Proverbs 8:22-31 (Eternal Wisdom)
My post on Genesis 1:1 mentioned that God has given us some “windows” in the Old Testament (starting in its opening verses) into what it was like for God to be God “in the beginning” before He created the heavens and the earth. One of the biggest of such windows is Proverbs 8:22-31:
[The speaker is Wisdom personified]
“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
“From everlasting I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
“When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no springs abounding with water.
“Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills I was brought forth;
While He had not yet made the earth and the fields,
Nor the first dust of the world.
“When He established the heavens, I was there,
When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,
When He made firm the skies above,
When the springs of the deep became fixed,
When He set for the sea its boundary
So that the water would not transgress His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth;
Then I was beside Him, as a master workman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
Rejoicing in the world, His earth,
And having my delight in the sons of men.
“The clear personification of these verses led most of the early Church Fathers to find here a prophecy of Christ” (Wycliffe Bible Commentary). However, this passage also became a source of controversy since vs. 22 in the Septuagint reads, “The Lord created me.” In order to avoid the (Arian) heresy of a created Christ, and for other reasons, many later commentators have said that Wisdom in this passage is not the same as the Logos of John 1.
However I am persuaded, with the early church fathers, that this passage IS indeed about the preincarnate Christ, the Logos of God. Perhaps the first reasons is because in principle I believe that Christ is at the forefront of all the Scriptures when rightly and fully understood, which claim this site intends to prove more and more over time. Some other reasons for accepting the “traditional” view of this passage will become clear as we proceed.
With God in the beginning
In contrast to the Greek Septuagint, verse 22 in the original Hebrew is best translated, “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way” (see NASB, KJV, ASV, ESV). “`The Lord possessed me’ simply means, `I was the Lord’s’” (Wycliffe Bible Commentary). Likewise in verse 30 we see Wisdom “at His side” and “in His presence.” The Logos of God has been possessed by Him, in His presence, and at His side since the beginning.
Stated in the negative form, it seems obvious: there was never a time that the LORD did not possess His Wisdom. “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, … From everlasting I was established …” [emphasis added]. Before the mountains, before the hills, before the depths, before the springs, before the dust, before the waters, before the heavens, before the sky, Wisdom was with God.
Even as mere men we know satisfying it is for the soul to go and meet with God:
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God? Ps 42:1-2
So it is not surprising then that Christ, as the Logos who was with God since the beginning, was so full of peace through all the tribulations of this life, especially the tribulations of His life. He was continually with the Father, and the Father with Him:
“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” John 8:29
“Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” John 16:32-33
Considering that the Son had never known anything other than the joy, peace, satisfaction, and intimacy of being with the Father from the beginning, it is all the more horrific to hear the cry of withdrawal that our sin put on Him at the cross:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
All things created by Wisdom
Wisdom was not merely a passive spectator in creation. Even though the thrust of this passage puts more emphasis on the fact that Wisdom was there, with God, in the beginning, nonetheless it was an active, cooperative presence, “I was beside him, like a master workman.” Other passages reiterate that it was by Wisdom and by Understanding that God founded the earth and established the heavens (Prov 3:19).
We have seen in Genesis 1 (and cross references in the notes) that all things came into being by the spoken Word of God, and now also that all things came into being by the Wisdom of God. In fact word and wisdom are not two totally distinct things. The ancients understood an essential connection between the two (consider, e.g. Prov 4:5, I Kings 10:6). In particular Jer 10:12-13 (also Jer 51:15-16) through the use of Hebrew parallelism makes a strong correlation, if not equivalence, between the Power of God, the Wisdom of God, the Understanding of God, and the Word of God in the act of creation:
It is He who made the earth by His power,
Who established the world by His wisdom;
And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.
When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
at which point I can’t help but turn to I Cor 1:24, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” and say, “Hallelujah! In Him all things hold together!”
Then of course the Greek language comes along in God’s providence and in the centuries leading up to the time of Christ, lo and behold!, develops a philosophically laden word which perfectly unites the four concepts of “word”, “power”, “wisdom”, and “understanding”. Thus in the fullness of time, the Logos of God, through whom all things were made, takes on flesh and resolves the mystery of His identity in Hebrew revelation and in the grappling of the Greek philosophers by bringing the two together in Him.
Relationship
In this passage we not only see Wisdom with God from the beginning, we also get a brief glimpse of the personal relationship between God and Wisdom. In verse 30 we see that God continually takes delight in Wisdom, and Wisdom is always rejoicing in His presence. Here we see God content. He is not suffering from loneliness or any emotional need. Yet we never see an indication in the Bible that God’s eternal contentment is because relationships don’t matter to Him. Rather, His delight is complete within Himself because He is relationally complete within Himself.
God as the fully emotional, fully relational Being Who is simultaneously independent, self-sufficient, transcendent and fully complete within Himself only makes sense in light of the Trinity. The fundamental mystery of philosophy, science, and personal relationships in this universe we live in — the question of “the one and the many” — is only perfectly answered by the reality of the Triune God. Many people will say that the Trinity is hard to understand. Yes, it many ways it is. But I would also say that anything else in this world is hard, if not impossible, to understand apart from the Trinity.
As the world is created Wisdom’s joy then expands to also include God’s world. Note the possessive pronoun, His world, His earth. Wisdom is not looking “away” from God in order to look toward the world. Rather, the perfect work of God has just become another source of delight in God Himself. Again, Wisdom takes particular delight in the sons of men. Out of all of creation, what is it that is so fascinating about humankind? In a unique way, more than anything else in creation, man was made in God’s image. In particular, it is the saints in whom that image is being renewed (Col 3:10) after the fall, and thus in another place the Wisdom of God says, “As for the saints who are in the earth, They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight” (Ps 16:3).
All of this is in perfect accord with one of the greatest New Testament windows into the beginning:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will- to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Eph 1:3-6