Wise-Up! Part 4: The Spirit of Wisdom and Christ, the Wisdom of God

So far in this brief series, we have seen that wisdom is a fairly broad concept with a number of overlapping words that help us get a fleshed-out idea of what it is. We then saw that, at its core, wisdom is about having the skill to make the right decision—but that requires a healthy fear of God so that we are pointed in the right direction. In our last post, we saw that wisdom comes from three primary sources: (1) studying God’s Word, (2) prayer, and (3) other wise counselors. In this post, we will explore an important dimension of wisdom that is often overlooked—the necessary connection between the Holy Spirit and wisdom. This connection runs deep through both Testaments and ultimately finds completion in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have found that there are some themes in Scripture that I don’t notice until someone points them out to me. Once I have seen them, however, I start to see them everywhere and wonder why I never saw them before. The connection between the Spirit and wisdom is one of those themes. If I asked you for a verse or a passage connecting the Holy Spirit and wisdom, I think many believers would struggle to come up with even a handful. Once we start digging, though, we realize that this is a frequent theme in Scripture.

The Spirit and Wisdom in the Old Testament

If you remember all the way back to the beginning of this series, when we discussed different synonyms for wisdom, we observed that the Hebrew word most often translated as “wisdom” is chokmah. This word essentially means “skill,” as can be seen by the fact that the first people in Scripture who are said to have chokmah were craftsmen working on the tabernacle (Exodus 31:3). But there is something else that is really interesting about that: these were also the first people in Scripture of whom it is explicitly said that they were filled with the Spirit.

Now, you might be thinking, “But isn’t this talking about craftsmen, and not wise living as we would think of it? Can we really say that because the Spirit shows up here, that this means the Spirit is always connected with wisdom?” You make an excellent point, and if this were the only data point we had, I would agree that we might be overinterpreting the passage. However, as we will see, the Spirit continues to be associated with wisdom. Although less explicit, this connection should remind the reader of Genesis 41:38–39, in which Joseph is said to have the Spirit of God and, as a result, is described as wise. Later on, we find that Daniel, another wise man in the court of a pagan king, was also said to have the spirit of the gods and was considered wise (Daniel 5:11, 14).

But not only this—the craftsmen building wisely with the help of the Spirit are perhaps an echo back to the creation of the world. Remember that it was the Spirit of God who hovered over the waters in Genesis 1:2. The implication is that through the Spirit, God created the world—a theme repeated elsewhere in Scripture (Job 33:4; Psalm 104:30). Later, we read in the prophets that God made the world through wisdom (Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15). Proverbs personifies wisdom and describes it as present during creation (Proverbs 8:22–31), and earlier in the book we read that by wisdom, God founded the earth (Proverbs 3:19). So God creates by His Spirit and by wisdom. Once again, we see a close connection between these themes.

By now, we’ve seen that in the Old Testament, those filled with God’s Spirit are often found to be wise, and we’ve seen that the creation of the world was done by God through His Spirit and through wisdom. This sets the background for the important statement we find in Isaiah 11:2. Here we read that there will be a branch—or a sprig—that comes up from the cut-off trunk of the Davidic dynasty. When this Branch comes forward, the Spirit of wisdom will be upon Him. In other words, when the Messiah came, the expectation was that He would be endowed with the Spirit of wisdom. So how does Jesus connect to this theme?

Christ, the Wisdom of God

Those walking through first-century Judea and Galilee, who had listened carefully to the words of Scripture, would have expected the Messiah to be someone anointed with the Spirit of wisdom. In fact, during the period after the close of the Old Testament and before the coming of Jesus, the Jews had continued to write, and the connection between the Spirit and wisdom had become even more concrete in their minds. So it’s no surprise that the beginning of Christ’s ministry was His baptism by John the Baptist, or that at the conclusion of that baptism the Spirit came upon Him. This is exactly what the Old Testament predicted would happen when the Messiah showed up—the Spirit of wisdom would come upon Him.

