The Wisdom of Love

Possessing this knowledge and proceeding to an examination of His gifts to us, we may perhaps agree that it is of great significance that the first gift through which the Spirit of the body manifests itself is stated to be the Word of Wisdom.

In the light of all that we have so far gathered, we may at this point summarise what we have learned thus: we are baptised in the Spirit; we have drunk into one Spirit; we say 'Jesus, Lord' by the Spirit; we realise that the same Spirit functions through a variety of different gifts; we know that the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for profit to all, and we now see also that He manifests Himself chiefly as the Spirit that speaks wisdom. Such knowledge is most precious and comforting. What a blessing it is to know that the Holy Ghost, the Spirit in which the entire body lives and by which it always functions, is the Spirit of Wisdom.

But great as all this is upon the sacred page, the sad fact is that, like Adam of old, in practice the church at Corinth had ceased to be wise. This is brought out most clearly in the second epistle, chapter 11, where Paul implies that they had been beguiled and corrupted as Eve was by the serpent. Under the circumstances then, what other could Paul do than write to them concerning their folly and give them plain instruction about the nature of Wisdom, this most precious grace and gift? To no other church did Paul speak of wisdom to the same extent as he did to these people. So great is the urge within him as he writes to them, that before he has reached a third of the way through this letter, he uses the word 'wisdom' fifteen times; seven times in the first chapter and six times in the second. So also is it with the word 'wise'; in chapter one he uses it five times (once as wiser) and in chapter three five times more, ten times in all.

From all of this we can see how great was his concern over their inexcusable folly. Not that absence of wisdom was their greatest folly; way back behind that lay their chiefest crime -- lack of love. Lack of wisdom is folly, but lack of love is sin. Simple foolishness is no crime against God; unavoidable ignorance is no sin, but not to love (see chapter 13) is indeed sin, and therefore finally must be of greatest folly. Nevertheless, when compiling the list of Christ's virtues in chapter 1, he shows the supremacy of wisdom by placing it at the head; 'Christ ... is made unto us Wisdom ...' he says.