THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD
C. R. Byng
1 Corinthians 1: 25; 2 Peter 3; 8, 9
It is a prophetic word from previous times that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and God uses ways to secure His thoughts that are far greater than our thoughts. When the Spirit speaks of the foolishness of God and the weakness of God, He is referring to how men would take account of the wonderful ways of God. This would be seen especially in relation to the cross. “The foolishness of the preaching” was that men should preach a crucified Man as the Saviour of the world. Never was there a time when God must have seemed so foolish to men, but in fact it was the unfolding of the infinite wisdom of God, for it was the way in which God secures a world for Himself.
The righteousness of God necessitated that His rights must be honoured; His rights must always be honoured. The word of the cross involves the detailed instruction from God as to the way He has dealt in Christ with everything that stood out against the throne. As men went by the foot of the cross they said in their derision, “Let the Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and may believe”, Mark 15: 32. They were really saying, ‘How foolish it is!’, but we would understand, beloved brethren, that in the cross God has dealt with every matter. The infinite wisdom of God lay behind it; as it says in 1 Corinthians 2: 7, “That hidden wisdom which God had predetermined before the ages for our glory” lay behind the coming in of Jesus to this scene.
For four thousand years man had been tried and had failed, but in the wisdom of God the ends of the ages came. When the fulness of the time was come, there came here as a Babe One who was to remove the whole lawless system and bring in what was for God. In His creation God had anticipated that men would scoff at His wisdom and He put small creatures in the creation of whom the Spirit of God can say, they are little but exceeding wise (Proverbs 30: 24). There were some wise men who came to worship Jesus as He was in the manger, but how few there were who understood that the Saviour was there. As Jesus moved amongst men in public service all the wisdom of God was there in a Man, wisdom that shone in infinite love and operated in all that He said and did. In all His parables and miracles He brought God in; as we have been taught. He brought God in and shut man out. That is the wisdom of God, which we are slow to appreciate. But the Spirit would help us to understand that what God does in a hidden way is to be enlarged in a world of His own making, what we may speak of as the third world, (see J.T. N.S. Vol. 98, p.83).
Scripture speaks of the world before the flood, the then world. We are now in this world, which is the second world. We are looking forward to the world to come, the third world, when God’s wisdom will be seen as Christ deals with all the problems of all the nations. There is going to be the fulfilment of what He said, “And I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me”, John 12: 32. Men are being drawn to Him at the present time in faith. In the world to come all men will see that He is the One who has in Himself the solution to every problem. The One who is going to solve the problems of the world has the solution to every problem in our lives and in all our local assemblies. How wise He is! Men marvelled at His wisdom and went away. Let us marvel and stay near Him. A queen of the south came to hear the wisdom of Solomon and she had to say the half had not been told and that “Thou exceedest the report that I heard”, 1 Kings 10: 7. Let us draw near to Christ and by experience find that His wisdom is able to deal with all our matters. No matter is too difficult for the wisdom of Christ. No matter is too small to call out His interest. No grief is too small to call out His sympathy. “The foolishness of God is wiser than men”.
Then the word says, “The weakness of God is stronger than men”. He was crucified in weakness. How weak it seemed in the eyes of men when Jesus hung on that cross of shame with one robber on one side and another robber on the other side. Where was there a greater spectacle of weakness? When He died He was laid in a tomb, but not the tomb that men had planned, for God kept every detail under control. The power of God was greater than all the power of man, and Jesus was not buried with the wicked. He was buried in a tomb that had been kept for that purpose. It was the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying, but how much fruit there has been! He was crucified in weakness, but He lives by God’s power (2 Corinthians 13: 4), and as we are here as those who believe in Jesus, we are witnesses of the mighty power of God. We await the power that is going to transform our bodies, when the dead in Christ will rise first, and then those of us who are living are going to be changed and caught up. The power that is going to be experienced then is the power that is towards us now. The wisdom of God and the power of God go together, and they both have their source in the heart of God Himself.
As we believe in God, difficulties become a means of His showing His power. When the twelve spies came back from the land of Canaan there were ten of them marked by lack of faith. They said the difficulties were too great, they might as well give up, everything was lost. They would really say, in effect, that there will be no collective experience again as the enemies are too great. But there were two men who had faith. Joshua and Caleb had faith in God and rather than being occupied with the difficulties they said, ‘The very difficulties will be food for us’ (Numbers 14: 9), and that is the pathway of the christian. In our weakness naturally we shrink from difficulties and would like to make a diversion round them. But as we learn to know God we find that the best way is the straight way, the way of righteousness.
We find that if we are kept in the way of righteousness, instead of difficulties hindering us they just provide a fresh opportunity for God to show the power that He has. The psalmist says, “By my God have I leaped over a wall”, Psalm 18: 29. The wall was very real, but we know a God who is the God of resurrection. The very creation around us is a witness, there would be no pears on that tree outside if it were not for the God of resurrection. We have faith in the God who is able to do the impossible.
Let us have confidence that the strength of God is able to come in for us, to preserve us, even if we are few. I think the strength of God will be specially proved in localities where there may be just one sister, or perhaps one brother and one sister; as they seek to stand for God they will prove the power of the God who can do everything. Men would say that there is no more hope. When Abraham was promised a son he might well have said, ‘I am too old and my wife is too old’, but he found strength in faith. Let us find strength in faith, that God is always as good as His word, and behind His wisdom and His power there lies the infinite love of the God we know.
It is a feature of the wisdom and power of God that He waits. We find it difficult to wait, but it was a commendation of the beloved brethren in Philadelphia that the Lord said, “Thou hast kept the word of my patience”, Revelation 3: 10. The Lord Jesus has waited nearly two thousand years for His heavenly bride. The Lord is waiting patiently. Let us be restful in patience because the Lord is coming. Where we read in 2 Peter 3 the Spirit would give us an impression of the detailed knowledge of the Lord. We may think that a day comes when things are too difficult, but the Lord knows about the detailed difficulties far better than we do, because one day is spread out with Him as if it were a thousand years. He sees the detail that we see not, but then we understand that one thousand years are just as one day with the Lord. So let us be patient, beloved. How long a thousand years seems, but in the greatness of God He spans that period and it is just as one day.
Men may say that the Lord is delaying, but we are not to say that He delays His promise as some account of delay. Men usually delay because they have not the wisdom and the power to carry out what they want to do. The desire of man is to do at once what he wants to do, but God does not wait because of lack of wisdom or power, but because He is the longsuffering God, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”. So if we wonder why the Lord is waiting, let us understand that His longsuffering comes into it. The long book of Job is to teach us to understand more of God, for James says of that, “Ye have heard of the endurance of Job, and seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is full of tender compassion and pitiful”, James 5: 11. If we are thinking of persons who have not yet repented, let us remember the Lord is longsuffering. Maybe He is waiting, before He proceeds with other matters, so that one person might repent and come to the knowledge of the truth.
Behind the wisdom and the power of God there lies the love that has waited on every one of us. The Lord would appeal to each of us that we might give our hearts and our lives more fully to Him than ever before. Let us yield to His desire and be strengthened in our inward longings to know what it is, like Enoch of old, to walk with God and be pleasing to Him. We shall find others to walk with, persons who with pure hearts desire to be pleasing to the Lord.
And as we think of such, we think of the Supper on the morrow, if the Lord will, when the consummation of the wisdom and the power of God will be freshly experienced. We find that out of the remembrance of One who has died there is power that transports us in spirit into a realm of life where everything is for God. May the Lord bless the word.
Address at Gothenburg, Sweden
14 September 1974