There can be no doubt that the New Testament is committed to the
teaching that the Eternal Word of God, who was incarnate in Jesus, was
the agent of creation. John, in his profound prologue to the Gospel,
utters the deepest truths in brief sentences of monosyllables, and
utters them without a trace of feeling that they needed proof. To him
they are axiomatic and self evident. 'All things were made by Him.'
The words are the words of a child; the thought takes a flight beyond
the furthest reach of the mind of men. Paul, too, adds his Amen when
he proclaims that 'All things have been created through Him and unto
Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold
together.' The writer of Hebrews declares a Son 'through whom also He
made the worlds, and who upholds all things by the word of His power'
and does not scruple at transferring to Jesus the grand poetry of the
Psalmist who hymned 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the
foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.'
We speak of things too deep for us when we speak of persons in the
Godhead, but yet we know that the Eternal Word, which was from the
beginning, was made flesh and dwelt among us. The personified Wisdom
of Proverbs is the personal Word of John's prologue. John almost
quotes the former when he says 'the same was in the beginning with
God.' for his word recalls the grand declaration, 'The Lord possessed
me in the beginning of His way ... I was set up in the beginning or
ever the earth was.' Then there are two beginnings, one lost in the
depths of timeless being, one, the commencement of creative activity,
and that Word was with God in the remotest, as in the nearer,
beginning.
But the ancient vision of the Jewish thinker anticipated the perfect
revelation of the New Testament still further, in its thought of an
unbroken communion between the personified Wisdom and God. That dim
thought of perfect communion and interchange of delights flashes into
wondrous clearness when we think of Him who spake of 'the glory which
I had with Thee before the foundation of the world,' and calmly
declared: 'Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.' Into
that depth of mutual love we cannot look, and our eyes are too
dim-sighted to bear the blaze of that flashing interchange of glory,
but we shall rob the earthly life of Jesus of its pathos and saving
power, if we do not recognise that in Him the personification of
Proverbs has become a person, and that when He became flesh, He not
only took on Him the garment of mortality, but laid aside 'the visible
robes of His imperial majesty,' and that His being found in fashion as
a man was humbling Himself beyond all humiliation that afterwards was
His.
But still further, the Gospel reality fills out and completes the
personification of Proverbs in that it shows us a divine person who so
turned to 'the sons of men' that He took on Him their nature and
Himself bore their sicknesses. The Jewish writer had great thoughts of
the divine condescension, and was sure that God's love still rested on
men, sinful as they were, but not even he could foresee the miracle of
long-suffering love in the Incarnate Jesus, and he had no power of
insight into the depths of the heart of God, that enabled him to
foresee the sufferings and death of Jesus. Till that supreme
self-sacrifice was a fact, it was inconceivable. Alas, now that it is
a fact, to how many hearts that need it most is it still incredible.
But passing all anticipation as it is, it is the root of all joy, the
ground of all hope, and to millions of sinful souls it is their only
refuge, and their sovereign example and pattern of life.
The Jewish thinker had a glimpse of a divine wisdom which delighted in
man, but he did not dream of the divine stooping to share in man's
sorrows, or of its so loving humanity as to take on itself its
limitations, not only to pity these as God's images, but to take part
of the same and to die. That man should minister to the divine delight
is wonderful, but that God should participate in man's grief passes
wonder. Thereby a new tenderness is given to the ancient
personification, and the august form of the divine Wisdom softens and
melts into the yet more august and tender likeness of the divine Love.
Nor is there only an adumbration of the redeeming love of Jesus as He
dwells among us here, but we have to remember that Jesus delights in
the sons of men when they love Him back again. All the sweet mysteries
of our loving communion with Him, and of His joy in our faith, love,
and obedience, all the secret treasures of His self-impartation to,
and abiding in, souls that open themselves to His entrance, are
suggested in that thought. We can minister to the joy of Jesus, and
when He is welcomed into any heart, and any man's love answers His, He
sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied.