And *I*, when I came to you, brethren, came not in excellency of word, or wisdom, announcing to you the testimony of God.
Paul takes the Corinthians back to the day he first walked into their city. He reminds them what he brought and what he left behind — and that raises a question for every preacher and every hearer: if God's message is true, does it need human polish to work?
Corinth was full of people who loved ideas and enjoyed arguing about them. Paul did not arrive as one more thinker offering a system.
They were his witnesses as to how he first came to them. They knew he had come among them at the start, not as a clever speaker looking for an admiring audience, but as a man burdened with a message from the living God. Nor, when he spoke to them of Jesus, had he cleverly tried to make his teaching fit their existing notions or ideas. They were full of speculative thought, and quick both to take up and to debate new ideas of any kind. Even so, nothing in their earlier training or habit of thought was a stock ready for his teaching to be grafted onto. He brought them a testimony, not a theory.
Paul's name for his message tells you where it came from.
What 1 Corinthians 1 calls the testimony of Christ, Paul calls "the testimony of God" in the next chapter. Christ was the subject of the testimony, but God was its source. It was what God sent to men about His Son. And what God sent did not need dressing up with human eloquence, or an appeal to human wisdom.
Paul knew which levers would have worked in that city. He left them alone.
When Paul visited Corinth, he knew he was dealing with people who were easily won over by well-turned sentences or stirring speeches. It made no difference to them whether what was said was true or false. Dress up some hazy speculation or fine-spun "thought" in a philosophical manner, and you soon had attentive, admiring hearers. Here, then, were the means both to draw the Corinthians to his preaching and to make the gospel easy to accept and popular.
What Paul refused, his readers prized.
The Corinthian believers, being carnal, thought far too much of man and of his qualifications and powers. Eloquence and wisdom had a strong pull on them. The Apostle Paul openly disclaimed such things. To him they were only a hindrance, as Saul's armour was to David. He knew that only the power of God is enough to do the work of God. And God does not change the basic principles of how He works. His way of working is just the same today.
Stripping away the ornament left something, not nothing. What remained was a Person.
The apostle did not come with lofty speech or wisdom when he announced the testimony of God at Corinth. God was calling them, as He calls all men, to repent. To that end He was testifying of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul judged it right to limit himself to this at the beginning of the gospel in that pleasure-loving city. More mature souls need Christ in every way — risen, at God's right hand, and coming again in glory. Here he presented His person, and especially Him crucified. It is not a philosophy but a divine person and work. Those who are full-grown need much more, and God keeps nothing back from them. The difference is not reserve on His part. It is the state of souls: some need milk, as babies do; others solid food, as those settled in Christ.
Human helps do more than fail. They change what the preaching produces.
The means we use will largely show the spirit we are of. Paul did not come among the Corinthians "proclaiming ... the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom." This was not mere human weakness. It was his definite purpose that their faith should rest not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. All supplements to spiritual power always make the result a fleshly one. Even where God is working, the true result will show itself in the end, though perhaps only after many days.
There is a plain test for any foundation: what would it take to knock it over?
His speech drew no attraction from the fleshly persuasiveness of a manufactured eloquence. It was the expression of the presence and action of the Spirit, and of the power that came with that presence. So their faith rested on the power of God, not on the fine words of a man. Someone more eloquent or more subtle can always overturn fine words. God's power is a solid foundation for our feeble souls.
- Source. Paul calls the message God's testimony because God sent it. Christ is its subject, God its source — and what God sends needs no human dressing up.
- Substance. Paul brought a testimony, not a theory: not a philosophy, but a divine person and His work.
- Sacrifice. He knew what would have won that audience: polished sentences and clever speculation. He refused it, as David refused Saul's armour.
- Side effect. Adding human power to God's message does not strengthen it. Every such supplement makes the result fleshly, and time exposes it. God's way of working has not changed.
- Settlement. A cleverer man can topple faith built on a man's fine words. Faith built on God's power stands.
For I did not judge [it well] to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and *him* crucified.
Corinth was proud of its learning and its polished speakers. Paul walked in with one subject and refused every other. Was he shrinking the Christian faith to one fact? Or was he choosing his ground on purpose — and if so, why that ground?
The city itself shaped his decision.
Corinth was a city of learning, luxury and immorality, and all three affected the assembly there. The apostle put it on record that when he first came among them he held back from anything like "lofty speech or wisdom." He spoke "wisdom" elsewhere, "among the mature," but he had not done so at Corinth.
Paul aimed that limit at one audience, and he had a reason for it.
