God's Hidden Wisdom and the King's Appointed Task Text: Proverbs 25:2-3
Introduction: Two Glories, One God
We live in an age that despises glory. Or rather, it despises true glory while manufacturing endless cheap imitations. We have celebrity culture, which is glory's plastic knockoff. We have political power-lust, which is glory's brutish caricature. We have self-esteem, which is glory turned inward until it suffocates. But the Scriptures are not embarrassed by the concept of glory. The Bible is shot through with glory, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. And here in Proverbs, the Spirit of God sets before us two distinct glories, a divine glory and a royal glory, and He shows us how they relate to one another. They are not in competition; they are in a covenantal relationship, one flowing from the other.
Our text presents us with a profound contrast. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it is the glory of kings to search it out. This is not a contradiction. It is a description of our respective places in God's created order. God is the infinite, transcendent Creator. We are finite, dependent creatures. He knows all things exhaustively and immediately. We learn things progressively and with great effort. His glory is in His sovereign mystery, His unsearchable wisdom. Our glory, specifically the glory of those He places in authority, is in the diligent, humble, and faithful investigation of the world He has made and the truths He has revealed.
This proverb is a foundational text for a Christian worldview. It establishes the basis for both theology and science, for both piety and politics. It teaches us how to approach God in worship and how to approach our work in the world. It teaches the theologian that he will never put God in a box, and it teaches the king, or the civil magistrate, that his primary duty is not to invent reality, but to discover it. Modern man wants to flip this proverb on its head. He wants a God who conceals nothing, a God who is entirely manageable and predictable, a God made in our own image. And he wants kings, rulers, and experts who get to define truth from the top down, concealing their own motives while demanding that we accept their arbitrary decrees. But the Word of God sets the world right side up again.
The Text
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.
As the heavens for height and the earth for depth,
So the heart of kings is unsearchable.
(Proverbs 25:2-3 LSB)
The Divine Prerogative (v. 2a)
The first half of verse two establishes a fundamental truth about God's nature.
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter..." (Proverbs 25:2a)
This strikes at the very root of human pride. We want to know everything. The original temptation in the garden was the promise that we could be like God, knowing good and evil. But here we are told that God's glory is bound up in the fact that He does not tell us everything. His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). There is an infinite, qualitative distinction between the Creator and the creature, and this proverb is one of the guardrails that keeps us from driving off that cliff.
This does not mean that God is a cosmic trickster, hiding things from us in a malicious way. Not at all. The Bible is a book of revelation, not concealment in that sense. God has revealed Himself truly, but not exhaustively. Moses puts it this way: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever" (Deuteronomy 29:29). God's glory is in the fact that there are "secret things." He is sovereign. He is not obligated to give an account of His matters to any of us. As He says to Job out of the whirlwind, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" (Job 38:4). God's concealment of certain matters is a function of His majesty. A god who could be fully figured out by a creature would not be God at all; he would be an idol.
Think of it this way. The sun is glorious, but you cannot stare directly at it. Its glory would blind you. You can, however, see everything else because of its light. So it is with God. We cannot gaze upon His unveiled essence, His secret counsels. But because of the light of His revelation, we can see the world, and our place in it, with clarity. His glory is in what He conceals, which makes the glory of what He reveals all the more precious. Paul marvels at this very thing: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" (Romans 11:33). This should not lead us to frustration, but to worship.
The Royal Mandate (v. 2b)
In contrast to God's glory in concealment, we find the glory of kings.
"...But the glory of kings is to search out a matter." (Proverbs 25:2b)
If God's glory is in His infinite, settled knowledge, the king's glory is in the process of discovery. A king, or any civil magistrate in the biblical sense, is God's deacon (Romans 13:4). He is a minister appointed to do good and to punish evil. But how can he do this if he does not know what is good and what is evil? How can he render justice if he does not know the facts of the case? His glory, his honor, his divinely appointed task, is to investigate. He is to search things out.
This applies in several directions. First, it applies to justice. A righteous king does not make snap judgments. He hears both sides of a story (Proverbs 18:17). He digs for evidence. He interviews witnesses. He searches out the matter to bring the truth to light. This is the foundation of what we call due process. It is a deeply biblical concept. The glory of a ruler is not in his raw power, but in his patient, diligent, and wise application of that power on the basis of discovered truth.
