Living Water of Washington DC. A Christian Outreach Ministry.

Word to the Wise II

SYNOPSIS

Two previous articles in this series, Defining Evil and Word to the Wise (Part I), discuss how the devil has benefited from human wisdom in his effort to thwart God's plan for the salvation of humankind.

Now more than ever, human wisdom is an obstacle to acceptance of the Truth that saves: the Truth that Christ Jesus came to the world, was crucified, and rose bodily from death in order that true believers can be saved. God's Wisdom, imparted through faith in the Risen Christ, is the antidote to the Serpent's poison that infected humanity in Eden. But the Serpent's poison, by its very substance, weakens the efficacy of the antidote because human wisdom is a stumbling block that discourages faith in the Risen Jesus Christ. It is a snare placed by the devil that encourages unbelief among people relying on their own minds. But God will destroy human wisdom, and His eternal Word will be clearly vindicated as patent Truth before the world.

HOW CAN A GOOD THING LIKE HUMAN WISDOM BE A BOON TO THE DEVIL?

If there's one thing the devil doesn't want you to know, it's salvation by grace through faith in the Risen Jesus Christ preached by the Apostles.

…the word of faith, which we preach; if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:8-9 KJV)

If salvation occurs by grace through faith in the Risen Jesus Christ, then the absence or rejection of faith in the Risen Jesus Christ can preclude salvation. The devil knows this. Therefore, any rendition of Jesus apart from His being the Way, the Truth, and the Life who came to give life through His shed blood, affirmed by His glorious Resurrection, is pleasing to the devil: a Jesus who was a great teacher, a Jesus who was a mild-mannered sage, even a Jesus who was a wild risk-taking radical subversive leader of a counter-culture movement, are fine portrayals of Jesus in the devil's opinion. Anything but the Truth of the Risen Christ our Savior is okay with the devil. The Risen Christ who had shed His precious blood for the atonement of sin is the one thing the devil doesn't want you to know.

The Apostle Paul makes it absolutely clear that any version of Jesus besides the Jesus Christ who died for our sins and was raised into life is ineffectual:

Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:1-8 RSV, my emphasis)

But human wisdom tells us that Jesus is not as Paul says. It is human wisdom that tells us that Jesus was merely an ordinary person like you and I, or was perhaps a greater-than-average teacher. It is human wisdom that tells us that He could not possibly have risen bodily from death. It is human wisdom that tells us Jesus was not the Son of God, that He was not the Word made flesh, and that the Word is not God. The devil is fond of human wisdom. The wisdom that the Serpent endorsed in Eden, even if like God's wisdom, is not God's wisdom. James talks about wisdom that is not of God:

This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (James 3:15-17 KJV)

IF IT'S ONLY HUMAN (WISDOM), HOW BAD CAN IT BE?

The previous article, Word to the Wise (Part I), discusses the inclination of human wisdom to relinquish the modern worldview, founded on the Serpent's Great Lie, for a more beguiling worldview. In a world seduced into the Postmodern Age by devils working in tandem with human wisdom, the rationality that once characterized human wisdom gives way to irrationality as people enticed by their own wisdom turn to their most favored gods, particularly themselves (the god within).

An important part of the Great Lie delivered by the Serpent in Eden is the lie of "you will not die" (Genesis 3:4). Humans believe that they can achieve immortality by other means besides God's grace and the salvation He gives. The proudest of humans trust in their own wisdom to lead them to immortality. Genetic engineering, cloning, drugs that promise youth, and other moneymaking enterprises that affront God flourish today more than ever. But in the spirituality of the Postmodern Age in which we all now live, people are relying on even more sinister means to achieve immortality.

Certainly science, technology, and progress in all of the humanities are fruits of human wisdom. But temporal achievements of humanity, no matter how great, do not substitute for eternal God-given salvation that human wisdom denies. Jesus saves, and the salvation He gives is eternal life. Human wisdom, on the other hand, saves nobody permanently. This is a key issue that the devil wants to obscure, if not to hide completely, from human understanding. Human wisdom blinds people to God's Truth. When Adam and Eve's eyes were opened, they became wise to a new, fallen worldly existence apart from, and in competition with, their Creator.

Once doctrine of the salvation by the blood of Christ is lost and the "Church" has thoroughly assailed the truth about Christ's Resurrection, replacing the "myths" with "wiser" doctrine, the "Church" will be crippled, having lost its fundamental roots, to the extent where it cannot fend off the spiritual onslaught from devil worship that enters the world in many diverse forms, such as worship of Mammon, and including those forms that spread virulently within a weakened "Church". With the Foundational Rock removed by the wisdom of humanity, the Church will be helpless to resist attack. Unable to distinguish between good and evil, it will welcome the disguised intrusions.