For his theme he had Christ and His cross only. Fix in your mind the two words, "among you." He knew the tendencies of the Corinthians, with their great ideas about philosophy and human intellect. He would not meet them on their ground, or let them draw him into philosophical discussions of their choosing. The truth of a crucified Christ laid all their pride and glory in the dust. Until a man comes down into the dust he cannot begin with God.
The verse does not mean Paul preached one fact only.
People often use the apostle's resolve "to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" as if he limited his preaching to Christ's death for sinners. That is very far from the truth. We know for certain that he preached much more than this. The truth is that in Corinth, people praised human wisdom and Jews argued hard for human righteousness. The apostle determined to pay attention to neither. He would keep a crucified Saviour before him at all times and minister Him. For he saw in the rejected and crucified Son of God the worthlessness of both human wisdom and human righteousness. He saw in the cross the divine estimate of man in the flesh.
Paul names a Person, not only an event. His first hearers felt that very differently from readers used to the word "cross."
It is not exactly the cross of Christ, but Jesus Christ — the plain fact of preaching Christ. Then he takes Christ in what men would think the lowest and most degraded way — "Christ, and Him crucified." We are used to looking on the cross as redemption, so it is hard for us to feel the effect on a group of philosophers. Think of going and saying, "There was a man hanged in Belfast; trust him." To man it was the grossest folly possible. And notice, it is Jesus Christ — His Person here — and Him crucified.
People quote this verse to excuse staying shallow. One writer answers that use of it head on.
People use it again and again as an objection to studying what the word reveals. This comes from two causes. One is a very fruitful source of error: quoting a passage without looking at its context. The other, sad to say, comes from some degree of dishonesty — a desire, perhaps unrecognised in our own deceitful hearts, to stand still in the ways of the Lord by learning as little of them as possible. It is not true that we are to limit ourselves to the knowledge of Jesus Christ crucified. We must also know Jesus Christ glorified, Jesus Christ at the right hand of God; we must know Him as High Priest, as Advocate with the Father. We ought to know Jesus Christ as much as possible.
One writer looks at the preacher, not just the sermon.
The speaker may have eloquence, and everything that attracts the natural mind. But when it comes to "Christ," hungry souls often starve for lack of food. Happy the man, then, who could say, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." He preached a crucified Christ, and he himself knew from experience what it was to be crucified with Him. Christ in glory had become the object of the apostle's heart, and was also the subject of his preaching. It would have been hard for his hearers to ask, "Where was Christ in all we heard him say?" It would have been far easier to ask, "Where was Paul?"
- Decided. Paul chose one subject on purpose, in a city of learning, luxury and immorality.
- Among you. The limit was on his ground, not on the truth. He would not argue philosophy on the Corinthians' terms.
- Crucified. In the crucified Son of God he saw the worthlessness of human wisdom and human righteousness. The cross is God's estimate of man in the flesh.
- Christ. The message is a Person before it is a doctrine. To the cultured hearer it sounded like folly: trust a hanged man.
- Not a ceiling. Using this verse to avoid study turns it upside down. We are to know Christ glorified, at God's right hand, as High Priest and Advocate — as much as we can.
And *I* was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling;
Paul had just told the Corinthians that he came with no polished speech and one subject only — Christ crucified. Now he tells them what he was like as he preached.
This verse is about the man delivering the message, not the message itself.
The preacher himself was among them in a condition that was humiliating to the pride of man. He did not come as a self-confident orator. He knew his own weakness. He saw the deep need of the people he preached to, and how serious his message was. So he was among them in fear and much trembling.
The phrase is easily misread as dread of judgment.
I would point to Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 2, and other passages. They show that we should not lower "with fear and trembling" to mere dread of punishment. We should see it instead as a sense of weakness joined with solemn responsibility before God.
Two things pressed on him: an enemy at work in the city, and his own sinful nature still in him.
He did not arrive among them with a great flourish of trumpets. He did not announce himself as "Palestine's most powerful Preacher," or something of that sort, as people do today. The very reverse. Weakness, fear, trembling are the things he mentions. He was keenly aware that the flesh was still in him. It might draw him away from undivided faithfulness to his Master, and betray him into something that was not of God. He knew the mighty power of the devil, entrenched in Corinthian hearts. So he feared and trembled. And so there was room for the Spirit of God to show His power.
There was another reason to tremble, and it lay in the hearers.
Paul did not want the Corinthians to lean on him; in fact, he "trembled" in case they should be tempted to do so. He would have done them a serious wrong if he had come between their souls and the true source of all authority. That source is the true foundation of confidence and peace. Had he led them to build on himself, he would have robbed them of God, and that would have been a serious wrong indeed.
