Ephesians 4:7-16; Wisdom – Leave all results to God’s sovereignty and hope in Him.

Tuesday September 7, 2021

Our exegetical, scriptural study of Ephesians has paused for a concept study of the fear of God and the method of wisdom.

A scriptural study is a verse-by-verse exegetical means of learning an entire passage and applying the science of hermeneutics to arrive at its correct translation and interpretation as God intended the passage for His audience. A concept study is a look throughout biblical theology for the understanding of key points of the particular biblical concept. The concept has to exist as a major theme in the Bible, which fear of God as well as knowledge and wisdom most certainly are.

We haven’t really looked at the content of wisdom as much as what wisdom is used for and not used for.

We have discovered that there are things God wants us to know, and we must throw our heart and soul into discovering them and understanding them over our entire Christian lives. There are also things that God tells us not to worry about (what materials you will have tomorrow or circumstances you will face), and things that God reveals that we cannot know by not revealing them. We can know nothing of God that He does not graciously reveal to us. There are also things about the ways of mankind and his world that the devil rules that we cannot discern. God asks us to leave those things in His hands, for they are far too complex for us. Ecclesiastes and Job are about these two dynamics that are unknown to us about God and the world.

Some think that the inability to know all things about our world means that we shouldn’t bother to do anything for it; to impact it. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. All is vanity.

This is a wrong perception.

Mat 5:13-16

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Though there is much that we cannot understand or know in this world, believers are to be the people that God made them to be and live out the life of Christ they have been given. Who will see those good works, who will glorify the Father for them, is up to God and not us. We simply do them through obedience and leave the results to God. We don’t sound a gong every time we are about to do something good.

The Word (logos) is used in the NT about 200 times to indicate God’s written word, and seven times to indicate the Son of God – the Living Word of God. In these passages we find in the form of Logos both the divine and human elements in supernatural union. And they are subject to various comparisons:

The Word is: truth (Joh 14:6; 17:17); everlasting (1Pe 1:25); life (Joh 14:6); saving (1Co 15:2); purifying (Tit 2:14); sanctifying (Joh 17:17); beget life (1Pe 1:23); judge (Joh 12:48); glorified (Rom 15:9).

Moses prayed to God in Exo 33:13 "Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways, that I may know You,”

Knowledge and wisdom in the believer have to make for these divine things, despite how circumstances turn out. Moses could have never imagined at that point that he wouldn’t enter the Promised Land.

The problem of the goodness of God and the existence of evil and suffering in this world has perplexed thinkers and even theologians throughout history.

In our study, we have confronted the promises in Proverbs about prosperity and long life for the wise and knowing who fear God that coexist with the reality that this truth may not on the surface look to be true. The question is more complex than we know. Those who deny God by setting up the suffering in this world are only constructing a strawman and then knocking it down. Though they think themselves successful in removing God from the picture, they have not removed the suffering, nor offered any solution to it. They pretty much agree with Solomon that it’s all vanity, who bother with it at all.

We can discover some of the complexity of the question when we understand that God became a man. The Man, who was God, was found suffering and eventually dying on a cross. How do we solve that picture?

God became involved in our suffering. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself on the cross.

2Co 5:11-21

Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord [JSOC in vs. 10], we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences. 12 We are not again commending ourselves to you but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, that you may have an answer for those who take pride in appearance, and not in heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. 16 Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The fact of suffering in this word is obvious, the fact that God took part in that suffering is also obvious, and the reason He did so is right here. He was reconciling the world to Himself, and not by demanding that they become righteous, but by not counting their sins against them and dying for them, or in their stead, becoming sin on their behalf. How astounding.

Hence Christ resurrected, but by so doing, He didn’t remove our suffering in this world. On the contrary, He told us that we were blessed if we suffered for His name’s sake.