In Luke 2:52 we read of the young Jesus:
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
With this backdrop we may ask, how is it that Jesus increased in wisdom since He is sinless? We know to be a fool is sin and to do foolish things is sinful. So how does Jesus lack wisdom and grow in it yet without sin?
The answer is that by obeying God’s word man lives out a wisdom that is beyond His own current wisdom. He is not a fool because he lives wisely as he is directed by God’s word–though he may not fully understand.
Consider the garden where Eve is tempted by the serpent. The serpent tells her to eat fruit that was forbidden by God. She then looks at the tree herself and makes a judgement that it is good to eat. When she eats of it, she sins and is sentenced to death.
Eve was not wise. And in following her own judgements, she sins. Now consider if she instead obeyed God’s word. If she said to the serpent, “I’m not wise enough to make a judgement here, but God said I must not eat of this fruit, so I will not eat it”. If she had obeyed God’s word in this way she would still be lacking wisdom, yet without sin. She would humbly trust God’s word even though her own understanding is lacking. And she would in turn grow in wisdom.
In this same way man can grow in wisdom without sinning. It seems that is what Luke is communicating to us in his gospel. The Lord Jesus from childhood and on always obeyed the words of God. Yet as He grew up He increased in wisdom.
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
The fear of the Lord is a reverential awe of God that includes obedience to God’s word. This obedience to God’s word in light of who He is is where knowledge begins. This is where one starts when they begin the quest for wisdom. They see God rightly and they obey Him. And to obey God is to already be living out a wisdom beyond your own understanding.