The Lord met him during that same stay in Corinth. The encouragement did not remove the danger. It moved the question off Paul altogether.
Paul's labours at this time were of no ordinary kind. He who saw from the mountain-top His disciples struggling at the oars also saw His servant's need of encouragement. So He spoke to Paul in the night by a vision: "Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city." The opposition was rising. If Paul had only weighed his own ability to meet it, he might well have lost heart, or even been driven from his post. So the Lord showed him in a special way that it was not a question of himself, but of the Lord against the enemy.
Felt weakness and real strength are not opposites.
So when we are weak we are strong. Weakness that we feel leads to dependence, and only as we depend on Him are we strong with His strength. And we shall not always be conscious of the power, even though we are dependent. So Paul writes to the Corinthians, "I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling." Yet the letter and the account of his stay in Corinth in Acts 18 show something else. At this very time he was, in a special way, the channel of extraordinary power in his ministry of the Word. It will often be the same with the Lord's servants. Often they pass through a season when they feel weak and unfit to preach the Word. Later they learn that this was the very time when the Lord used them most in the blessing of souls.
- Weakness owned. Paul came to Corinth with no self-confidence on display. His condition humbled human pride.
- Weakness explained. The fear is not dread of punishment. It is a sense of weakness joined with solemn responsibility before God.
- Weakness guarded. He knew his own sinful nature and the devil's grip on Corinthian hearts. He also feared that they would lean on him instead of God.
- Weakness answered. The Lord spoke to him by night: "Do not be afraid… I am with you… I have many in this city." The contest was no longer Paul's ability, but the Lord's against the enemy.
- Weakness used. He felt least capable when God's power showed most. Servants often find the Lord uses them most when they feel weakest.
and my word and my preaching, not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of [the] Spirit and of power;
Paul had just told the Corinthians what he preached — Christ crucified. Now he tells them how he preached it in a city that prized polished speech and clever argument.
Paul matched his manner to his message. He would not dress it up in a style that drew attention to the speaker.
He refused every artificial method, both in the thought and in the words that clothed it. He wanted the truth of God to speak straight to a person's heart. In the same way he was with the Corinthians in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. This is not the picture people imagine of the great apostle! But that deep sense of weakness was, by grace, his strength. The Corinthians' straining after power was their weakness. His one desire was to exalt God, admitting the nothingness and the guilt of man. He dreaded that any word of his might cloud God's true glory. He wanted his preaching to be God's testimony to and in Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. So his word and his preaching — the thing preached, not merely his manner in it — was not the rhetoric of the schools, but preaching that gave room to God's Spirit.
"Demonstration" is a wide word, and commentators note it may take in the miracles of the early days. But the weight of it falls elsewhere.
He would not sweeten his teaching with flattery to please his hearers. He would not commend it by tricks of rhetoric either. In both manner and substance his ministry was to be "of God"... This broad phrase probably points to the outward miracles. God gave them so freely at the start of the gospel, as a visible sign to everyone of where the testimony came from. But if so, they hold only a secondary place in this description of his work at Corinth. What he insists on is that his ministry was spiritual through and through, and that it reached the hearts and consciences of those who received it.
Refusing human methods was not modesty for its own sake. It cleared the ground.
Paul refused all human means, and all appeal to human nature. That left room for the Spirit to work in mighty power. Suppose faith appears under such preaching. Suppose someone believes a message so humbling to man, a message that ends man in judgment. Then it is not human wisdom that leads them to believe, but the power of the Spirit of God working with them... It is not only a question of the truth they believed, but of the way in which they received it. They received it not from a man, even though that man was an apostle, but from God.
The two methods produce two different kinds of belief, and only one of them survives pressure.
Weakness, fear and trembling marked the man who carried the message. But the message came with the wonderful demonstration of the Holy Spirit and the power of God. If persuasive words of man's wisdom win a person, another display of the same can overturn it. But what the Spirit's power gives stands in the power of God.
If power is not eloquence, then crowds and applause prove nothing either way.
We measure power by work done, not by the show made. A man may be an eloquent preacher. He may draw thousands to hear him. Large numbers may even claim to be saved under his ministry. But the only test of his power is whether souls are truly saved. That is how we know the Holy Spirit has been at work. New birth is His work by the word of truth, whatever instrument He uses.
This pull works on hearers as much as on preachers. It also shows why God often uses the poor speaker instead.