Is it belief in Jesus that saves a person? No, it is not belief in the historical Jesus that saves anyone: it is the Risen Jesus Christ, resurrected from the dead and eternal that saves. A dead Jesus is of little use to anyone. But the Risen Jesus Christ who conquered death for the descendants of the fallen Adam gives people real hope and a totally changed life, even eternal life. The true Church does not stand based on any one thing Jesus said. The true Church exists because this humble Carpenter from Nazareth who was called "Jesus" by Gentiles died on a cross and was shown by "many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3 KJV, NKJV) to have become alive in a glorified body, positively identifying Him as the Messiah and God in flesh.

Now many say that Jesus was a great man, a great teacher like Gandhi, or Buddha, or Socrates. Such persons might even call themselves "Christian", but if they do not believe in the Risen Christ, then they are not true Christians. Any fool can believe in the historical Jesus using his own wisdom, but some of the very "wisest" of professing "Christians" stumble with the Resurrection, rationalizing that they are just too smart to believe in such religious claptrap. But their wisdom is of man and not of God. If they say that the wise teacher Jesus, Jesus who loved the poor, the meek, the criminals, the hungry, the crippled, the poor in spirit, the merciful, the sorrowful, the persecuted, was never crucified or never rose bodily out of death into life, then they are not true Christians, and they insult the Living Jesus Christ and His Body of true believers. No, Jesus was not just "another" great teacher whose maxims added volumes to the library of human wisdom alongside other sages like Confucius, Zoroaster, and Plato. Human wisdom keeps us from discerning the fact (yes, the Truth!) that Jesus was no ordinary man: He Is God.

HUMAN WISDOM IS FOOLISHNESS TO GOD

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 KJV)

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God… Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:17-18, 25 KJV, my emphasis)

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. (1 Corinthians 3:18-20 KJV, my emphasis)

GOD CANNOT BE KNOWN THROUGH HUMAN WISDOM ALONE

In 1 Corinthians 1:21-24 Paul states:

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe… But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (KJV, my emphasis).

Paul continues in Chapter 2:

…my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God… However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. (1 Corinthians 2:4-6 NKJV, my emphasis)

THE SPIRIT OF GOD DISCERNS THE WORD OF GOD, BUT MAN ALONE CANNOT

God's Wisdom, which is foolishness to unbelieving humans, can be known and understood through guidance from the Holy Spirit. The Word, which makes little sense to the unbeliever, is the Absolute Truth, as is perfectly clear to those whose eyes are opened by the power of God.

…no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned… For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:11-16 NKJV, my emphasis)

NOT KNOWING THE TRUE GOD, PEOPLE MAKE GODS FOR THEMSELVES

Ever since Adam and Eve's encounter with the serpent in Eden, humans have made themselves gods, exalting themselves to the status of Creator when they are merely part of His creation, usurping His throne in their own minds. But the real Creator of course knows about the guile of His creation:

You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay; that the thing made should say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"? (Isaiah 29:16 RSV)

IT WILL BECOME CLEAR THAT HUMAN WISDOM WILL FAIL HUMANKIND

God of course knows the fatal weaknesses of human-based wisdom and morality discussed in Word to the Wise (Part I) and He states through His prophets that human wisdom is feeble. But humans, rebellious to God, love their own wisdom and their own solutions that are doomed to failure. Ultimately, God's Wisdom will utterly vanquish human wisdom.

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves . . . (2 Timothy 3:1-2 NKJV)

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (1 Corinthians 1:19-20 KJV, my emphasis)

Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. (Isaiah 29:14 KJV)

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THOSE WHO ARE CALLED?

God often shows His strength and His power through the weakest people of the world. And men and women who are strong in the world are like grass waving in the wind before the invincible strength of the Living God:

For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:26-30 RSV, my emphasis).

Remember those in the Bible to whom Jesus showed kindness, mercy, love, and forgiveness: the sinners, the poor, the cast out, the persecuted, the downtrodden, the lost. And to whom did Jesus speak most sharply? The teachers of the law and leaders who were wise in their own eyes. Sinners who are humbled and who repent can inherit the kingdom of God even if their sins are enormous. Paul says:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NKJV)

Every time a sinner receives Jesus Christ as Lord, the Spirit of Christ gives life to the mortal body (Romans 8:11). If you've received Christ as Savior, then Jesus Christ has come to live in you. But if you haven't, then you continue to walk in the darkness of mere human wisdom.

CONCLUSION

…when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 1:21-25 KJV)

Ron Blevins
Last revised: July 30, 2003.