Meditationen am Gnadenstuhl: Christ, the Craftsman of Creation From Eternity, Proverbs 8:22-31

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Proverbs 8:22–31

[22] “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work,

the first of his acts of old.

[23] Ages ago I was set up,

at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

[24] When there were no depths I was brought forth,

when there were no springs abounding with water.

[25] Before the mountains had been shaped,

before the hills, I was brought forth,

[26] before he had made the earth with its fields,

or the first of the dust of the world.

[27] When he established the heavens, I was there;

when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

[28] when he made firm the skies above,

when he established the fountains of the deep,

[29] when he assigned to the sea its limit,

so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

[30] then I was beside him, like a master workman,

and I was daily his delight,

rejoicing before him always,

[31] rejoicing in his inhabited world

and delighting in the children of man. (ESV)

Wisdom Is Christ Jesus

the Craftsman of Creation From Eternity

This passage of Proverbs consists of two parts. The first is Wisdom's divinity and existence from eternity. The second is Wisdom's role in creation as the master craftsman; Wisdom continues to speak in the first person throughout.

Wisdom states that it was “possessed” of God from the beginning of His work. Grammatically, this is in what is called the perfect tense, which means this possession is an already completed action before the act of creation itself begins. Sometimes when trying to read this Christalogically, it seems to them as though the text is saying Christ had a beginning; however, this is incorrect. As we know from John (John 1:1; 2:13-14), Christ was there at the beginning with the Father and is the originator and actor of the creation itself ("by whom all things were made" – Nicene Creed. See also John 1:3-5; Colossians 1:15-20). Jesus Christ is also the purpose of history, the reason for which the creation operates up until its end and on into the new creation (2 Peter 3:1-13; Revelation 21-22). Rather than have a beginning Himself, Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of the created universe (Revelation 3:14; 22:13).

Verses 24-25 emphasize the Father’s begetting of the Son from eternity using the analogy of birth. It is not saying that Wisdom, and therefore the Son had a beginning, but rather that Wisdom is coexistent with God. This is not a birth in time or space but a timeless birth from eternity, before the creation of time and space. If that sounds confusing, it is. This is one of the mysteries of God that our limited human experience and understanding cannot comprehend. As the Athanasian Creed states, "The Son is neither made nor created, but begotten of the Father alone."

The second part of this passage (v.27-31) talks about Wisdom as the craftsman of creation. Wisdom here describes in poetic form the image of the second and third days of creation from Genesis 1:6-10. It begins with the heavens and ends with the foundations of the earth. The agent of this creative action is the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. "I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight" speaks of the relationship of the Father and the Son and their unity in the Godhead of the One True and Triune God. Christ is the Father's joy. In the final verse of this passage. This joy extends to "rejoicing in the inhabited world." The Father's joy extends to the incarnation of the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary, whereby God entered into the time and space which He created and became flesh in order that that same world might be saved through Him (John 3:16-17). The Father regularly declares His joy in the Son in Scripture at Jesus' baptism and transfiguration (Matthew 3:17; 17:5; Mark 1:11; 9:7; Luke 3:22; 9:35; 2 Peter 1:17). At the very end of the passage, God rejoices by delighting in the children of man in His creation, who are now sons (Proverbs 8:32), where we will pick up next time.