Discourse 9 in Stephen Charnock’s Existence and Attributes of God examines divine wisdom.

In the first three sections of the discourse, he had set forth his definition of wisdom, distinctions between that divine wisdom and any other conception, and “reasons,” or arguments, of why this wisdom must be the case in relation to other divine attributes. It was shown that,

“wisdom consists, (1) In acting for a right end … (2) In observing all circumstances for action … (3) in willing and acting according to a right judgment of things.”1

Following from what was seen in the previous discourse (8) on the knowledge of God, this wisdom—which is a species of knowledge—must be independent of anything in creation. In other words, just as God knows all things outside of Himself precisely by Himself, rather than that knowledge being caused by the things external that He knows, so it follows about wisdom, being a species of the same. Consequently,

“God has all the circumstances of things in one entire image before him; he has a prospect of every little creek in any design. He sees what second causes will act and when they will act this or that; yea, he determines them to such and such acts, so that it is impossible he should be mistaken or miss of the due season of bringing about his own purposes.”2

The last thing we saw, which is crucial for our purposes here, is that such infinite wisdom requires that God be His own chief end in all that He brings about. This is true both in the grand scheme of things and for the reason He has in ordering each and every means to any end, even to any subordinate end: “for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory” (Rom. 11:36).

If we can keep all of that in mind as we approach the manifestations of God’s wisdom, then we will be able to appreciate more. And that, I think, is Charnock’s main motive in writing this section. While the other sections take their ordinary place of defining terms, clarifying by distinction, and applying to our life, here there is a place for recalling what we know to be true from Scripture and simply worshiping God for it.

Generally speaking, God’s wisdom appears in creation, in government (or providence), and in redemption. He further subdivides these three. This becomes by far the largest section of the discourse.

God’s Wisdom in His Creation of the World

A few Scriptures make this truth plain: “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens” (Prov. 3:19); “who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens” (Jer. 10:12). “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all” (Ps. 104:24). “The wisdom of the creation appears: (1) In the variety. (2) In the beauty. (3) In the fitness of every creature for its use. (4) In the subordination of one creature to another and the joint concurrence of all to one common end.”3

This variety is what was in view by the word “manifold” of the Psalm, the various “kinds” of Genesis 1, or where it speaks of bringing out the starry “host by number,” that “not one is missing” (Isa. 40:26). “The greatest skill is seen in the greatest variety.”4 What he calls beauty may be dismissed as subjective by unbelievers. That “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecc. 3:11) implies that the procession of beauty through time may be ordered. But even if we suppose that it is subjective, it may be ordered to those beings who perceive it as such. The same Bible that says that stars are “for signs and for seasons” (Gen. 1:14) also portrays the sun’s course in a day as if it were a runner (Ps. 19:4-6). It is an even greater wisdom that makes each thing an efficient part of a working system and a thing of beauty. The same anthropic principle, as it has more recently been called, that is true of the sun—“Too much nearness would have ruined the earth by parching heat, and too great a distance would have destroyed the earth by starving it with cold”5—is also true of the exact measure of the seas:

“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” (Prov. 8:28-29; cf. Job 28:11).

When it comes to fitness, Charnock’s statement is not overthrown by any of Hume’s observations of “futility” nor by appeals to vestigial structures and “junk DNA” cited by the reigning pseudoscience of our day. He says, “After the most diligent inspection, there can be found nothing in the creation unprofitable, nothing but is capable of some service, either for the support of our bodies, recreation of our senses, or moral instruction of our minds.”6 He then lists a few of the more obvious spheres of topography and atmosphere, in how they are fitted by God for the good of creation, and especially of mankind. Finally, with respect to subordination and concurrence, one is looking at the arrangement of each means to proper ends, as well as each working together in time, as in a concert.

It is staggering to think that “All parts are exactly suited to one another, and every part to the whole.”7 I say that this is staggering, and what I mean is that it stretches the boundaries of our imaginations when we attempt to consider this about any half-dozen systems. Simply try cooking three or four meals at once during a holiday get together! There is an expression of these larger systems of the world being so ordered in these prophetic words:

“I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, and I will sow her for myself in the land” (Hos. 2:21-22).

Here we have not merely the ecosystems obeying the voice of providence, in their natural symbiotic relationships, but the deeper spiritual realm (the heavens) being so related, and the people of God in redemptive history being so related. Each of these is a symphony of macro and micro systems, each with parts, that become innumerable means to ends, and all to that singular chief end of God’s glory.

God’s Wisdom in His Government of the World

Much of what Charnock says about creation might cover the divine governance of the world with the same reasoning. The difference is that the first subject was with respect to the teleological natures that God had woven into the various “systems” from the first, whereas now this same only wise God is present to direct. Furthermore, Charnock is honing in on the rational creature, man, which he divides into three large sections: (1) man as rational, (2) man as sinful, and (3) man as restored.

God’s wisdom proves infinite in his government of man as man in two ways: in the way in which law is communicated to man, and the way that man is made a rational actor. His section on the law is a significant strike against the voluntarist position. He says of the law,

“Wisdom framed it, though will enacted it. The will of God is the rule of righteousness to us, but the wisdom of God is the foundation of that rule of righteousness that he prescribes to us. The composure of a musician is the rule of signing to his scholars, yet the consent and harmony in that composure derives not itself from his will but from his understanding—he would not be a musician if his composures were contrary to the rules of true harmony.”8

And like the more impersonal systems of nature, so that relationship between law and the nature of man have perfect harmony. This is so in at least five ways: 1. It is suited to man’s nature, 2. to his happiness, 3. to his true interests (as testified by conscience), 4. accompanied by many encouragements to study it, and 5. fitted for specific times, whether of redemptive historical development or individual moral trials.9  As to the human rational actor testifying to God’s wisdom, he points to what we might call the “division of labor” that Paul testifies to about the body of Christ with its many parts in 1 Corinthians 12. Charnock reminds us that this was already true of the design of nature as a whole. Why would it not also be true among men? To achieve a common good “there are several inclinations and several abilities, as donatives from God.”10

“After the law of God was broken, and sin invaded and conquered the world, divine wisdom had another scene to act in, and other methods of government were necessary.”11 Here we are introduced to the idea of increases in the outward display of God’s glory. In other words, God ordains what is conducive to that glory being most manifest and therefore more manifold. This is a supreme wisdom.

