Proverbs 8:22-26
“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up,at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.”
In this passage, the created order speaks to us in the first person: “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work …”. Some commentators assert that this refers to the pre-incarnate Christ. I don’t think so. The “me” in this passage is God’s created order. Tsedek. The way the Lord has designed the universe to work.
God the Father did not “bring forth” God the Son. He “brought forth” his Natural Law.
There is a design to the way the world works, and this design can be observed by anyone who is actually looking. If you align with the design — if you align with the created order — you will be productive and experience success. If you try to live in opposition to this order, you will experience problems, pain, and eventually failure.
Here are some of the attitudes and actions that are out of alignment with God’s created order:
Greed
Selfishness
Deceitfulness
Sexual promiscuity
Arrogance
Gossip
Laziness
The negative consequences to these actions aren’t immediate, but they are inevitable. One of the great mistakes that people make is equating the delay of consequences with the absence of them.
Proverbs 8.27-31
“When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, 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, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.”
This is truly an amazing passage. God’s created order continues to speak in the first person. Wisdom …the laws of physics … the Lord’s tsedek in the physical realm… was continually at work in the creation and formation of the world.
Note that Lady Wisdom describes herself as a “master workman” who labored with God in creation, and who thoroughly enjoyed the work! “Master workman” is the Hebrew amon, which means “craftsman, one who is skilled.” In other words, the Lord designed the physical laws of the universe to bring order and structure to the world. Wisdom was not just present at creation; wisdom participated in creation, and delighted in it.
It’s also significant that wisdom is portrayed as a mediating figure between God and mankind. If someone wants to know how the world works and therefore how to navigate life with its challenges and problems, then get to know wisdom. Get to know tsedek. Who would know better how to act in the world than the one through whom it was made?
We also were created to be master workmen within God’s created order. We are called to understand the created order, align with its design, and do the work necessary to bring order and fruitfulness to the world.
Then, as now, we are called to trust God and do the work.
