Daily Devotional By Desiringgod Ministry – John Piper Ministry 4 November 2024 | Topic: He Came to a World of Folly
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He Came to a World of Folly
Professor, Reformed Theological Seminary
O come, O Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show
And teach us in its ways to go.Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
“That was a silly mistake!” “How could I have been so dumb?” “Stupid is what stupid does.” Each of these phrases captures what we all know to be true once we’ve spent about half an hour in the real world: humans are not always the brightest! Yes, we have electric cars and send people into space. But from putting aluminum foil in the microwave to stealing candy from our teacher’s prize jar, we all make incredibly foolish missteps in life — even older people who should know better by now.
We need someone to show us our folly and lead us on a wiser path of life. The second stanza of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” provides a beautiful reminder that Jesus Christ has done just that.
Wisdom from on High
One of God’s greatest gifts is enabling people to have great wisdom, which is not simply knowing facts and figures (2+1=3) but making sound judgments about life (“a threefold cord is not quickly broken,” Ecclesiastes 4:12). Numerous people in the Bible had great wisdom, but the most famous was Israel’s King Solomon, who lived in the 900s BC and attracted people from all around the world to come hear his wise words (Matthew 12:42). But even he acted foolishly at the end of his life, showing us that the wisest person on earth is not perfect.
So who is? The only truly and fully wise one is God in heaven above; he is infinite in wisdom and never makes a mistake. All wisdom comes from God himself, who is enthroned in heaven above all creation (see Proverbs 21:30; Job 15:8; 28:12, 20).
“Jesus came to a world of folly to show us how to live with wisdom from God.”
Therefore, the New Testament stuns us with the revelation that “Christ Jesus . . . became to us wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30) and, indeed, is “the wisdom of God” in bodily form (1 Corinthians 1:24). In fact, the Gospels record Jesus teaching this idea in two distinct ways that help clarify it. In one Gospel, he says, “the Wisdom of God” will send forth prophets and apostles (Luke 11:49), while in another he says, “I am sending” them (Matthew 23:34). In other words, Jesus puts himself in the shoes of the Wisdom of God who has come from heaven down to earth (John 3:31).
Who Ordered All Things Mightily
The second line of this stanza makes an interesting claim about wisdom: it created or “ordered” all things in heaven and on earth. The hymn writer draws this idea from the Old Testament, which teaches that God made all things wisely — not like a small child haphazardly smashing together Legos but like a master craftsman making something beautiful. The book of Proverbs in particular pictures God’s “Wisdom” giving a speech (a poetic device called “personification”) about equipping kings to rule and so forth. Near the end of the speech, Wisdom states, “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work” (Proverbs 8:22). When God created all things in Genesis 1, Wisdom was right there with him. By wisdom, then, God ordered all things with great care — or “mightily,” as the song goes.
So, if Jesus is Wisdom, as mentioned above, then does that mean he was there in the beginning too? This is where the New Testament gives us a jaw-dropping yes. The book of Hebrews states that God has spoken to us by his Son, “through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:2). Paul writes of Jesus that “by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth” (Colossians 1:16). Most vividly, the apostle John states, “In the beginning was the Word” — using Word as another term to describe Jesus, like Wisdom — and that “all things were made through him” (John 1:1, 3).
The math is simple: the Old Testament teaches that God’s Wisdom is key to creating all things, and the New Testament teaches that Jesus is that Wisdom, so it makes sense that the New Testament also teaches that Jesus is key to creating all things!
To Us the Path of Knowledge Show
Yet Jesus does not stop at being the embodiment of Wisdom. He came down to earth at the first Christmas to teach us how to be wise too. If you pay attention to his life recorded in the four Gospels, you’ll notice that he was always teaching. It didn’t matter if the crowd was big or small. Sometimes he taught hundreds by the seashore (Mark 4) or on a mountain (Matthew 5–7) or in the countryside (Matthew 14:13–21); other times he taught his disciples privately (John 13–17) or even one on one, like the woman at the well (John 4:7–30).
Everywhere he went, he shared divine wisdom. He teaches us about his Father and his Spirit, about the way of salvation, about heaven and the final judgment, about how to love one another, and much more. The people repeatedly marveled at his teaching because it was better than even the smartest people they knew, present or past (Matthew 7:29; Luke 11:31).
God’s Son knows that humans, left to ourselves, cannot help but live in folly because we constantly turn from him and make a mess of things (Romans 1:21–23). So he stoops down to show us the right path. He instructs us about money, parenting, working in the world, caring for neighbors, dealing with people who don’t like us, and much more. All the fullness of God’s wisdom dwells in Jesus bodily (Colossians 2:9).
During Advent, then, we remember with great joy that Jesus came to a world of folly to show us how to live with wisdom from God. When we follow his paths — when we listen to his teaching — we gradually become more and more like him, the true Wise One from on high.
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