It's All Jesus...Until That Makes You an Arian

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“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.” Proverbs 8:22.

It’s all about Jesus!

I’m one of those guys who reads the Scriptures as if every single line is pointing to Jesus in some way. I believe the whole Bible tells one unified story—and I think you can tie every single sentence to this grand theme.

I also believe we are to be cautious in how we do this. At times we see something in the Old Testament that sounds like Jesus and we quickly attach Jesus’ identity to that section. In the story of Daniel’s friends getting thrown into the furnace, we read of a real-shiny fella that is in the fire with them. That sounds like something Jesus would do? Is this another reference to the pre-incarnate Christ? Many will quickly jump to that conclusion—I think we should be a bit more cautious. My answer is less forceful, but I believe more truthful. Is Jesus the shiny fella in the fire? Kinda.

The same is true when we get to the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8. In Proverbs 8:22-31 the writer eloquently speaks of wisdom being there with God at the foundation of the world. Read Proverbs 8:22-31 and then pick up John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15-20, 2:3 and 1 Corinthians 1:24, 30 and tell me that it doesn’t sound like the New Testament writers are picking up the language of Proverbs 8 to describe Jesus.

There is a problem, though, with fully identifying the personified Wisdom of Proverbs 8 with the Lord Jesus. You might not pick up the problem as easily in translation like the ESV. There it merely says, “the LORD possessed me”. You’ll see the problem better in the NIV, “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works…” That sounds like Jesus was created—the first thing created by the Father, but created nonetheless.

The logic goes something like this:

Proposition A: Wisdom is created
Proposition B: the wisdom of God is Jesus (1 Cor 1:30)
Therefore: Jesus is created

Proverbs 8 was one of the key verses for Arius. In the 3^rd century Arius taught people that Jesus was a created being and was subordinate to the Father. It’s a position still held by Jehovah’s Witnesses. They view Jesus has having come from—emanated out of—the Father. He is chief among creation, but still a created being.

What do we do with this? One option is to take the path of the ESV and other translations. The idea is that “possessed” means that God wisdom was present with God when He created the world. It wasn’t created—it was already there. Think about this logically. If God had to create wisdom and it isn’t an essential attribute—would this mean there was a time when wisdom didn’t exist? That, however, is the exact opposite of what this text is saying.

If we table the question for just a moment, we can see that Lady Wisdom is making an appeal to the simple. Why would you embrace some newfangled idea about how to live in the world, when she has been present from the beginning. When wisdom was woven into all of creation, shouldn’t you find blessing and not curse if you pattern your life around wisdom? That is the point of this section.

Can we not, then, apply that some truth and principle to the Lord Jesus? It might be best, then, to say that Jesus is the fullest expression of wisdom. Yes, wisdom was present in creation because the Son was present in creation.

We do well to allow the Bible to speak for itself and to do so in the genre which God has chosen for that particular revelation. That was kind of a nerdy way to say—Proverbs 8 isn’t meant to give you a theological explanation of the Trinity. Let it speak poetically. Wisdom has always been there. John Kitchen gives an apt summary:

Wisdom, as portrayed here, clearly predates all that is created. As such, she must be eternal, for she stands before the creation of time itself. She is eternal, however, not in some independent type of existence, but as one attribute of the eternal Godhead. Wisdom predates all we know in this world, and was fundamental to the creation of all we know (Prov. 3:19–20). How essential, then, to embrace God’s wisdom, if we desire to live in God’s world? How foolish to attempt to live in God’s world without pursuing at all costs His fundamental principle of creating this world? ‘O Lord, how many are Thy works! In wisdom Thou hast made them all’ (Ps. 104:24).^[1]

And here we let Colossians 2:3 speak. Speaking of Christ it says, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” If you want to be connected with this eternal wisdom—if you want to answer the call of Proverbs 8—then it will come through the Jesus Christ. Yes, Proverbs 8 points to Jesus. But not in a way that we would walk away with the foolish notion that He is created.

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^[1] John A. Kitchen, Proverbs: A Mentor Commentary, Mentor Commentaries (Fearn, Ross-shire, Great Britain: Mentor, 2006), 189–190.