THE LORD AS PREACHER AND AS WISDOM
[p. 35] THE LORD AS PREACHER AND AS WISDOM
1 Kings 3: 16 - 28; Luke 4: 16 - 22; Luke 7: 11 - 16
The thoughts that are specially in my mind have reference to Solomon as a type of the Lord both as Preacher and as Wisdom. I think it will be found in the Scriptures that these two things go together. That is, the idea of Wisdom is coupled with preaching. You will find in the book of Proverbs, which gives us an account of Wisdom, that Wisdom is presented to us as a preacher, and you will find in the book of Ecclesiastes that the preacher was Solomon; and, moreover, that as preacher he was king. He tells us formally that “I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem”.
Now I wish to dwell for a moment on that, before I go on to the thought of Wisdom. I think it is exceedingly important to us who are interested in the gospel, to see that the one who is in charge of the preaching is also the anointed King. There are several preachers spoken of in the Old Testament, but I think that you will find that Solomon is the only one who is formally designated as “the Preacher”; and in introducing himself as the Preacher he tells us that he was also king — not that the king was preacher, but that the preacher was king. In other words, the power vested in Christ as King or as Lord is to underlie the preaching. Hence you have universal preaching, because the power of Christ is of universal bearing. Exalted to God’s right hand, Christ is in a position from whence He can affect any part of the earth below. He is in a position to carry out His designs in any part. So that the evangelist Mark, who presents to us Christ as the Preacher, tells us at the close of his gospel that Jesus sat at the right hand of God, and that His disciples went everywhere. They went “everywhere”, which meant that every part of the earth was now at the disposal of Christ and His ministers. There were none who could stand in the way for the reason that Christ was on high, having all [p. 36] power in that position. He could open doors everywhere, so that the apostles went out “everywhere”. And what did they do? They preached — and we are told that the Lord worked with them. That is to say, as seated at the right hand of God, He was superintending the preaching, and He worked with the apostles “with signs following”; so that the testimony was not only presented but it was confirmed by the acts of power on the part of the King.
That is the position occupied by the King, who is the Preacher. Now, it may not have occurred to you in that way that Christ is the Preacher. He is charged with the proclamation of the glad tidings and so He could say — “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor”. That was a great thought. There was now a man in the midst of men anointed by God to preach. And what preaching, beloved friends! He began at home — every servant of Christ must begin in his own local sphere. If he does not shine there, he will shine nowhere; and if he is possessed of spiritual power he will manifest it there. No conditions can interfere with spiritual power; it will show itself, be the conditions what they may. So the Lord begins in His own city where He was brought up. And the Lord’s outward circumstances in no way enhanced His mission. He was born of poor parentage and His outward circumstances were of the most lowly character; it is touching to see that He deigned to enter the world in the lowliest of circumstances and in a despised city — Nazareth. But He began there; He began “where He had been brought up”, where everybody knew Him. And what was the testimony? Every movement of Christ in that synagogue was marked by grace. The movements were wholly new. They had been accustomed to Jewish teachers, but now there was a different kind of Teacher. He opened the book, not in a haphazard way, but at the right text. He opened it, beloved friends, at a passage that referred to Himself in that particular position and in those particular circumstances; and He read the scripture. And it says, “He closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down”. Those were the movements,
[p. 37] those were the actions of the Preacher. We are told that the eyes of all that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. That was God’s anointed Preacher; and then He began to speak; and we are told that they marvelled at the words of grace that proceeded out of His mouth. That is, His mouth was, as it were, an anointed mouth. It was the mouth of God’s Preacher — and the words were words of grace.
Well, that Preacher has gone to God’s right hand. He has laid the ground in His death for universal preaching. By His sacrificial offering upon the cross, He has wrought atonement, and now God has Christ in resurrection; for remember, that God has Christ now, not as He had Him when He was here in flesh. God was ever infinitely delighted in the Son, both before His death and after. There could be no change in Christ personally, but before His death His preaching was, of necessity, limited, now the preaching is universal.
Luke 14 refers to what God found in Christ as having wrought out redemption. It is the celebration. It says, “A certain man made a great supper”. The Lord had been discoursing in the Pharisee’s house, and when one of the company said it was blessed to eat bread in God’s kingdom, it gave the Lord the opportunity of unfolding the present gospel moment. He says — “A certain man made a great supper and bade many: and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready”. Now what do you think the Lord has in His mind? The Lord looked on to the moment when He should have accomplished redemption and in every way carried out the will of God in regard to sin; when He should have glorified God on the earth where God had been disowned by men. I do not know anything to compare with that passage from a gospel point of view. It implies that God is free, and that there is now nothing in the way. He has Christ out of death, righteousness is accomplished; and God celebrates it. It is a question of what He finds in Christ as He is now. Not what He was, but what He is as having accomplished redemption. It is as if God was saying,
[p. 38] I have Christ now in resurrection; and I have Him on a platform upon which I can invite all men everywhere to participate in the celebration.