How common the mistake, even in the Church of God! Christians themselves want eloquence, and give it a place above the power of God... Even the saints who know the truth in theory are charmed and drawn by splendid gifts. They take pleasure in the display of those gifts, apart from the truth the gifts pass on. How different was Paul's thought... This is why God often uses those who are "slow of speech" far more than the eloquent. Then no one is tempted to lean on the wisdom of men, and everyone sees that it is the power of God.
- Subject — Paul kept to Christ crucified, a message that humbles man instead of flattering him.
- Vessel — He came in weakness, fear and trembling; that sense of weakness was, by grace, his strength.
- Method — He dropped every artificial device of thought and language, so the truth could reach the heart and conscience.
- Power — The Spirit's own working filled the gap. You see it in changed hearts, not in the speaker's skill.
- Result — Another clever speaker can talk down faith built on human persuasion. Faith that comes from God stands in the power of God.
that your faith might not stand in men's wisdom, but in God's power.
Paul had just described how he came to Corinth: no polished speech, no clever argument, only Christ crucified. Here he gives the reason. The verse asks not what a person believes, but what that belief stands on.
Paul kept his preaching plain on purpose. He wanted the Corinthians resting on something no better speaker could shake.
His speech was not attractive with the artificial persuasiveness of manufactured eloquence. It was the expression of the presence and action of the Spirit, and of the power that came with that presence. So their faith did not rest on the fine words of a man. A more eloquent or more subtle speaker could overturn words like that. Their faith rested on the power of God — a solid foundation for our feeble souls. Blessed be His name for it!
The Corinthians held the truth. Paul's concern goes past what they believed to how it reached them.
How unassailable must be the faith that stands in the power of God! This was not a question of the truth itself — of their getting it. The question was how they got it: from God Himself, by dealing with Him directly about it, or merely from a man, even though the man was an apostle.
Faith is not only our answer to the gospel. It is itself evidence of God's power at work.
If the gospel is God's wisdom, then the faith that embraces it is also a token and a witness of His power. People may believe the teachings of men. Human wisdom has its followers, because our nature responds easily to what is natural. But the faith that justifies discerns the Person of its object. That faith is itself the gift of Him who sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Its quality matches its origin.
Only one foundation holds. Everything else fails, however respected it may be.
The ground or authority on which we must rest our souls is the same for us as it was for Abraham and all true believers in every age. It is the Word of God, the holy Scriptures. There is no other foundation of faith, and the faith that rests on any other is not true faith at all. Some rest their faith on human tradition, on the authority of the Church, on so-called general councils, on the clergy, or on learned men. That is not divine faith but mere superstition.
The same question presses on preaching today.
Should evangelists adopt the pleasant things of man, the novelties of the age, or anything else, to make the gospel of God attractive to the world? The gospel is indeed called powerful — the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16) — but is it ever to be made "attractive"? The heart of man rejected the words and works of Christ. It rejected moral goodness and divine glory in His Person. That same heart is not one bit more willing today to accept the grace and truth of God in the story of His love and shame on the cross.
So how do you tell real power, if not by the size of the crowd?
We measure power by work done, not by the show made. A man may be an eloquent preacher. He may draw thousands to hear him. Large numbers may even claim to be saved under his ministry. But the only test of his power is whether souls have truly been saved. That is how we know the Holy Spirit has been at work. New birth is His work by the word of truth, whatever instrument He may use.
Time shows which foundation holds.
Some people are merely following men. They accept what a preacher says because he says it. They cling to certain preachers or teachers because of something in their style and manner, or because those men seem very holy, very separated, or very devoted. All this will come to nothing. Those human links will soon be snapped. The faith that stands, in any measure, in the wisdom of men will prove hollow and worthless. Nothing will prove permanent, nothing will last, except the faith that rests on the testimony and in the power of the only true God.
- Two foundations. Faith stands either on human wisdom or on God's power. There is no third option. The verse asks which one is under you.
- Not what, but how. The Corinthians had the truth. Paul's concern was how it reached them: from God Himself, or merely from a man, apostle though he was.
- Faith as evidence. Real faith is itself a token of God's power, because that faith is His gift — from the God who sent His Son.
- Nothing human underneath. Tradition, councils, clergy, learned men — faith resting on any of these is not divine faith at all.
- The test is permanence. Ties to a preacher's style snap. Only faith resting on God's testimony and power lasts. Souls truly saved are the only measure of a ministry's power.
But we speak wisdom among the perfect; but wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who come to nought.