So how do we know that the Spirit of wisdom was upon Jesus? Well, because He was so wise. The teachings of Jesus reflect the wisdom of God, and such wisdom should be expected from someone anointed by the Spirit. Jesus said that those who listen to His words and do them will be wise (Matthew 7:24). In fact, people were shocked by the wisdom with which Jesus spoke (Matthew 13:54; Mark 6:2). Jesus Himself claimed to be greater than Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived (Luke 11:31). The wisdom of Jesus was so powerful and so inescapable that Paul would later call Jesus Christ “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). The incredible wisdom of the all-wise God was manifested through the life and teaching of Jesus, who was anointed by the Spirit of wisdom.

Wisdom for the Church Today

So what about us? Well, we now have the opportunity to have that same Spirit come upon us so that we can have the wisdom of God. This was true of the original deacons. We shouldn’t be surprised to read that the early church was looking for men filled with the Spirit and with wisdom (Acts 6:3). Nor should it surprise us a few verses later when one of these deacons begins preaching a powerful sermon and those listening could not resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke (Acts 6:10). What is perhaps surprising is that the wisdom of the Spirit is not being used to help political figures, but deacons (i.e., servants). What in the Old Testament was a special privilege is now apparently available to everyone.

This is further underscored in 1 Corinthians 1–2. Here we read about the importance of wisdom, and how the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of the world. How, then, will we get this wisdom, since the wisest in our culture miss it? The answer is that the Spirit teaches us the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 2:10–16). Paul goes so far in Ephesians as to pray that God would give the Spirit of wisdom to the believers in the church there. Now all believers have access to the wisdom of God because the Spirit of wisdom dwells in all those who are in Christ.

All of this might be interesting, fascinating stuff (for some people, at least), but how should this impact the way I live? As a reward to those still reading a somewhat theologically dense blog post, I want to end with a few ways we can make this really practical.

We should look to Christ for wisdom.
What does wise living look like? It looks like Jesus. As followers of Jesus, we should be meditating on, studying, and seeking to live out the teachings of our Master. Not only that, we should be studying the life of Jesus, because He lives out His own teaching on wisdom perfectly. If we want to be wise, we must look to Jesus.

So how often in your day does the teaching of Jesus cross your mind? How frequently do you find yourself holding back from what you would like to do because you know that your wise Teacher warned against that kind of behavior? How well do you know the Beatitudes? How deeply have you been impacted by Christ’s parables? Wise living means Christlike living, so follow the teachings and the example of Christ.

We must depend on the Spirit for understanding.
We don’t have the wisdom needed to make life work. That’s a humbling thought, and one we don’t often like to consider. But without the Spirit and the wisdom that comes from Him, we won’t be able to make the right decisions in the big areas of life or in the everyday “little decisions” that often add up to direct the course of our lives. So how do we get the Spirit’s wisdom? That brings us full circle back to last week’s lesson…

We should come with greater humility and determination to the Scriptures and prayer.
The Spirit does not usually hit us with a bolt of lightning, as if one moment we are clueless and the next moment we are inexplicably wise. While there may be moments of sudden clarity that God brings about, most of the time we see the Spirit work through Scripture. That is why we should let Christ’s word dwell in us richly with all wisdom (Colossians 3:16), a parallel to the command in Ephesians to walk by the Spirit (5:18–21). Humbly asking God to give us wisdom, then going back to His Word to study what it says—especially to learn from the Master and His divinely designated apostles—is the process that the Spirit most often blesses by revealing to us the mind of God.

Scripture is clear, but life is often confusing. When the Bible speaks directly to an issue, we are required to obey it. But often, we find ourselves wondering what to do and how to think about issues that aren’t spelled out one way or another. In these situations, we need wisdom—God’s guidance on how we ought to live. From the first books of the Bible, we have seen that God’s wisdom is closely tied to God’s Spirit. In the New Testament, we find that God’s Spirit came upon Jesus, the Son of God, and that when Jesus returned, He gave the Spirit to all who follow Him. It seems too good to be true, and sadly, many believers either don’t realize or don’t take seriously all that God has done for us in Christ. Through our union with Christ, we now have access to the One who is infinitely wise, because He dwells within us! Such a truth should humble us, drive us back to prayer and Scripture, and give us hope that we can meet the messiness of life with the help of the Spirit of Wisdom.

---

Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. You can check out Bible studies he has written as hearanddo.org. 

---

Photo by Kerim Serdar Kutbulak on Unsplash