The attributes of God

The Wisdom of God

An attribute of God · Romans 11:33

The wisdom of God means he always chooses the best ends and the best means to reach them, ordering all things with a skill beyond our tracing. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, Paul cries; how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. His wisdom shines in creation, in providence, and most of all in the cross, where what looked like folly proved to be the wisdom of God.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!Romans 11:33 (KJV)

What the wisdom of God means

Wisdom is more than knowledge. Knowledge is knowing what is true; wisdom is knowing how to use what is true to bring about what is good. God has both perfectly. He not only knows all things; he orders all things, choosing the best goal and the best path to it in every case, at every moment, in the whole vast web of creation and history at once. His wisdom weaves millions of threads, including our free acts and even our sins, into a single tapestry of good.

Such wisdom is by definition beyond us. We see a few threads; he sees the whole design. We judge by the moment; he works toward an end that spans the ages. That is why Paul, contemplating God's plan, does not explain it but worships: his judgments are unsearchable, his ways past finding out. To trust the wisdom of God is to believe that a mind infinitely greater than ours is arranging our lives and our world with perfect skill toward a good we would choose ourselves, if only we could see it all as he does.

How the Bible reveals it

The wisdom of God is stamped on creation. In wisdom hast thou made them all, the psalmist says of God's works; the ordered heavens, the turning seasons, the fitness of every creature to its place all declare a designing wisdom. Proverbs pictures wisdom as present at creation, rejoicing before God as he set the foundations of the earth. The world is not a chaos but a cosmos, because a wise God made it.

His wisdom is seen still more in his providence, in how he governs the story. He brought Joseph through the pit and the prison to the palace, so that a whole family was saved. He led Israel by a way they would not have chosen, and it was the right way. Again and again what seemed like disaster was the hidden hand of wisdom at work. And the plan of salvation, hidden for ages and now revealed, displays the manifold wisdom of God to principalities and powers, a wisdom the world's wise ones never guessed.

Common misunderstandings

Some assume that if they cannot understand what God is doing, then God cannot be acting wisely, that a plan they cannot follow must be no plan at all. But this reverses the truth. Our inability to trace his ways is exactly what we should expect of a wisdom infinitely above ours. His judgments are unsearchable by design; a God we could fully figure out would be no bigger than our own minds.

Others expect God's wisdom to look impressive by worldly standards, and are scandalized when it does not. But God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the cross, the wisdom of God, looked like folly to the clever. His wisdom often works through the small, the weak, and the unexpected. And some confuse trusting God's wisdom with passivity, as if we should stop thinking. In fact the wise God gives wisdom liberally to those who ask, and calls us to seek it, to walk circumspectly, and to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Why the wisdom of God is good news

We often do not know what is best, even for ourselves; our own wisest plans go wrong. What comfort, then, that our lives are in the hands of One whose wisdom never errs. He makes no mistakes. The circumstances we would never have chosen may be the very means of the good we most need. Because God is wise, we can trust that all things work together for good to them that love God, even the things we cannot understand.

This frees us from the crushing burden of having to see the whole picture ourselves. We may bring our decisions to him and ask, for he gives wisdom to all who ask without upbraiding. And we may rest in his ordering of what we cannot control, saying with Jesus, even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. To trust the wisdom of God is to lay our anxious planning down and to walk, one step at a time, with the One who sees the end from the beginning and does all things well.

How the wisdom of God is seen in Jesus Christ

Paul says Christ is the wisdom of God, and that in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Jesus taught with a wisdom that astonished his hearers, answered every trap with a word no one could gainsay, and read the human heart with perfect discernment. In him the wisdom that made the world walked among us and spoke in parables the wise could not grasp but children could receive.

But the deepest wisdom of God is the cross. To the Greeks it was foolishness, a crucified Savior; yet there God did what all the philosophers could never imagine, uniting perfect justice and perfect mercy, defeating evil by suffering it, and saving sinners at his own infinite cost. Christ crucified is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. When we cannot understand our lives, we look to the cross and learn to trust: the God who was wisest precisely where he seemed most foolish can be trusted with everything we cannot yet see.

A note offered humbly and for all Christians: God is one, simple, and undivided in his being, and these attributes are not parts of him but the one God seen from many sides. His holiness is loving, his love is holy, his justice is merciful, and his mercy is just. He is also greater than all our words, and no page can contain him. What we can say, we say only because he has graciously revealed it, above all in Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.

Related: The Sovereignty of God · The Omniscience of God · Who is Jesus? · All the attributes of God