Paul has just said that his preaching came without clever words, so that faith would rest on God's power. Now he turns the corner. The gospel is not short on wisdom. But only the full-grown can take this wisdom in, and it does not come from this passing age.
Paul had set aside the world's cleverness. He had not set aside wisdom itself.
It is not that "wisdom" is missing from the Christian scheme. It could not be missing. Christ, who is everything in it, is God's wisdom, and that wisdom has a character, height, depth, and extent proper to God. So it suits His children — at least those weaned from the first man and from the world where he seeks activity and importance. In a word, it suits "the perfect" or full-grown. It does not suit the babes. They are wrapped up in their own needs, and at best they want milk, not the meat that a riper condition needs for its nourishment.
Where the ESV reads "the mature," older translations read "the perfect." That word confuses people. It does not mean being flawless. It means being grown up.
A perfect man is one who is full grown. He has passed out of infancy. He knows what the cross has accomplished, and new creation in Christ has opened up before his eyes. The Corinthians should have reached this, but they had become stunted in growth; they stayed small. The apostle blames them for it. He had to feed them with milk.
Something in the believer's own state can block the hearing.
We may be believers. But we may still be unsure how we stand before God. We may still be caught up in ourselves over questions of deliverance from the power of sin. While that lasts, we have neither the heart nor the leisure to learn the wisdom of God. That wisdom is expressed in His counsels and purposes, which were once a secret but are now made known.
The Corinthians wondered why Paul had told them so little. He answers that the fault lay with them, and his answer carries a warning for us.
"See," replies the apostle, "I will tell you why I did not say much more about these secrets of wisdom. You are far too involved with the wisdom of this world. That is why I could not speak of it." ... The more time we spend in the wisdom of this world, the less able we will be to understand these hidden things of wisdom. That was the trouble with the Corinthians.
Older translations say "this world" here. The word really means an age — a span of time with an end.
The word "world" in verse 6 is really "age." In another Scripture Satan is called "the god of this age." The god of this age uses the princes of this age to put forward the wisdom of this age. At the same time he blinds their minds, so that they have no knowledge of God's wisdom — the wisdom God ordained before all the ages. When the Lord of glory was here, he so blinded their minds that they crucified Him.
Paul does not attack the rulers' intelligence. He states their expiry date, and sets it against where the believer is going.
First, he tells us it is not the wisdom of this age. It is not even the wisdom of the few intellectual giants who shape the thinking of the world. These intellectual princes, for all their wisdom, "come to nothing." The believer is the opposite: he comes to "glory" (verse 7), in the company of "the Lord of glory" (verse 8). Those who shine in the glory of this world come to nothing, while those who are nothing in this world come to glory.
History makes the point:
All the combined wisdom of the chiefs of this world is worth nothing before God. The chiefs themselves turn the world upside down and do more harm than good. Then they disappear from the scene and come to nothing. Napoleon himself regretted that one day his exploits would fill only half a page of general history. And where are Julius Caesar and Alexander now?
So what is the standard of maturity? Not human progress, but a Person.
It is no perfecting of the race of Adam ... It is the perfection of the glorified Christ, the centre of all God's glorious and eternal counsels. That is perfection, and there is no other.
- Wisdom. The gospel is not short on wisdom. Christ Himself is God's wisdom, with a height and depth proper to God.
- Mature. "Perfect" here means full-grown — past infancy, knowing what the cross accomplished — not sinless.
- Milk. If we are unsure where we stand with God, or soaked in the world's thinking, we cannot take in more.
- Age. The rulers Paul names belong to a passing age whose god blinds minds; they proved it at the cross.
- Glory. Those who shine in this world's glory come to nothing; those who are nothing here come to glory with the Lord of glory.
But we speak God's wisdom in [a] mystery, that hidden [wisdom] which God had predetermined before the ages for our glory
Paul has just set aside the wisdom of this age. Here he names what he does speak: God's own wisdom, kept secret, settled before time, and aimed at a glory that belongs to us.
Older translations read "in a mystery" where the ESV has "a secret and hidden wisdom." The word does not mean something unclear or hard to follow. It means something human thinking could never reach on its own.
It is God's wisdom "in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom". Those words do not mean it is unclear or puzzling. They mean no human cleverness could ever have discovered it. What is more, all through the ages it has been "hidden", so you will not find it in the Old Testament Scriptures.
The secret had a time limit.
It was hidden from the minds of men. They could not understand it until Christ Himself appeared to take away our sins. God's wisdom came long before the wisdom of men. It is simple in its greatness and great in its simplicity, yet man's highest wisdom could never find it.
