IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 168

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

The subject of Wisdom stretches through the religious books of most all faiths; like Love, Wisdom is universal in its appeal to the higher instincts of the human family. On the worldly side it is respected for its ability to show as understanding and good judgement as well as, as we saw yesterday in the Master’s words, the cunning ability of those who are wise in the ways of the world. On the spiritual side Wisdom is much more; it is the fountain of understanding and the source of all revelation, it is, like Faith, an ability to know and in this way is intimately tied to it. We could say that Faith without Wisdom is hoping for it is in Wisdom that one can discern what it is that one should be hoping for. Wisdom and Love are two bright beams in the Light of the Soul; they are the supreme and fundamental powers of the Christ which, along with the Power that is the Will of God, shone for a time in His physical presence on this Earth. And this Wisdom is yet available through His disciples’ ability to reveal the Christ Within to the world through their works. This is His commandment to us, that we “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). It is within this Light that we find the True Love and Wisdom and the Will of God.

Wisdom is a difficult word to define in a way that can be appreciated as an aspect of God. The common ideas of Wisdom are unfortunately attached to the Wisdom of this world and this is likely because the whole of Wisdom, that from above and that from this world, are exhibited by the conscious personality in this world. There is however a stark difference between the above and the below; the Apostle Paul helps us with this in this saying that was a recent Quote of the Day: “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness” (1 Corinthians 3:18-19). Relating this to the saying we used yesterday from the Master we can see that there IS a worldly wisdom. We repeat here Jesus’ saying for easier understanding: “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8); we should note that the use of this saying yesterday was to show this off as the Master’s knowing understanding of the wisdom of the world which, in the words of Paul, are considered foolishness with God. 

We have posted the essence of the dictionary idea of Wisdom before and we will post this again here with some additional ideas:

• The quality of being wise; knowledge, and the capacity to make due use of it; knowledge of the best ends and the best means; discernment and judgment; discretion; sagacity; skill; dexterity¹. This is most directly the definition of worldly Wisdom but, in the degrees of Wisdom, we should see here that some of this may be of that Wisdom that is from above. The determining factor would be the intent of its use in one’s life; if one has knowledge of God and righteous judgement, one would act in that Light and this idea brings us back to the Master’s words “….by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20).
• In Scripture theology, wisdom is true religion; godliness; piety; the knowledge and fear of God, and sincere and uniform obedience to his commands. This is the wisdom which is from above. Psalm 90. Job 28¹. In this idea from Websters 1828 version we see the notion of the highly religious person only as being wise; for our purposes we need to see this as a partial truth as we know that the Path in not only in being religious as the word is understood but it is in living IN the world as a disciple of the Master. Though there is no verse cited in bible references above, let us look at these two ideas from the Old Testament. This first one was a prior Quote of the Day: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12) which is not so much asking Wisdom as it is understanding that one needs to use it today. This other from Job is the Lord speaking: “And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28:28). Of course, should understand that fear means reverence and piety ^2 3 and not being scared; for us however we can understand it as a knowing of the awesome power and magnitude of God and our small place in the scheme of things.
• Strong’s tells us from the Hebrew Lexicon that the Hebrew chokmah which is translated as Wisdom means: wisdom, skill, learning; this can refer to skill in life, trade, war, or spiritual things^3*. These can be seen as most all worldly things; the idea here of spiritual things would be the action of Wisdom in one’s life. Vine’s tells us this among other things about the Hebrew use of Wisdom: chokmah is the knowledge and the ability to make the right choices at the opportune time. The consistency of making the right choice is an indication of maturity and development. Vine’s goes on from there to say that the prerequisite for “wisdom” is the fear of the Lord⁶. Still here we see only the ideas of the effect of Wisdom, be it from above or below, as the defining terms. Vines does explain the use of the word as the personification of Wisdom that we see in the Book of Proverbs but fails to adequately relate this Wisdom to the Wisdom that we should possess.
• The Greek word sophia is translated as Wisdom in the New Testament. Strong’s says of this that it means: wisdom (either secular or divine), Christ is called “the wisdom of God” in 1 co 1:24, 30. On the basis of the OT, wisdom can be personified³. This leaves us without much understanding other than to use the secular definitions and apply to them divinity in some way. Vine’s tells us only of the New Testament uses of the Greek word sophia but at the end he does give us a quotation from Lightfoot (J.B. Lightfoot was a 19th Century English Christian writer to whom Vincent refers frequently) saying that: “while sophia is the insight into the true nature of things, phronesis is the ability to discern modes of action with a view to their results; while sophia is theoretical, phronesis is practical”⁶. Phronesis is used only twice in the New Tesatment as understanding and prudence and the quote is only interesting insofar as to the ideas with which it paints sophia, Wisdom, as insight into the true nature of things and theoretical, which, although this is not their apparent New Testament use, is a good way to differentiate the idea of that Wisdom from above from what we may call wisdom that is from below.

