what man was made to be, and teaches us how to be truly human, and warns us against moral self-destruction."

The Cost of Disobedience. "We are familiar with the thought that our bodies are like machines, needing the right routine of food, rest, and exercise if they are to run efficiently, and liable, if filled up with the wrong fuel--alcohol, drugs, poison--to lose their power of healthy functioning and ultimately to 'seize up' entirely in physical death. What we are, perhaps, slower to grasp is that God wishes us to think of our souls in a similar way. As rational persons, we were made to bear God's moral image--that is, our souls were made to 'run' on the practice of worship, law-keeping, truthfulness, honesty, discipline, self-control, and service to God and our fellows. If we abandon these practices, not only do we incur guilt before God; we also progressively destroy our own souls. Conscience atrophies, the sense of shame dries up, one's capacity for truthfulness, loyalty, and honesty is eaten away, one's character disintegrates. One not only becomes desperately miserable; one is steadily being de-humanised. This is one aspect of spiritual death. Richard Baxter was right to formulate the alternatives as 'A Saint--or a Brute': that, ultimately, is the only choose, and everyone, sooner or later, consciously or unconsciously opts for one or the other. Nowadays, some will maintain, in the name of Humanism, that the 'Puritan' sexual morality of the Bible is inimical to the attainment of true human maturity, and that a little more license makes for richer living. Of this ideology we would only say that the proper name for it is not Humanism, but Brutism. Sexual laity does not make you more of a man, but less so; it brutalises you, and tears your soul to pieces. The same is true wherever any of God's commandments are disregarded. We are only living true human lives just so far as we are labouring to keep God's commandments."

What is a Christian? "[A Christian] is a man who acknowledges and lives under the word of God. he submits without reserve to the word of God written in 'the Scripture of truth' (Dan. 10:21), believing the teaching, trusting the promises, following the commands. His eyes are to the God of the Bible as his Father, and the Christ of the Bible as his Saviour. He will tell you, if you ask him, that the word of God has both convinced him of sin and assured him of forgiveness. His conscience, like Luther's, is captive to the word of God, and he aspires, like the psalmist, to have his whole life brought into line with it... The promises [of God] are before him as he prays, and the precepts are before him as he moves among men. He knows that in addition to the word of God spoken directly to him in the Scriptures, God's word has also gone forth to create, and control, and order things around him; but since the Scriptures tell him that all things work together for his good, the thought of God ordering his circumstances brings him only joy. He is an independent fellow, for he uses the word of God as a touchstone by which to test the various views that are put to him, and he will not touch anything which he is not sure that Scripture sanctions. Why does this description fit so few of us who profess to be Christians in these days? You will find it profitable to ask your conscience, and let it tell you."