The verse reaches back before the ages, to God's own plans and thoughts.
The first thing we learn is that these counsels of God were before the world. I am not speaking of election here, but of the plans and thoughts of God before the world was. That is the contrast in this verse: God's thoughts and counsels, ordained for our glory, set before the world we now live in with all its responsibilities. These counsels, which were before the world, came out as a result of the death of Christ.
Because God ordained it, the outcome is not in doubt.
We ourselves were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. More than that, God's wisdom had our glory in view before the ages began, and He ordained it all then. And what God ordains always comes to completion when His hour arrives. So our glory is certain. It is tied to Christ's glory and serves it. Christ's glory comes first, but ours is as sure as His, and God ordained it just as truly.
The final phrase is the surprise of the verse. We would expect God's wisdom to be aimed at His own honour.
So far as I know, this is the only thing the New Testament ever calls ordained for our glory. We read of what God ordained for His glory and for the glory of Christ, and by grace He brings us into that. But here it says He ordained this hidden wisdom for our glory. Oh, that we valued it more!
And that glory is promised to people the world counts as nothing.
This wisdom held God's secret counsel, settled before the ages, for the glory of His people. We might have expected the Apostle to say for the glory of God and of Christ. It will indeed be for the glory of Christ. But here the Apostle presses this on us: our calling shows that believers are the weak and despised of the world, and yet they are marked out beforehand for glory. We may not be wise, or mighty, or noble in this world, but we are called to glory.
The phrase "our glory" needs unpacking.
So this points to God's eternal counsels in Christ (see Ephesians 1:3-6). They were kept secret until now, but the Spirit has made them known through Paul's ministry (vv. 9, 10). In this light the words "our glory" become clear. They cover the full carrying out of God's purposes in Christ for His people, and so their likeness to Christ and their place with Him in glory.
God's aim was not only to show that His wisdom is greater than ours.
This was not only to display the superior wisdom of God. It was designed "for our glory" — to bring sinful mankind into a place of dignity and glory never imagined before.
People sometimes use the words "no eye has seen" to excuse not knowing.
How often we hear a Christian quote the words "no eye has seen, nor ear heard," to excuse an ignorance that the Spirit of God takes pains to show is no longer excusable. What God has prepared for those who love Him is now made known.
- Hidden — God kept this wisdom secret. It was never too tangled to follow. It was simply out of reach of human cleverness, and it is not in the Old Testament.
- Ordained — God settled it in His counsels before the world began. What God ordains always reaches its end.
- Revealed — it came out after the cross. The Spirit made it known through Paul, so ignorance is no longer excusable.
- Ours — God ordained this wisdom for our glory: likeness to Christ, and a place with Him.
- Yours — the weak and despised of this world are the very ones marked out for that glory. The only question is whether we value it.
which none of the princes of this age knew, (for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;)
Paul has just spoken of a wisdom God settled before the ages. Now he names the one event that proves the world's leaders never grasped it: they crucified the Lord of glory.
The phrase points to the leaders of a passing era, and to the whole set of influences that shape it.
Romans 12 tells us not to be conformed to this age, and 1 Corinthians 2:8 speaks of "the princes of this age." The first means we are not to be shaped by the influences of the moment we live in, whether literary, scientific, philosophic, political, or social. They are, in fact, the sum of everything that forms the life of men as men at any time. The princes of the age are the world's, or the nation's, leaders. They are wise, as men count wisdom, in their own generation, but completely blind about the things of God.
The sentence came less from an ignorant crowd than from the leading men of the day. The notice above His head named the three cultures that led the world.
They condemned the supreme Lord of glory to a death of supreme degradation and shame — and not so much the ignorant crowd as the princes of this age. They wrote the notice on His cross in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The Greeks were beyond dispute the intellectual princes of the age. The Romans were the princes in military strength and in the art of government. The Hebrews were princes without a rival in matters of religion. Yet all shared in the crucifixion of the Lord of glory.
Commentators differ on what they failed to know. One says it was the wisdom of God, not the Person Himself.
It does not say they did not know Him, but rather they did not know the first thing about the wisdom of God, and the result is they crucified Him.
Others say their ignorance reached to Christ Himself. That leads to a blunt verdict on their wisdom.
Why did they crucify the Lord of glory? Because they did not know Him. Well, if their wisdom did not enable them to recognize their Creator when they saw Him, it stands condemned.
Paul does not call Him the Messiah here. The title he chooses reaches past Israel and past this earth.