Here is his best statement on the subject:

“Now though the permission of sin be an act of his sovereignty, and the punishment of sin be an act of his justice, yet the ordination of sin to good is an act of his wisdom, whereby he does dispose of the evil, overrules the malice, and orders the events of it to his own purposes. Sin in itself is a disorder, and therefore God does not permit sin for itself—for in its own nature it has nothing of amiableness—but he wills it for some righteous end, which belongs to the manifestation of his glory, which is his aim in all the acts of his will. He wills it not as sin but as his wisdom can order it to some greater good than was before in the world and make it contribute to the beauty of the order he intends. As a dark shadow is not delightful and pleasant in itself, nor is drawn by a painter for any amiableness there is in the shadow itself but as it serves to set forth that beauty that is the main design of his art, so the glorious effects that arise from the entrance of sin into the world are not from the creatures’ evil but from the depths of divine wisdom.”12

Specifically, in the “bounding” of sin (that is, setting boundaries to it), the bringing glory to Himself out of specific sins (e.g., Gen. 50:20, Acts 2:23, 4:27-28), the making use of sinful instruments (e.g., Isa. 10:5), bringing good to creatures out of sin, (e.g., Rom. 8:20), and “the good of the sinner himself is sometimes promoted by divine wisdom ordering sin.” Charnock cites the example of patience, both God’s and ours: “And as without the appearance of sin, there had been no exercise of the patience of God, so without afflictions, the fruits of sin, there had been no ground for the exercise of the patience of a Christian, one of the noblest parts of valor.”13 He ends with an extended section on God’s use of sin, both in judgment of unbelievers and in the sanctification of believers.

God’s Wisdom in His Redemption of a People

As Christ is called “the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24) and in Him is “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3), so the good news that He brings and that He works for us is a wisdom that confounds the world and exceeds all of its wisdom. It is called both a hidden wisdom (1 Cor. 2:7) and a manifold wisdom (Eph. 3:10). Everything about it is paradoxical at first, but, for anyone to whom the Spirit gives the mind of Christ, it becomes not only intelligible, but beautiful. In it, Charnock says, “The greatest different interests are reconciled, justice in punishing and mercy in pardoning.”14

Secondly, “The wisdom of God appears in the subject or person wherein these were accorded, the second person in the blessed Trinity. There was a congruity in the Son’s undertaking and effecting it rather than any other person, according to the order of the persons and the several functions of the persons, as represented in Scripture.”15 This wisdom is also “seen in the two natures of Christ, whereby this redemption was accomplished. The union of the two natures was the foundation of the union of God and the fallen creature.”16

Then there is the manner of the union—“It transcends all the unions visible among creatures; it is not like the union of stones in a building or of two pieces of timber fastened together,”17 and so on Charnock utilizes a few other such analogies to rule out other ways to not conceive of this union. Coming to the punchline, this is a most practical wisdom, since the union of the God-man was “fitted to be mediator.”

“If he were in all things only like to God, he would be at a distance from man … He was near to us by the infirmities of our nature and near to God by the perfections of the divine—as near to God in his nature as to us in ours … He had both the nature that had offended and that nature that was offended.”18

This human nature was such that Christ could be the greatest good for us in six ways: “First, he had a nature whereby to suffer for us and a nature whereby to be meritorious in those sufferings … Second, he had therefore a nature to be compassionate to us and victorious for us … Third, a nature efficacious to instruct us … Fourth, a nature to be a pattern to us … Fifth, a nature to be a ground of confidence in our approach to God … Sixth, a nature to derive all good to us.”19 Each of these he unpacks.

But as the very high point of this gospel wisdom is the way in which the two sides of the coin—of the divine interest and the human interest reach a perfect harmony. Those who revel in that wisdom of the world which is ultimately confusion will never cease poking at what they see to be conflicting pieces of the puzzle. Those who wait on the Spirit’s teaching, ever pressing in further to the gospel depths, will see true wisdom as a unity. Charnock writes of this harmony.

“The wisdom of God appears in giving us this way the surest ground of comfort and the strongest incentive to obedience. The rebel is reconciled and the rebellion shamed; God is propitiated and the sinner sanctified, by the same blood. What can more contribute to our comfort and confidence than God’s richest gift to us? What can more inflame our love to him than our recovery from death by the oblation of his Son to misery and death for us? It does as much engage our duty as secure our happiness.”20

Both the myriad of circumstances having to come together for Jesus to fulfill all of the prophecies about Him and especially the manner in which all of the evil actors were used by God to end in the crucifixion—all of this upholds the structure of that gospel wisdom. Charnock ends the section by recounting the slavery of Israel in Egypt, their captivity in Babylon, and the persecution of the first century church, all having their divinely ordained effects in bringing forth the Messiah and then scattering the light of the gospel through the world.

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1. Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), II:755.

2. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:756.

3. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:773.

4. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:774.

5. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:775.

6. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:776.

7. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:779.

8. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:781-82.

9. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:782-88.

10. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:789.

11. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:790.

12. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:790.

13. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:797.

14. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:820.

15. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:825.

16. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:828.

17. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:829.

18. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:832.

19. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:832.

20. The Existence and Attributes of God, II:840