“God moves through Word and Wisdom to access the human thinking and choosing process. If you think thoughts and feel feelings—and you do—you are always in the process of hearing from God.”
Chapter Six
The Covenant Communicator
Love is relational in nature and other-centered in orientation.
It follows, then, that love is necessarily communicative. Love wants to know and be known. The constant impulse of love is to give itself to others and receive into itself from others.
If “God is love” (1 John 4:16), then God is naturally actuated by His own self-generated desire to cross the massive ontological expanse between Himself as God and the creatures He has made. Because God is God and we are . . . well . . . how shall I say this . . . we are so utterly and completely and categorically outside of the ontological realm of God, God must necessarily descend to us in order to be known by us.
The word that encapsulates this divine condescension phenomenon is mediation.
In this chapter and the next we will explore the extremely crucial biblical concept of mediation, which goes a long way in making sense of the identity of Christ as both God and the Son of God.
In Scripture, the form this divine descent takes is sometimes called “Word” and other times “Wisdom.” By means of Word and Wisdom, God mediates the knowledge of Himself into our consciousness. The human being is a creature of cognition and volition. We think out the implications of reality in deductive, rational patterns, and we choose what we will do and be in response to our perceptions. By means of Word and Wisdom, the knowledge of the divine character is conveyed into human cognition, appealing to our volition for reciprocal response, like a constant inaudible whisper that says, “I want you. Do you want me, too? If yes, this is how you can proceed. If no, this is what the alternative looks like and where it leads.”
God moves through Word and Wisdom to access the human thinking and choosing process. This is happening necessarily and continually by virtue of the fact that “God is love” and can never cease pursuing us. To be rational, free beings, such as we are, is to hear from God non-stop. If you think thoughts and feel feelings—and you do—you are always in the process of hearing from God, whether you are conscious of His overtures or not.
In this chapter, we will explore two key Old Testament passages that together weave a tapestry of understanding regarding how the infinite God communicates with finite creatures through Word and Wisdom: Deuteronomy 30 and Proverbs 8.
The Word—Deuteronomy 30
Moses explained to Israel that “the word” was present to their hearts and speaking through their mouths:
For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. Deuteronomy 30:11-14
Moses is telling the children of Israel something extremely important regarding the nature of truth and its intersection with human existence. According to Moses, there is a sense in which God is always speaking to every person within the realm of their own thought process and speaking patterns. God is communicating with each of us, before any human teacher comes along. Prophets, such as Moses, simply tell people the truth God has already been communicating to them. If they would just stop evading “the word” that is actively forming ideas inside of them as they live their daily lives, they might realize that they’ve been hearing God’s “voice” all along. If they would just pause to listen to the kinds of things that come out of their mouths, they would notice God speaking to them in all the pleas for fairness and justice they articulate when judging others. God is ever present to every human, always trying to get our attention and persuade us of His love.
Essentially, Moses says to the children of Israel, This entire body of covenant knowledge I’ve been teaching you isn’t a mystery to you, and it’s not far away from you. In fact, if you would just pay attention to your internal conviction of right and wrong, you would realize that I’m simply explaining to you what you already know to be true, because. God has already been actively communicating to you by means of His word before I ever opened my mouth to teach you a thing.
Then the apostle Paul comes along and quotes the Deuteronomy 30 passage, specifically identifying “the Word” as the one we come to know later in the biblical narrative as Jesus Christ:
For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “The man who does those things shall live by them.” But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the LORD Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:5-9
What’s happening here is that the abstract “word”—the phenomenon of conceptual truth occurring within the realm of human consciousness—is identified by Paul with an actual person. “The Word” Moses referenced in his discourse to Israel was none other than the pre-incarnate Christ. This means that Jesus was active in our world—indeed, in the human mind—before we encountered Him in the flesh on the stage of human history.
John’s gospel opens with the incarnation of the Word Moses told Israel about:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it . . . . The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world . . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:1-5, 9, 14, ESV
First, John invokes the creation account of Genesis: “In the beginning . . .” The reader expects the sentence to be completed as it occurs in Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But John doesn’t accommodate our expectation. Instead, he creatively plays with the language for a theological purpose: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John is telling a new story, but he wants us to know that it is grounded in the old story. He is telling us the story of redemption as a relaunch of creation.
Then John informs us that this “Word” made every “thing . . . that was made.” With that rather precise language, John presents us with two fundamental categories of reality: the made and the unmade. And he wants us to know that the Word occupies the unmade category. The Word, John explains, is none other than the Maker of all made things.
Not only did the Word make all things, the Word has been giving “light to everyone” down through history, illuminating the dark chambers of the human mind with a sense of grace and truth, distinguishing in our minds between good and evil, so that the darkness has never been able to prevail over the light.
Then comes John’s astounding punchline: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And with that, we just moved from the abstract idea of truth to a personal being who is the source of all truth. This person we have before us in the flesh, Jesus Christ, is none other than the Word, which, before He shows up on earth as a human being, created humanity and has been speaking to all human hearts down through history.