This glory goes beyond the glory of Christ as the Messiah, reigning over the earth in connection with Israel. That earthly reign is no mystery. The prophets are full of glorious predictions about the kingdom glories. "The Lord of glory" speaks of a wider scene than this earth. It speaks of a rule over the whole universe, taking in every created thing and being, with the crucified One as Lord.
One writer measures the distance between what He is and what they did to Him.
They have given the place of the greatest shame and disgrace to the One to whom all glory belongs, the One in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9).
Paul points to the Person crucified, not only to the fact of the cross.
He adds that none of the princes of this world knew, for they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Because He was that, you get His Person, and not just the fact of the cross. It is a very strong thing to put before man. It is what wrote folly on their wisdom and on the grandeur of this world.
The rulers knew nothing of God's purpose. Yet the act they chose served it.
None of them knew it when Jesus was here, yet they too served as instruments in laying a basis for it. For the cross of Christ on earth answers to the glory of God in heaven, and that glory answers to the cross. Wonderful fact — a man exalted over the whole universe, risen and glorified, with all things put under His feet at God's right hand!
Their ignorance also cost them the outcome they were aiming at.
They had no idea that what they considered their victory over Christ was their actual defeat.
- Who — the "princes of this age" are the leaders of the moment: political, intellectual, religious. Wise by human measure, blind about God.
- What they missed — commentators differ: the wisdom of God, or the Person Himself. Either way, they knew nothing.
- Who they killed — not only Israel's Messiah, but "the Lord of glory," Lord over every created thing.
- What it proved — a wisdom that could not recognize its own Creator stands condemned. The cross wrote folly across the world's grandeur.
- How it ended — the act meant to finish Him laid the basis for His exaltation. Their victory was their defeat.
but according as it is written, Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man's heart, which God has prepared for them that love him,
Paul has just said that the rulers of this age never grasped God's wisdom, and now he backs it up with a line from the prophet Isaiah about what no eye has seen. The question every reader has to settle is whether these words shut the door on knowing God's plans, or whether the apostle quotes them to open it.
The words are not Paul's own. He takes up Isaiah 64:4 and uses it for a purpose the prophet could not.
This is an application of Isaiah 64:4, but not as a direct illustration. It is used for full contrast. God inspired the Jewish prophet to stop at one point: man cannot see through the veil that hides the future blessing God has prepared for the one who waits for Him. The Christian apostle does not stop there. The veil has been torn, and the blood of Jesus gives us courage to come near now... There is no use saying that these things are hidden from man. They were hidden, but God has now revealed them to His children.
The verse names three ways a person gets knowledge, and rules out all three. One writer ties two of them to friends of Job, who each tried that route and got it wrong.
"What no eye has seen": human observation could find nothing here. This was what Eliphaz appealed to when he rebuked Job (Job 4:8), and he was wrong. "Nor ear heard": the ear had never received this from all the gathered wisdom of past ages — the tradition Bildad appealed to when he judged Job (Job 8:8–10). He was just as wrong. "Nor the heart of man imagined": no one's own insight could have imagined wisdom like God's.
Sharpening the senses does not help, because the problem is not their weakness.
With powerful instruments his eye can see far into space and into the tiny wonders of nature. His ear can be trained to hear and enjoy beautiful music. His mind can hold great thoughts and deep feelings. But God has prepared things for those who love Him that the natural man has never seen and never heard. They lie beyond the reach of his highest imagination.
Writers warn about where people stop reading. Verse 9 is half of an argument. The next verse gives the other half.
And there people usually stop. But the apostle goes on, to show the difference between that state and ours: "these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit"... Is it not a strange thing? People quote the passage that says the heart of man has not imagined the things God has prepared for those who love Him. Then they pass over the statement that follows, the one that puts the position of Christians in contrast: God had revealed those things to them, and given them the Spirit so they could understand them.
Which two things is Paul comparing? Readers take this more than one way.
Scripture always contrasts the things of the world with the things of God, but that is not the special teaching here. Nor is the point that the things God reveals are so much greater than our present state that we cannot take them in... The apostle is contrasting believers who lived before Christ came with believers now. In the time of Isaiah their hearts could not enter into the things God had prepared for those who love Him. We are in a different position.
What has God "prepared"? One writer answers: something planned before time began, for the glory of people the world overlooks.
These wonderful things do not belong to earth or to time. They were in the mind and heart of God before time began. They were meant to enrich the very people the great men of this world think nothing of... How wonderful that He planned to bring the weak things He had chosen, the lowly and the despised of the world, into the brightest glory with Christ, His own beloved Son.
