Here is a short sketch of several names of God in the Bible that reveal God’s nature. The names described here specifically reveal how the Father and Son relate to one another and how God is eternally beneficent and always shares of himself.

One of the paradoxes of our faith is that God both reveals himself to us and yet is incomprehensible. We know him in part, yet we do not know him in full (at least, not yet).

And yet: we know God in part. It’s a real knowing, a real understanding. One of the best ways to learn about God is to focus on his names or titles in the Bible.

Here is a short sketch of several names of God in the Bible that reveal God’s nature. The names described here specifically reveal how the Father and Son relate to one another and how God is eternally beneficent and always shares of himself.*  

Wisdom of God

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24; see also 1 Corinthians 1:30). By power, Paul seems to have in mind the power to do what one wishes because he speaks of the non-powerful believers among society in verse 26 (see also 2:5).

As the Wisdom of God, Christ somehow communicates God’s wisdom. The Father’s wisdom is the Son. In some sense, the Father is wise and yet Christ is Wisdom.

The connection between the Father and Son—God’s Power and Wisdom—is not entirely clear from 1 Corinthians 1:24. But Paul’s comments do reveal something about God. Other biblical passages help us to stitch together a deeper understanding of God.

The Book of Proverbs personifies wisdom and gives her a voice in the eighth chapter. According to Proverbs 8, God “brought [wisdom] forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old” (v. 22). Wisdom continues, “I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be” (v. 23). In verse 24, she says, “When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water.”

Wisdom is God’s first creation and preceded the cosmos. In other words, wisdom preceded everything. It was at the beginning. In the beginning was wisdom, and wisdom was with God.

The metaphors of being “brought forth,” “forming,” and “birth” cannot be pressed too far. Wisdom is not embodied, fleshly. Flesh births flesh. But an immaterial thing (wisdom) is not birthed like a material thing is birthed.

The material metaphors describe an immaterial reality.

If Paul draws on this theology of wisdom from Proverbs in 1 Corinthians, then it makes sense to call Christ power and wisdom as Colossians 1:15 illustrates.

Image of God

In Colossians, Paul uses firstborn of creation language to describe the Son: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15). As it is with wisdom, it is also true with Christ– he is the firstborn of creation (cf. Prov 8:22).

Both Image and wisdom are the firstborn of creation. And this leads to the possibility that Wisdom (1 Cor 1:24) and wisdom (Prov 8) can be identified as one and the same; or, at the very least, this connection shows that the wisdom theology of Proverbs 8 can be applied to Christ.

Added to this, Christ is called Image because he reflects the Father. Imagine looking into a mirror; when you move your head, the image moves with you. So it is with the Image of God. Whatever the Father does, so the Image. Whatever the Father does, so the Son (John 5:19).

The title Image then suggests that God (or the Father) acts and the Son as Image does so in unison. It may also suggest that when the all-wise God wills something, then his Wisdom does it.

Colossians 1:16 states, “for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.” In other words, in the Image the firstborn of creation, God creates. If we associate the Image with Wisdom (or wisdom from Proverbs 8), then we can probably say: As the Father is the originator of the image (one who looks into the mirror), so is the Father the originator of Wisdom.

At the beginning (or before it), God begets wisdom in a way that is similar to how he is the originator of a reflection. Put another way, God bore wisdom before all time and in a way that transcends time. Wisdom as an immaterial thing cannot be born in what we consider a “natural” way. It is immaterially and eternally born of God. Another way to translate Proverbs 8:22 than the NIV version quoted above would be: “Yahweh possesses me from the beginning of his ways, before his works.”** In short, God possessed wisdom before he created—Wisdom subsisted in God. And through wisdom (or rather through Wisdom), God created the universe.

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