Away from our own interpretations of the idea of Wisdom from reading for ourselves the ways in which it is used, we are hard pressed to find much accuracy in the definitions given to us above. Lest we forget, we repeat here again one of the best ideas of what Wisdom is; not by definition but by what it does contain. The Apostle James says: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).  In other translations this same is written:

• “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere“. New International Version (NIV)
• “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy”. New American Standard Version (NAS)
• “But the wisdom from above is pure first of all; it is also peaceful, gentle, and friendly; it is full of compassion and produces a harvest of good deeds; it is free from prejudice and hypocrisy“. Good News Translation (GSN)
• “But the wisdom that is from above, first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation“. Douay-Rheims Translation (RHE)

Through the combination of all these ways of saying the same thing we should be able to see what is in the Wisdom that we should be desirous of and for which we should ask. To shed a bit more light, which may confuse at the outset, let us look at an idea on Wisdom from the words of the Tibetan Master who we should know from previous posts as a true disciple of the Christ. He says, speaking about illumination, which is yet another difficult word, that: It is this we call illumination for lack of a better word.  All knowledge is a form of light, for it throws light into areas of awareness of which we have hitherto been unconscious.  All wisdom is a form of light, for it reveals to us the world of meaning which lies behind the outer form.  All understanding is an evocation of light, for it causes us to become aware of, or conscious of, the causes which are producing the outer forms which surround us (including our own) and which condition the world of meaning of which they are the expression**. In esoteric terms we should get some better idea of nature of Wisdom and the resultant knowledge and understanding found in this illuminating Light.

Returning now to our subject saying that we put off to today from what we call the Parable of the Baptist, let us repeat the saying from Matthew’s Gospel. The Master says: “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. But where unto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children” (Matthew 11:14-19). We should see here that Jesus is speaking about the Baptist and the way that he came and how he acted, “neither eating nor drinking” or as we said in a previous post, that he came in a solemn way; he had a seriousness with which he did his work. We need also to see here Jesus talking about Himself who “came eating and drinking“, as a regular man who happened to be in full possession of the power and the glory of God. His seriousness was in an attitude that was not solemn but directed to showing us all the Truth of a man as a Son of God.

The Master leaves us here with these words: “wisdom is justified of her children” and He leaves us to discern their meaning. There are many ideas of what this means though some to the commentators don’t address it at all. John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible⁸ talks of it from a rather Christian legalistic view which we repeat here just so to have a comparison for our own ideas; he says: either the wisdom of God, in making use of ministers of a different disposition and deportment, whereby some are gained, and others left inexcusable: or the Gospel, in which there is such a display of divine wisdom, which is vindicated from the charge of licentiousness, by the agreeable lives and conversations of the children of God: or rather Christ himself, who is the wisdom of God; and in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; who, however he may be traduced by ignorant and malicious men, yet will be acquitted from all such charges, as here insinuated, by all the true sons of wisdom; or by such, who are made wise unto salvation. We may learn from hence, that no sort of preachers and preaching will please some men; that the best of Gospel ministers may be reproached as libertines, or madmen; and that they will be sooner, or later, justified and cleared from all such aspersions⁸. 

For us, we need to look at our defining terms regarding Wisdom, at the ideas of what is contained in Wisdom from the Epistle of James and at the thoughts of the Tibetan Master. In this combination we see the nature of the man in whom is operating that Wisdom from above. Possessing these things, these ideas, makes one qualified to be called as one of “her children” and in this same way, by these same means, we can say also that that person is then justified in all that he does. Thinking and speaking and acting in the clarity of the Light of the Soul is, in itself, justification for the thoughts and the words and the actions that one performs. Much the same as doing His words and commandments makes of us True Sons of God and puts us into His Kingdom, operating in the Wisdom from above justifies all of our actions.

Note on the Quote of the Day