Wisdom

The Spirit through the Psalmist, saith: “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.” …. “These all wait upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works” (Ps. civ.). Besides the glorious display of wisdom in all the works of creation, Job makes allusion to another kind: when he says: “Where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof: neither is it found in the land of the living.” “The depth saith, it is not in me: and the sea saith, it is not with me.” …. “It can not be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire.” …. “Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof with our ears. God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.” …. “And he said unto man, Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job xxviii.).

The Spirit of wisdom, is personified in the Proverbs, thus: “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding, I have strength. By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.” …. “I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance: and I will fill their treasures. Jehovah possessed me, in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” …. “When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he established the clouds above”:—“When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by him as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.”

Addressing the children, the Spirit saith: “Now therefore, hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways: hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not.” …. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding” (Prov. viii.).

The testimony of the Spirit through the Psalmist, saith: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth” (Ps. xxxiii. 6). In the light of these testimonies the Spirit of wisdom that said, “Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way,” and, “When he prepared the heavens I was there”: appears most closely allied with the Word. Fuller still is the word that “lighted upon Israel,” saying, “In the beginning was the word (or ‘Logos’), and the word (or ‘Logos’) was with God (or ‘Theos’), and the word (or ‘Logos’) was God (or ‘Theos’). The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was not anything made that was made” (John i. 1-3). The Wisdom and the Word are thus shown to have been with God from the beginning: “Whether that beginning be referred to the beginning of the creation narrated by Moses, or a remoter beginning before ever the earth was” (Eureka, Vol. I., p. 89).

The heavens, literal, natural, material, are used in the Scripture, to represent the political and ecclesiastical constitutions of empires, kingdoms, and republics upon the earth. Reading in the prophecy of Daniel, about a certain power styled, “the little horn of the goat,” the word saith, “It waxed great even to the host of heaven, and it cast down of the host and of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them.” “The host of heaven,” and the stars in this testimony, were the ruling powers in the Mosaic “Kosmos,” or order of things that constituted the kingdom of Israel. The heavens and earth of that order of things passed away. Their dissolution is referred to by the apostle Peter, as he saith, “The heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” …. “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,—in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,—the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” “Nevertheless, we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. iii.).

Of this new heavens and earth, the word of Jehovah testifies, saying, “Behold I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind: for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy” (Isa. lxv. 17-19). The constitution of the new heavens, here referred to, is to be everlasting and enduring: for saith the prophet concerning Zion, “Thy sun shall no more go down: neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended” (Isa. lx.). Before these new heavens can be made to appear, that seen in vision by John the revelator must transpire: when he saith, “I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven.” A door will have to be opened in the heavens of the Gentile kingdoms of this world or Age. In order to make way for the establishing of that new order of things, styled, “The new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

The beginning of the foundation for those “new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,” is shown to be in the manifestation of the Father, through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Of Him the Spirit saith, He is “the beginning of the Creation of the Deity” (Rev. iii. 14). He is “the head-stone of the corner” in the new Creation. In Him, Jehovah’s Spirit of wisdom, and the word of his power, are revealed in fulness. Therefore, He is ordained to be the ruling orb of day in those new heavens: “The Sun of righteousness” who “shall arise with healing in his beams” (Mal. iv. 2). He will be attended by that moon and those starry constellations that will be accounted worthy to shine in His firmament. Their power to shine will be derived from Him. If they have reflected His wisdom and His word in this present life, they will receive power to reflect His glory in the future Age. According to the word of the prophet as he saith: “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for the Olahm and beyond” (Dan. xii.).

The beautiful symbolism of Psalm xix. is descriptive of that new order of things. It reads thus— “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out in all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun: which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hidden from the heat thereof.” The interweaving of the figures with “words” is indicative that the heavens here referred to, are constituted by the Word of Jehovah. The word spoken by a plurality of agencies: indicated in the phrase “their words.” The testimony of the apostle Paul, shows that the apostolic proclamation of the gospel of Christ is there signified. As he saith: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard? yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world,”—or, “Roman habitable.”

In Eureka we find testimony upon this point, reading thus: “The apostle Paul quotes the fourth verse in his epistle to the Romans, ch. x. 18, as predictive of the universality of the apostolic proclamation: but this was not all that the prophecy intended. How much more fully will it be accomplished, when Christ and all the prophets, apostles, and saints, accepted and approved of him, shall have brought all nations into the blessedness of Abraham and his seed” (Eur., Vol. III., p. 679).

The most literal and forcible passages immediately following the figurative in the XIXth Psalm appear to indicate the relationship which the word of truth sustains to those new heavens in harmony with other testimony. Reading thus: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

When the time shall come for the establishing of the “new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,” then will be fulfilled this testimony of the Spirit through Solomon, “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars” (Prov. ix.). The number “seven” being symbolical of perfection and completeness. According to the Scriptures, then, the author of Eureka says: “The Deity is wisdom, as well as power. Hence the divine nature is a moral nature, as well as substantial. His moral attributes are constituents of his glory, equally with those of his substance in its essentiality and power” (Eur., Vol. I., p. 105).