The concept of the divine wisdom is mythological in origin but was taken up into the Yahwistic religion to express God's self-disclosure. This self-disclosure became to be hypostatized or personified as the divine wisdom.
Wisdom means God's going forth from his “aseity” (his being-in-himself) in revelation and action.
The hymn in Prov 8 is somewhat rudimentary in its understanding of wisdom as divine activity, for, unlike later passages (Sir 24:1-24; Wis 7:22-8:1), it does not assign to wisdom an active role in creation; she is merely “around” when God creates.
In its later development wisdom acquires a subjective role in human existence, becoming the organ of human religious experience. In this way “Wisdom” becomes the predecessor of both the Logos and the Holy Spirit.
Thus, we may read this passage as a step on the road to the doctrine of the Trinity.
Responsorial Psalm: 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
This psalm puts into verse form the theological truth of the creation story in Genesis 1.
God is the creator of the whole universe, and human beings are the crown of creation, destined for glory and honor and invested with dominion over the created order. They exist in what Genesis 1 calls the divine “image.”
God's name, whose wonder is proclaimed, is, in Christian understanding, a threefold name—a God who is in his own eternal being, who goes forth out of himself in creation and redemption and creates human beings' response to that creation and revelation. All this is latent in this psalm.
This is one of those artless passages in which the Apostle exhibits the triadic structure of Christian experience.
God is the source of our redemption, but it is through Jesus Christ that this redemptive act is performed, and through the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts that we come to experience that redemptive action.
Here again the doctrine of the Trinity is implicit.
The revelation that Jesus Christ brings is from the Father, and it is the function of the Spirit to make that revelation meaningful to each succeeding Christian generation.
The Spirit does not convey new, independent revelation (“he will not speak on his own authority”) but constantly updates our understanding of the once-for-all revelation of God in the Christ-event.
| Preaching the Lectionary: The Word of God for the Church Today Reginald H. Fuller and Daniel Westberg. Liturgical Press. 1984 (Revised Edition), pp. 442-443. |
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Preaching the Lectionary click picture above.
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from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C).
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