WISDOM

A.J.E.Welch

Exodus 35: 30-35; 2 Chronicles 9: 3-8; 1 Corinthians 1: 27-31

The references to wisdom in these scriptures would have been noted. Wisdom is a great matter with God, and wisdom is a great matter in our going forward together in what is for God's pleasure in the assembly. The assembly affords a sphere of superlatives. Nothing subsists there under God's eye for His pleasure that is not in some sense distinctive, and what is found in His beloved saints, in love and in serviceability, is to contribute to that. There were elements in the tabernacle system that were not subject to specific direction in detail. Moses had the pattern, and it is wonderful to think of Moses passing on the pattern to these skilled workmen. What consultations they would have! Moses had the pattern; Bezaleel and Aholiab and others with them prepared the detail. The materials in mind, which we read of in other connections, are singularly attractive: gold, silver, copper, stones for setting, and wood for carving. "Artistic things" and "artistic work" are in view, and all suggests what is attractive in God's sight. It would appear that these matters were to be entered into through wise-hearted men. We read of that; "he has filled them with wisdom of heart". These men had the capacity to adorn things. There would be no question of any change in the dimensions of the ark, the table, the altar or the curtains; all that was laid down. But there was the skill of the craftsmen, brought in and made full room for by Jehovah, and Moses directed accordingly. Though Moses had the pattern, there was that which gave scope for singular skill on the part of the workmen.

There is a voice to us in this, beloved brethren, as to how we find our part in the many choice elements of the service of God, viewed in its widest setting, inclusive of what is in the testimony and how we contribute to it. We would be in it as persons who are wise-hearted. How much enters into the way in detail in which we do things, the detail of what we bring in, the detail of the way we have to do with one another and speak to one another. There is a great work going on, and the saints are the subject of that work. God is the originator of it, the Lord is the prime glorious builder, but He has those whom he uses. In some sense He would use any one of us, but how ready are we to bring in this fine touch spoken of very attractively in this passage as "artistic work"? How do we have divine things in our minds? How are impressions being formed in our minds of the glory of Christ, of the glory of God, of the greatness of the Father, of the Son and of the Spirit? What is the character of impressions developing in our minds? Can we bring them out into expression, and find something formative in the saints which results from their expression? Can we identify something choice, fragrant for God, as His praise is expressed? Are we careless about these things? Shall we not, dear brethren, give of our very best? In considering for God we shall recognise that He is not without thought for what in its character is adorning. We were reading of a bride adorned, "adorned for her husband", Rev 21: 2. Divine things are so attractive; there is nothing to match their attractiveness, whether we speak of the divine Persons distinctively and personally, or whether we speak of the divine glory as having the whole scope of Godhead before us. Who could match the attractiveness of all this to true hearts? What kind of an answer are true hearts, wise hearts, to furnish? Think of the refinements - spiritual, heavenly refinements - of what belongs in the assembly.

The psalmist in Psalm 45 speaks of what he had composed. How do we compose things and present them? How do we speak to God, indeed how do we think of God? There is scope left for true hearts to exercise this feature of wisdom, to bring in points of holy detail which match the divine glory, and which represent, as they are brought into expression, something peculiarly attractive in the sight of heaven. Would we not desire that, in love for Christ, the features of adornment appear? It would find expression in so many ways - the way we speak to God, the way we address the Lord Jesus, the way we speak of Him together, the way we regard His interests and pray for them, the way we hold His interests in the care meeting. Those interests have a glory about them, not to be thought of as if they were, so to speak, business details, but precious, because wise hearts are at work. May our hearts be the wiser. The Spirit would help us to bring out into expression this feature of wisdom, to know what is suited to God. The priestly side enters into it, but I am speaking of what belongs to the structure of things in the divine dwelling in the wilderness; there is something there which bespeaks the skill, the workmanship, the artistry, of those who as wise-hearted have skills that relate to the divine pleasure. The work of God is not cast in a mould, it is so varied and takes so many choice characters. They always are choice characters, for God's own work never has any other feature than what is pleasurable to Himself; but it is so varied. Sometimes you look round a meeting like this, or a local meeting, and you say, what fine features of God's work - a beloved elderly sister long in the testimony, maybe over ninety years of age, a beloved brother who has sustained deep pressure and shows in the very way he comes into the assembly the choice refinement of God's work. You look for such to be marked by this artistic side of things. I do not use that word fancifully, nor in any sense in which it is humanly employed, but there is something which is artistic in the divine realm which reflects the beauty, and I might almost say the ingenuity, of God's work. It brings in something fresh, distinctive and attractive, without any clumsy feature, but adorning. It may be an expression in what is voiced in the assembly, or as we converse with one another; in conversing with one another we affect one another perhaps more than we sometimes realise, and God's work is going on in the midst of it all.

Then we have this remarkable wise man, Solomon. What a singular and very attractive view of Christ he gives us! His concern is for the house, a divine dwelling, suggestive in many respects of finality. Solomon had received the pattern from David, who received it from Jehovah; there was a pattern. Solomon caused the labour to proceed until the point was reached when the house was finished. What a man he was! Now we see him here as the centre of a great administration all working, working in wisdom given of God, confounding every other character of wisdom that might have been there. How wise he was in the matter of the two women and their sons (see 1 Kings 3); what a simple answer he gave, and yet what depth of wisdom entered into it that no life should be lost, and that what was right should be reached. I am just thinking, dear brethren, of our administrations; things need to be done, that there might in some sense be a shining of an administration under Christ which is replete with wisdom. In saying it I realise how far I fall short of it. Sometimes we introduce things in detail which just do not match the situations which really belong in the assembly. How do we administer? The queen of Sheba found something the like of which she manifestly had never seen before. She says "the half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me". She had seen it. You will understand how I apply this; have we seen Jesus, that glorious Person, as the centre of a whole administration in which in our several places we belong? It is a wonderful thing to see. You come to the care meeting wondering what might be raised; I know something of it, I suppose we all do. But we are to see Christ, and an administration under Christ; He is the supreme administrator, and we are to be in relation with Him. He is head of the assembly. That involves wisdom, resident in Him. Can we draw upon it?

