Attributes of God by Charnock (Available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Continue Chapter 9 (A discourse upon the wisdom of God) by reading up to the paragraph commencing 'V. The use; of information. If wisdom be an excellency of the divine nature, then...'
(i) in creation;
(ii) in government;
(iii) in redemption.
We have dealt with creation and government in previous weeks. This week we look at God's wisdom in redemption.
In the redemption of man, God's wisdom appears in:
(i) the greatest different interests being reconciled, justice in punishing and mercy in pardoning;
(ii) the subject or person wherein these were accorded, the second person in the blessed trinity, Jesus Christ;
(iii) the two natures of Christ;
(iv) vindicating the honour and righteousness of the law, both as to precept and penalty;
(v) manifesting two contrary affections at the same time, and in one act : the greatest hatred of sin, and the greatest love to the sinner;
(vi) overturning the devil's empire by the nature he had vanquished, and by ways quite contrary to what that malicious spirit could imagine;
(vii) giving us this way the surest ground of comfort, and the strongest incentive to obedience;
(viii) the condition he hath settled for the enjoying the fruits of redemption; and this is faith, a wise and reasonable condition, and the concomitants of it;
(ix) the manner of the publishing and propagating this doctrine of redemption.
What grabbed me
I loved the comparison of the wisdom of God in creation and government with the wisdom of God in redemption: 'The wisdom of God does wonderfully appear in redemption. His wisdom in creation ravishes the eye and understanding; his wisdom in government does no less affect a curious observer of the links and concatenation of the means ; but his wisdom in redemption mounts the mind to a greater astonishment. The works of creation are the footsteps of his wisdom; the work of redemption is the face of his wisdom: a man is better known by the features of his face, than by the prints of his feet. 'We with open face', or a revealed face, 'beholding the glory of the Lord,' 2 Cor. iii. 18. Face there, refers to God, not to us; the glory of God's wisdom is now open, and no longer covered and veiled by the shadows of the law ; as we behold the light glorious, as scattered in the air before the appearance of the sun, but more gloriously in the face of the sun, when it begin its race in our horizon. All the wisdom of God in creation and government in his variety of laws, was like the light the three first days of the creation, dispersed about the world, but the fourth day it was more glorious, when all gathered into the body of the sun, Gen. i. 4, 16. So the light of Divine wisdom and glory was scattered about the world, and so more obscure, till the fourth divine day of the world, about the four thousandth year, it was gathered into one body, the Sun of righteousness, and so shone out more gloriously to men and angels. All things are weaker the thinner they are extended, but stronger the more they are united and compacted in one body and appearance. ln Christ, in the dispensation by him, as well as in his person, were " hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," Col. ii. 3. Some doles of wisdom were given out in creation, but the treasures of it opened in redemption: the highest degrees of it that ever God did exert in the world. Christ is therefore called the wisdom of God, as well as the power of God, 1 Cor. i. 24, and the gospel is called the wisdom of God. Christ is the wisdom of God principally, and the gospel instrumentally, as it is the power of God instrumentally to subdue the heart to himself. This is wrapped up in the appointing Christ as Redeemer, and opened to us in the revelation of it by the gospel. '
If you really want to behold the wisdom of God, it is in his redemption of sinful man.
Conclude Chapter 9 (A discourse upon the wisdom of God).
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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