Focusing on Christ: He is Wisdom and Knowledge

….that they may have all the riches that assurance brings in their understanding of the knowledge of the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
– Colossians 2:2–3 NET –

We have already said that we are all trusting others, someone else, to help us figure out what is really going on. It should be clear by now that if we only have our limited time and space bound observations of the world we will probably miss a lot and come to the wrong conclusions.

Jesus was sent to us and comes to us as the One who has the answers we need. We have already discussed Jesus as the Truth. He was sent to us by Father God and He came to witness to the Truth (see John 18:37). In all the writings of the New Testament, the authors are constantly pointing us back to Christ Jesus as the One who is The Truth and can give us truthful answers about us and our world.

In the Colossians passage above, the Apostle Paul expressed his concerns and desires for the churches at Laodicea and Colosse, primarily that they develop and grow in the assurance that understanding and knowledge bring. We need to be assured that what we are believing is True, that it agrees with what is really real. Again, this comes to a question of trust – are the people or sources that are telling us what is true trustworthy?

Again, the writers of the New Testament have come to the conclusion and have assurance that Jesus is trustworthy.

In this passage Paul links understanding and knowledge to the Mystery of God which is Christ. The word translated “mystery” here is used by Paul several times in his letters and it basically points to something, some truth, that was not revealed in the Old Testament era, but has now be revealed after Jesus’ earthly ministry, death, resurrection and ascension back to Heaven. Jesus is the turning point of all history. He changed everything.

Paul goes on to say that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are hidden in Christ. If we could just jump to some conclusions that are worked out in the New Testament we could say that if we want to know what is wise, we need to know Christ. If we want to know what is worthy knowing we need to know Jesus.

In future sessions, we are going to consider how all things have been created by, through, and for Jesus (see Colossians 1:15-20). All things are now presently carried along, sustained by Christ (see Hebrews 1:3). In the end, all things will be “summed up,” brought together in Christ (Ephesians 1:7-10). He has the answers we need about our origin, purpose and destiny.

And because of [Father God] you are in Christ Jesus,
who became to us wisdom from God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption,…
-1 Corinthians 1:30–31-

Notice how in these passages Jesus is wisdom for us. In the Scriptures, Wisdom – true wisdom – is described as knowledge that we can only get from God our Creator. We could also say that Wisdom is knowing how to live life well through the knowledge that Father God has given us. Jesus is that Wisdom. All the Scriptures point to Him as the One we need to know in order to unlock the mysteries of life.

Before we can do that, we have to believe that He is trustworthy. We will make a case for this being The Truth as we move forward.