If you ponder that, it will convey to you the character of the present moment, and that is what is unfolded in the gospel that Christ is charged with. He is the Preacher as having accomplished redemption; and God has translated Him from earth to heaven. It was due to Christ that He should be translated; but according to the gospel of Mark, who presents the Preacher, He took His seat in heaven so as to superintend the gospel here upon earth. In Luke He is carried up, and as He is carried up His hands are extended in blessing. That is, we have a man up there whose hands are extended in blessing for humanity below. In John, He goes up on account of His people, He ascends to His Father and their Father. But in the gospel of Mark, He takes His seat in the place of power on high, and the preaching goes on everywhere.
The preaching is this; all things are now ready; and God freely invites all to come. I need not repeat the familiar passage, but I would just make one further remark as to Luke 14, and that is that it involves the house of God upon earth. The feast is celebrated here. It is celebrated where men are and its celebration is in the house. I wish to say just one word on the house. In John’s gospel it is connected with the family. It is alluded to first in chapter 8, where the Lord says that the Son abides there for ever. In chapter 14 the Father’s house is connected with the family of God. “In my Father’s house”, He says, “are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you”. That is, it is an eternal abode for the heavenly family. But Luke is engaged with the house in its provisional character. I want you just to ponder that word. The house of God as it is in the present moment is provisional. It is constituted to meet the need necessitated by the gospel, for it is to confer on those who hearken to the gospel the blessing of God ere the time of the fullness of blessing arrives upon the earth. That fullness of blessing cannot be fully entered into now; it is presented [p. 39] to us for our faith to lay hold of; it is now in faith. But we are told of the “unsearchable riches of the Christ” — they are unsearchable; and, beloved friends, it involves a heavenly position. So the gospel of Luke shows that the excess of grace lies in this — that God has a place in heaven for man. Yet all this is presented to faith to be thus laid hold of; and it is to be awaited on the principle of faith. But meanwhile we are not left without something. Hence you have the institution spoken of in Scripture as God’s house, and that is set up here in the presence of men, and all are invited into it. As the parable goes on to say — “Go out”, He says to the servant, “into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled”. So that one can say to anybody — God’s house is open to you. God has established here, where need is, that which meets your requirements as a believer in the gospel, that in which you may find the comforts of the home, and where you may taste the blessings of the gospel in a practical way. So that a great element in the preaching is where the celebration is. And what is the celebration? It is not eternal blessing that is viewed, nor the abode in the Father’s house to which John refers. It is present blessing. It is that which God provides for you as a present thing ere the time of the fullness of blessing when we are introduced as God’s sons in the Father’s house.
So in the 15th chapter the same is true, for the merriment is in the hearing of the elder brother who was in the field. It is therefore what men can take cognizance of. He heard it and he did not appreciate it, in spite of the fact that the Father appeals to him on the ground of relationship. He says, “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found”. That is, it was as if God was appealing to the Jew that he should rejoice in the return of the gentile.
Well, I have referred to all that to indicate what is involved in the preaching. I wish now to say a word in regard to the way in which wisdom is evidenced in the preacher; and here again, Solomon is a type of the Lord Jesus.
[p. 40] You will all recall how he sought wisdom. As made king, the one great desire of his heart was that he might be endowed with wisdom. Now wisdom is one of the most wonderful things that Scripture speaks of. Indeed we might say it is the only attribute that is personified. I need not refer you to the book of Proverbs, for we are all acquainted with chapter 8 in which Wisdom is personified. And as personified what we find is that Wisdom is intensely interested in men. I believe that is the great point in writing the chapter. Wisdom gives us its own history. It tells us it was with Jehovah “before his works of old” — before anything was made; and it tells us moreover that it was by Him when everything was made. And then it goes on to say that it rejoiced in the habitable parts of God’s earth. In that we see that Wisdom was engaged with humanity; and then it says, “My delights were with the sons of men”. That shows that we all are subjects of Wisdom’s interest; and the reason is that we are men — that is what commends you to Wisdom.
Now I wish to show you that what comes out in Solomon is ability to discern what is going on in the heart of each individual. As I said, he sought wisdom; and after he had received it he is put to the test. These two women present themselves before the king, and the question that was to be answered was — did Solomon really possess wisdom? The result was the triumphant evidence that he possessed wisdom such as none had ever had before. I want you to note how it came to light. There were two women, and there was one child in dispute; there was the dead child and the living child; and the question was to whom the living child belonged. Now there may be one here tonight who is passing through exercise; you are wholly unable to settle it yourself, and no one can settle it for you. What I wish to impress upon you is that the Lord Jesus can; He is the Wisdom of God. It was that wisdom that came to light in Solomon’s ability to discern the heart of a mother; it is capable of reading a mother’s affections. Now, I think a mother bereft of her child is a type of humanity destitute. Now you may not think yourself destitute, but you are [p. 41] destitute if you have not Christ. If you take actual conditions into account, death has come in, and family relationships are bound to be dissolved and broken up. All that you may cherish must disappear presently. You yourself are to disappear in the most humiliating way; dissolution confronts you, and it is the judgment of God upon you. Now I say, is not that destitution? The Lord Jesus knows the exercises of one who has come to the recognition of that truth.