Lady Wisdom—Proverbs 8
Proverbs 8 conveys the same idea as Deuteronomy 30. Moses explained to Israel that the truth he had been teaching them was no big mystery or distant theory for them, if they’d just pay attention to “the Word” that had already been communicated to their hearts and coming out of their mouths. Solomon’s magnificent poem portrays “Wisdom” as actively communicating within the minds and social affairs of humans.
Proverbs 8 is also an extremely controversial passage. Verses 22-25 are a really big deal for the anti-trinitarian advocates. You’ll see why shortly. But it is crucial that we read the entire chapter in order to grasp what the author is trying to tell us. Yes, it is a long passage to quote in its entirety, but Proverbs 8 is one of the most enjoyable reads in all of literature, so please take in every line with eager attentiveness:
Does not wisdom cry out,
And understanding lift up her voice?
She takes her stand on the top of the high hill,
Beside the way, where the paths meet.
She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city,
At the entrance of the doors:
To you, O men, I call,
And my voice is to the sons of men.
O you simple ones, understand prudence,
And you fools, be of an understanding heart.
Listen, for I will speak of excellent things,
And from the opening of my lips will come right things;
For my mouth will speak truth;
Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are with righteousness;
Nothing crooked or perverse is in them.
They are all plain to him who understands,
And right to those who find knowledge.
Receive my instruction, and not silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold;
For wisdom is better than rubies,
And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.
I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,
And find out knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.
Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom;
I am understanding, I have strength.
By me kings reign,
And rulers decree justice.
By me princes rule, and nobles,
All the judges of the earth.
I love those who love me,
And those who seek me diligently will find me.
Riches and honor are with me,
Enduring riches and righteousness.
My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold,
And my revenue than choice silver.
I traverse the way of righteousness,
In the midst of the paths of justice,
That I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth,
That I may fill their treasuries.
The LORD (Yahweh) possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old.
I have been established from everlasting,
From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills, I was brought forth;
While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields,
Or the primal dust of the world.
When He prepared the heavens, I was there,
When He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
When He established the clouds above,
When He strengthened the fountains of the deep,
When He assigned to the sea its limit,
So that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth,
Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
Rejoicing in His inhabited world,
And my delight was with the sons of men.
Now therefore, listen to me, my children,
For blessed are those who keep my ways.
Hear instruction and be wise,
And do not disdain it.
Blessed is the man who listens to me,
Watching daily at my gates,
Waiting at the posts of my doors.
For whoever finds me finds life,
And obtains favor from the LORD;
But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul;
All those who hate me love death.
What an amazing piece of inspired poetic revelation!
Astoundingly, Wisdom takes her stand and speaks with a great deal of moral specificity. She cries out for “truth, “justice” and “righteousness.” She takes her stand against “evil, pride, and arrogance.” Wisdom does not merely deal in intellectual ideas or philosophical musings. Rather, Wisdom is interested in the way people treat one another. She communicates to human beings a sense of moral order and relational rectitude.
According to the poem, Wisdom’s passion for right and her disdain of wrong is communicated by her within the realm of human conscience and within the dynamics of our social engagement. She is invisible and yet obvious to every person who is paying attention. She makes her inaudible voice heard “by the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entrance of the doors.” Her principles are evident to the “understanding heart.” When “rulers decree justice,” it is Wisdom who is prompting their good impulses and showing up in every good judicial system.
As is the case with “the word” in Deuteronomy 30, Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is portrayed by Solomon as always crying out in human affairs, because Wisdom is built into the fabric of reality, the poem explains. Creation itself emerged from the Wisdom of God, so it is woven into the way everything operates. Human beings cannot go forward in any endeavor without being confronted by the whispers and shouts of Wisdom. In our internal sense of justice, in our collective social ordering toward truth and fairness, Wisdom is speaking to us all.
But what, exactly, is Wisdom?
Where does it come from?
Is it merely abstract knowledge?
Well, the passage seems to indicate that Wisdom is a who and not merely a what. Wisdom is depicted as a person, not merely as abstract intellectual activity:
“She takes her stand . . .”
“She cries out . . .”
This is called, “personification.” To say that Wisdom is “personified” is to say that the abstract reality of Wisdom is invested with personal attributes, similar to the way a man might personify his truck by saying, “She’s a reliable ol’ girl.” The man understands, of course, that his truck is not literally a person.
But something more than mere personification is on display in Proverbs 8.
Wisdom is said to be in fellowship with Yahweh (Verse 30). The two of them are described as engaged together in the joyous, playful, joint venture of creating the world (Verse 31). Wisdom isn’t just personified. Wisdom is a person, or a specific personal being.
Noticing this characteristic in the passage, biblical scholars use the word hypostasis to explain what is happening in Proverbs 8. The word is composed of hupo, which means under, and stasis, which means substance. So hypostasis means, underlying substance or reality. Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon interprets the passage as describing, “the hypostatic Wisdom of God.” That is to say, there is an underlying substance or reality of personhood behind Wisdom. Taking into account Paul’s declaration that Jesus is “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24, 29), scholars generally identify the hypostatic Wisdom of Proverbs 8 as the person, Jesus Christ.
