Wisdom's Call: 30 Days in the House of LifeEsimerkki

THE WHO OF MANIFOLD WISDOM

By reading this you are able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. This was not made known to people in other generations as it is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: The Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I was made a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by the working of his power.

This grace was given to me—the least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of Christ, and to shed light for all about the administration of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things. This is so that God’s multifaceted wisdom may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavens. This is according to his eternal purpose accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Eph. 3:4-11)

God tells us through the apostle Paul that His wisdom is multifaceted. In some translations, the word is “manifold.” This manifold wisdom is what makes plain that which seems mysterious, the hidden things of faith. The ways of viewing and understanding His wisdom is like looking at a prism.

Handle the prism itself, and we feel its many expertly made cuts covering its surface. Some areas are flat, wide, and smooth; some edges are beveled; others are pointed and even jagged, and still others have corners rounded by the craftsman’s tools. Prisms are, in and of themselves, many-sided and intricately crafted.

Looking more closely, though, the prism’s surface isn’t the only aspect of its character. The cuts are designed to change sunlight into rainbow refraction, throwing about the internal elements that make up light itself. An exquisite crystal chandelier is made even more stunning when light passes through it, giving off living color dancing about the room, bouncing off skin and wall, beautiful to the eye yet impossible to ever capture with the human hand. Prisms come in many shapes—oblong, oblique, rectangular, irregular, hexagonal—yet they all refract the same rainbow light, in the same God-ordained order, reminding us of the same covenant-keeping God.

The mystery of God’s handiwork is on display in the same way through His people. Having not only many features, colors, and languages, He tells us that, mysteriously, we will carry some of our earthly complexities to His throne through union with His Son. But the mystery deepens when we consider that this “set-apartness” exists not only around the globe today, but has always existed across historical eras, spanning time and space. God is keeping His own, and He refracts His covenant light through His people. He is harmonizing, calling, and keeping us in time and out, on earth and in heaven, until we assemble in His presence with our faith made sight, His spectrum of promise revealed in vivid technicolor.

We are created to display His manifold, multifaceted wisdom. Scripture tells us it will be an emotional time when God’s people hear His voice in language never heard, yet still familiar, and we behold Wisdom Himself through refracting prisms of tears. What glory, when our Savior speaks over us:

Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away. (Rev. 21:3–4)