Every true believer in Christ has been enlightened inwardly by the light of God, and by that light he has been enabled to take account of these circumstances, to look at death as it is upon humanity, at his own condition as it really is; and the moment that takes place in your heart, the Lord Jesus is engaged with you. This woman to whom the child really belonged is a type of a truly exercised soul. She yearns for her child, she was the true mother. Whatever else might be said about her she had the heart of a mother, and Solomon decided the case by showing that she truly owned the child because she yearned after it. But look at the other woman, the wicked woman. She had no mother’s heart, she says — “Divide it”. That is not the heart of a mother; it is a wicked heart; and that is the heart of the unsaved who is under the domination of the wicked one. Satan is a murderer from the beginning, and all who are under his influence have the same spirit. I do not say that everyone is a murderer, but the spirit of the world is a murderous spirit. Now Solomon refers to this spirit and says, “So are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”, Proverbs 1: 19. That is, the spirit of the world has no regard for human life. And so the woman who was not the mother of the living child did not have a mother’s heart, the other did. And I bring it forward for the comfort of any one who may be exercised, who may have soul need. The Lord Jesus is interested in your soul, and He reads what is going on there. God’s wisdom is evidenced in Him.
It was because of that that I read Luke 7. The Lord is brought face to face with a scene of death. I was speaking [p. 42] this morning of such a scene that John records. John records for us the death of one of God’s people, the death of a member of the divine family, and he shows how Christ was moved and how He wept at the graveside of Lazarus. But the death scene that Luke presents has no reference to the family of God. It has reference to man. That is, Luke is, an evangelist, and the evangelist is engaged with the race — with men; engaged with them because they are men. Now it does not appear that the Lord ever knew this widow, nor does it appear that He knew the young man, whereas in the gospel of John, the Lord knew Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And in calling Lazarus out of the tomb, He called him by name; He says, “Lazarus, come forth”, John 11: 43. Now here in contrast to that it says — “When he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out”. It was a man. The next thing we are told is that he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. There is a point to take note of. What was it that elicited the Lord’s sympathy? It was the widow’s heart. The widow in Luke is a type of the race, and what elicits the sympathy of Christ is the need of the human heart. As found in the midst of humanity the scene draws out His sympathy on account of the widow. It says, “She was a widow”.
Well now, the Lord touches the bier. In the case of Lazarus He simply said, “Lazarus, come forth”. Here He says — “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise”. Apparently He did not know his name. The point was that he was a man. It is of no moment whether you regard yourself as known to Christ, or otherwise. If you have need in your heart, you belong to humanity, the Lord Jesus is set for your relief. And notice, He did not take the young man to Himself. If you think of Lazarus you will remember how the Lord said, “Loose him, and let him go”. Now, what will Lazarus do? What will a member of the divine family do when he is released from death? Will he go back to his own relatives? No. Suppose you are released from death and let go, what will you do? The Lord gives you, as it were, an opportunity. Where will you go? Well, we are told that [p. 43] Lazarus was found at the table with Christ. But what the Lord did with this young man was to deliver him to his mother. What is emphasized is the Lord’s consideration for the widow’s heart. She had been bereft of her only son, the object of her affections; and the Lord does not claim him. He thought only of the widow for the moment, and so He delivered him back to his mother. That is to say, the widow was reinstated in the city of Nain. The Lord Jesus sends her back into that city with her son; and thus she has means of support.
That is what Christ will do for everybody. He will do it for you. He will reinstate you, not indeed to simply live here upon the earth, but He will supply you with all that is requisite for your position down here. He will do infinitely more for you; but the point in this passage is to show how the sympathies of Wisdom are drawn out. There should be comfort in that for anyone exercised. Solomon commanded that the living child should be given back to its mother, and Christ commanded that the living man should be delivered to the widow. That is, He supplied each heart with what it needed for the moment. And what do you need? What does the human heart really need? What can satisfy you? Why, only Christ. Wisdom not only reads your heart, but supplies what it requires. Your heart requires a satisfying object, and Wisdom provides such an object in Christ. And then, what a change! The dark blank of the future is changed into eternal brightness. You are set up in the presence of the Lord. You have Him.
Much more might be said, for the gospel not only presents an object in Christ, but a range of things in connection with Him, even as we are told, the unsearchable riches of Christ. All that is bound up in the gospel. But for the moment I would press upon you how the Lord Jesus knows what is going on in your soul, and that He knows how to bring in the remedy.