I want to bring out from this, precious figure as it is, just the sense of a single glorious administration. In it everything fits; things are graded; not all those who have a place in it fill the same rank or have the same function. There are gradations there, but what the queen of Sheba saw was the complete thing working. What a wonderful thing to get a view of! How marvellous the world to come will be, when the Lord Jesus comes into the place which is His due, the place of which He gloriously is worthy! Every detail in what is administered will fall into its place, no uprising will be allowed to persist, but everything will come into due order. I think we should think of, and speak more, of the world to come, as the scripture says: "the habitable world which is to come, of which we speak", Heb 2: 5. Sometimes we speak a good deal of the disasters of man's world, particularly the moral disasters of man's world, but let us see the moral perfections of a scene of things under Christ. What a subject for conversation and contemplation, to strengthen us in the sense of our need of wisdom in the assembly now, and so to strengthen us that we may be ourselves built up in the wisdom we need. I believe the Spirit would use this figure and the impression it left with the queen of Sheba to show the particular glory of a working administration. "Happy are thy men". Would we not love to be in this sense Christ's men, in His administration? There may be many lowly places to be filled in it, as well as places higher up the scale, but wherever it be, down to the lowest point, think of what it is to be part of an administration under Christ. Things have to be worked out, the divine mind has to be brought into expression; care is necessary to ensure that the truth is maintained, and that error is exposed and if need be dealt with. All these things arise, but over them all is to be the glory of the Administrator who shines out in uniqueness as the One who can hold everything in the created order of things in its due order for God and for His pleasure.

When we come to Paul and Corinth we are made to marvel at the wisdom that the beloved apostle showed. As we take the two epistles as a whole we realise the immense complexity of what had developed at Corinth. In the parties that were there and all the detail that entered into them, all the feelings that no doubt arose between them, what a complex situation existed! We marvel, in reading these letters, at the feature of wisdom in Paul. He defers certain things that would have to be raised until elements of the truth of a basic kind have been laid down, not proceeding immediately to the grave sin, although it was there. He lays a basis, in what he sets forth, to meet the underlying condition; he lays the axe to the root of the tree, bringing in the truth of the cross and holding to it, knowing nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified (see 1 Cor 2: 2). What held him to that? We could say that the Spirit of God held him to it, and that would be true, but it is just another mark of the way in which the Spirit gave Paul wisdom in respect of what he opened out. How we need this, dear brethren! There are a lot of things to be worked through. How easy it is to be clumsy, to leave wrong impressions, maybe to leave unnecessary feelings. What a need there is to be wise in such a situation! How wise Paul was, and how wise those of the house of Chloe had been in presenting the facts, showing them to Paul. You can see how wisdom from God enters into the situation, and it is to shut out the wisdom of men. That is negative, but we can approach it from the positive angle as having some appreciation of an administration under Christ. What is said of the wisdom of man is, "God has chosen the foolish things of the world, that he may put to shame the wise". There is no scope for what may appear to be expedient. How often affairs go on in man's world on the basis of expediency, convenience, or individual profit; it is not to be so in the assembly. We need wisdom from God; we need to recognise the necessity to check in our own being the elements that might suggest solutions which appear on the face of them naturally to be valid solutions, but in fact are nothing of the kind. They come not from God, not from Christ, not in the Spirit, but from my own mind devising something which may appear to present an answer to the situation. Oh beloved brethren, going back over a hundred and fifty years, what disasters there have been through the mind of man. The supposed wisdom of man, coming in! The test of true wisdom is, where is its source? There is wisdom in the saints, thank God for it, and wisdom in those who thankfully serve the saints, we thank God for that, but what is the source of it? It is to be from God.

So Paul's word here is very reassuring to us; he says "Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God". He is made other things, too, but I do not touch on those tonight; the great point in my mind is that He is made to us wisdom from God, and as we approach a situation in the sense of that how everything is changed. Christ made to us wisdom from God I understand to be an allusion, at least, to His place in headship, not spoken of as such because of the character of the letter in which this comes, but involving our recognition of Him as the One from whom all true wisdom must come. Christ is made to us wisdom from God; He has the answer to any situation. I believe Paul had it from Him without doubt. How often we have thoughts as to things, and even devise solutions, when the real answer is just to get on our knees and get to the Lord and find that He and He alone has the solution, and a complete solution, tor He never does things by halves. We may fail fully to grasp His mind - how often we have done it - but His mind involves the complete solution, and according to the light that the scripture gives us, much was achieved at Corinth, for the time anyway, despite the conditions that had come in there. There was a condition reached there such that Paul could write so feelingly in the terms of the second letter. Beloved brethren, wisdom is available to us. We feel our own poverty in respect of it, but the divine arrangements in the assembly involve a great administrative order of things which is to function gloriously and reflect the greatness of the One whose administration it is. Christ, gloriously, is established in abiding manhood at the head of it all, the spring of the whole working arrangement which God has for His satisfaction. May we find our place in it and adorn it. Our first scripture would lead us to answer to what is prescribed of God and yet set forth something that distinguishes the distinctive preciousness of God's work in each one of us. For His Name's sake.

TORONTO

October 1982