But once we recognize that Wisdom is none other than Jesus, the anti-trinitarians take some of the language in the passage as proof that Jesus was brought into existence by God the Father and, therefore, is a chronologically secondary and ontologically lesser deity in relation to the Father. Wisdom says, “I have been established from everlasting” and “I was brought forth” (verses 23, 25). And with that, we are called upon by the anti-trinitarians to imagine the actualization of a previously non-existing God.
The line of reasoning goes like this:
In Proverbs 8, “Wisdom” is depicted as a personal being.
Paul says that Jesus is “wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).
So, then, the “Wisdom” of Proverbs 8 is Jesus.
And Wisdom says, “I was set up” and “brought forth.”
There you have it, solid evidence that Christ did not exist until God the Father brought Jesus forth into existence.
Actually, no.
Not only does this not constitute solid evidence that Jesus is a caused divine being, it’s not even weak evidence. The colossal conclusion at the end of the line of reasoning requires that we read a few words in isolation from their context and then arbitrarily assign meaning to those words that does not exist in the passage itself. In other words, the argument is completely dependent on an assumption, and the assumption is that the words “established” and “brought forth” refer to Wisdom being “brought forth” from nonexistence into existence.
But the passage taken for what it actually says in its own context is not trying to explain to us how or when Wisdom, Jesus, began to exist. Rather, the passage describes Wisdom being “established” and “brought forth” to perform the task of creating human beings and then to perform the ongoing task of communicating with human beings once they do exist. Proverbs 8 is a poetic portrayal of the mediation arrangement that exists between God and humans. The point is both simple and profound: the moment created beings came into existence, God began communicating with them by means of Wisdom. And one of the members of the Godhead, the one known as Christ later in redemption history, performs this work on behalf of the Heavenly Trio.
Additionally, the Hebrew word here translated “established,” or “set up” in the King James Version, is nacak. It literally means, “to pour out,” in the sense of pouring out an offering or pouring out anointing oil on a person to set them apart for a purpose. It is a covenantal word that indicates dedication to a job, a task, a role. Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon thus interprets the word as, “to make a covenant.”
Nacak is used in the second Psalm to describe the anointing of the king:
Yet I have set (nacak) My King
On My holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree:
The LORD has said to Me,
“You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
Psalm 2:6-7
In the first instance, this passage applies to the anointing (setting up, establishing) of David as the king of Israel. But it is far more than that. This is a prophecy of the coming Messiah-King of Israel and the world, Jesus Christ. The book of Acts and the book of Hebrews both quote Psalm 2 as applying to Jesus (Acts 4:24-25; 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; 5:5). This is crucial to an understanding of the sonship identity of Christ.
How so?
Well, notice in Psalm 2 that the covenant king, David, is called God’s begotten son, and notice that he is begotten into that sonship position on the day of his anointing as king. The exclusive nature of the position is evident, as there can only be one king. Because the position is occupied by David alone, he is God’s only begotten son. The obvious point is this: to be “set” apart as the king by covenant anointing (nacak) is exactly the same thing as being “begotten” as God’s “son” to the position of king. The term, only begotten son, indicates covenant appointment, not literal birth. Building on the entire Old Testament narrative of the firstborn son being the exclusive (only) carrier of the covenant promise, Psalm 2 is the source of the New Testament language that identifies Jesus as God’s “only begotten son.” To acknowledge this fact, is to take down the entire anti-trinitarian edifice. Clearly, when the New Testament writers identify Jesus as God’s only begotten Son, they are identifying Him as the covenantal Son of God in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel, and King David. They are not, therefore, calling Him God’s only begotten Son in order to inform us of His ancient ontological origins.
And this brings us back to Proverbs 8, in which the same covenant word, nacak, is employed to describe “Wisdom”—whom we now know to be the pre-incarnate Christ—being “established” or “set up.” As in Psalm 2, Wisdom is “set up” in a position, to perform the work of creating and communicating with humanity. A person does not begin to exist when they are appointed to the performance of a task. In fact, appointing them to the task presupposes that they already exist. Wisdom, the pre-incarnate Christ, already existed for all eternity past as a member of the Heavenly Trio. Then, at the appointed time, He stepped into the dual role of Creator and Mediator.
Employing the very language of Proverbs 8, Ellen White explicitly interprets the language as applying to Christ’s mediatorial role, as opposed to a description of His coming into existence:
The plan of salvation was designed to redeem the fallen race, to give them another trial. Christ was appointed to the office of Mediator from the creation of God, set up from everlasting to be our substitute and surety. Before the world was made, it was arranged that the divinity of Christ should be enshrouded in humanity. “A body,” said Christ, “hast thou prepared me.” But He did not come in human form until the fulness of time had expired. Then He came to our world, a babe in Bethlehem. Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, April 5, 1906
Christ is the Covenant Communicator.
He is the wooing call of God’s word, ever speaking to all human hearts with the persistence of a longing lover.
He is the moral logic of divine wisdom, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting, within the realm of human conscience.
He is, and always has been, the Mediator of the Eternal Covenant.
That’s where we go now.
I’ll be waiting for you in the next chapter.