Second, this applies to the natural world. This proverb is a foundational charter for science. God has concealed wonders in His creation. He has hidden mineral deposits deep in the earth. He has written intricate code into our DNA. He has set the stars in their courses according to laws we can barely comprehend. It is the glory of man, and particularly those who lead and govern, to encourage the searching out of these matters. God is not honored by our ignorance. He is honored when we, as His image-bearers, explore the intricacies of His handiwork. The scientist in his lab, the engineer designing a bridge, the explorer charting new territory, they are all participating in this glorious task of searching out what God has concealed.
Third, it applies to the Word of God. While the secret things belong to God, the revealed things belong to us. And we are to search the Scriptures. We are to dig into them, study them, meditate on them, and seek to understand them. The glory of a Christian is not in passive ignorance, but in the active pursuit of the knowledge of God revealed in His Word. A king who would rule well must be a king who is himself ruled by the Word, and this requires that he search it out diligently.
The Weight of the Office (v. 3)
The final verse of our text adds another layer, connecting the nature of a king's heart to the vastness of creation.
"As the heavens for height and the earth for depth, So the heart of kings is unsearchable." (Proverbs 25:3)
This is a fascinating statement. In one sense, it echoes the unsearchability of God. Just as you cannot measure the height of the heavens or the depth of the earth, so you cannot fully plumb the mind of a king. This points to the immense burden and complexity of the ruling office. A good king is weighing factors that the average citizen knows nothing about. He is dealing with intelligence reports, economic forecasts, diplomatic tensions, and intricate legal questions. His heart, meaning his mind, his counsels, his deliberations, is deep and complex because his task is deep and complex.
This is why Solomon, when God offered him anything he wanted, asked for wisdom to judge the people (1 Kings 3:9). He understood that the heart of a king needed to be supernaturally enlarged for the task. The unsearchability of a king's heart is not a license for secretive tyranny. Rather, it is a description of the weight of his God-given vocation. He is called to think on a scale that most are not. He must consider the long-term consequences of his decisions, the second and third-order effects that ripple out through a nation.
This should cause us to do two things. First, it should cause us to pray for our rulers (1 Timothy 2:1-2). They carry a burden we cannot fully appreciate. We should pray that God would grant them wisdom, that their unsearchable hearts would be filled with the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. Second, it should cause us to be humble in our political pronouncements. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize, armed with a few headlines and a strong opinion. It is another thing entirely to bear the responsibility of searching out the matter and making a decision upon which the lives and welfare of millions depend. The proverb calls for a certain sobriety and respect for the difficulty of the office.
The King of Kings
Ultimately, this proverb points us beyond any earthly ruler to the one true King, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the perfect embodiment of both glories described here.
In His divinity, it is His glory to conceal a matter. He is the one in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). He is the Word who was with God and was God, privy to the secret counsels of the Trinity from all eternity. The wisdom of the cross was a mystery hidden for ages, a glorious plan concealed in the mind of God, what Paul calls the "hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory" (1 Corinthians 2:7).
But in His humanity, as the Messianic King, it is His glory to search out a matter. He is the one who perfectly searches out the heart of man; He knows what is in us. He is the one who searches out the demands of justice and satisfies them completely on the cross. He is the one who searches out His lost sheep and brings them home. He is the ultimate investigator, the one who brings all hidden things to light. And on the last day, He will be the great Judge, who searches out every deed and every motive, and renders a perfect and righteous verdict.
And what of His heart? As the heavens are high and the earth is deep, so the heart of our King is unsearchable. His love is higher than the heavens. His wisdom is deeper than the earth. We will spend all of eternity searching out the glorious matters of His grace, and we will never reach the bottom. His heart is unsearchably rich, and yet He has revealed it to us in the gospel.
Therefore, we are to imitate our King. We are to worship the God whose ways are past finding out. And we are to take up our own royal and priestly task of searching things out. Search out the Scriptures. Search out the truth in a world of lies. Search out your own heart and bring it into conformity with His. Search out how to apply His Word to your family, your work, and your community. This is not a burden; it is our glory. For we are being trained to rule and reign with Him forever, and the training begins now, in the glorious task of searching out the matter.