The verse does not describe the recipients as clever or qualified. It describes them by their affection for God — and their portion covers both halves of life.
For now, those who love God have all the care of a loving Father. For the future, God promises them wonderful blessings together with His own Son. The natural man has no ability to understand these things.
- Prepared before time. God settled what He has for His people in His heart before the ages. It is not made of earthly stuff. It belongs to glory with Christ.
- Prepared beyond reach. Looking, listening to the wisdom of past ages, and imagining all fail here. Better instruments and training only sharpen senses that could never reach this.
- Prepared, then quoted. Isaiah stopped at the veil, because in his day it still hung there. Paul quotes him to mark the contrast, not to repeat the limit.
- Prepared, then revealed. Stopping at "those who love Him" reverses the apostle's point. The next words say God has revealed these things through the Spirit. They can be known now.
- Prepared for lovers of God. Love marks out these people, not status: the Father's care for today, and blessing with His Son for what is coming.
but God has revealed to us by [his] Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
Paul has just quoted the prophet on what no eye has seen, and many readers stop there. Verse 10 answers them with a "but": God has made those things known, and He did it through the Spirit, who searches "the depths of God."
Paul takes the prophet's words and adds a contrast. One writer notes how often people quote only the first half to excuse what they do not know.
How often we hear a member of the body of Christ quoting the words, "no eye has seen, nor ear heard," to justify an ignorance that the Spirit of God takes pains to show us is no longer excusable. The things God has prepared for those who love Him are now made known. Our position is the opposite of the one the Jews had.
Another writer puts the same point sharply: people stop mid-sentence "as if the things were so glorious and so great, that our hearts could not know about them," but the apostle's addition "shews that we can know them now."
Being beyond the natural mind does not mean these things stay unknown. One writer shows who makes them known, and answers the excuse that they are too deep for us.
The wisdom of God lies outside what the natural man can understand. That does not mean the things of that wisdom cannot be seen, heard, or known. The Apostle says at once, "God has revealed them"... Only the Spirit can reveal these things, for nothing is beyond the range of His divine knowledge and power... We may try to excuse our lack of spiritual energy by saying these things are too deep for us. But let us remember they are not too deep for the Spirit.
The word sounds strange used of God's Spirit, who lacks nothing in knowledge. One writer answers that the searching here happens inside believers.
We might ask with surprise, how can the Spirit of God need to "search" the things of God? Does He not share with the Father and the Son in all divine knowledge? Yes, He does, fully; but these words describe the Spirit in us... He works in the working of our minds as He leads them, and so He brings us into ever fuller communion with the Father and the Son.
Another writer traces three steps here: the Spirit reveals, the Spirit passes it on, and the Spirit makes us able to receive it — "The Holy Spirit in us searches all things; there is nothing hidden."
The verse speaks of "the depths of God." One writer asks what fills those depths.
Could any passage tell us of the depths of God like Ephesians 1:17-23? There is Christ, the centre of all His thoughts, the Christ who is the centre of His heart. God has given Him to be the centre of His affections, so that we might think of things as the Father thinks of them, in the circle of divine affection. God's deepest thoughts and His eternal counsel are centred in His beloved Son.
The depths also include what God is in Himself. One writer takes words the Son spoke to the Father, and finds that eternal relationship here:
These relations are "the depths of God" that the apostle speaks of. He adds that "no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God." But God's Spirit has revealed this eternal relationship of the Father and the Son to us, through these words of the Son Himself.
A full revelation does not mean every reader takes it in. Paul names three kinds of people, and one writer explains why he could take the subject no further with the Corinthians.
The natural man can't receive these things. They are all completely foreign to his powers and his way of thought... The natural man means the unconverted man. There is the spiritual man (v. 15)... And there is a third kind of person, called in verse 3 the "carnal" man. Because these Corinthians were carnal, the matter cannot be explained to them any further.
For those who do receive, the searching has no end point: "the more we enter into the deep things in blessed fellowship with the Father and the Son, the more we desire to know."
- Hidden. No eye or ear could reach what God prepared, so people quote the verse before this one to excuse what they do not know.
- Revealed. That excuse is gone. God has revealed these things by His Spirit: first to the apostles, then passed on, then received.
- Searcher. The Spirit does the revealing. Nothing is beyond His knowledge and power, and these things are not too deep for Him.
- Depths. He searches the depths of God: God's deepest thoughts and eternal counsel, centred in His beloved Son, and even the eternal relationship of Father and Son.
- Received. The natural man cannot take these things in, and a carnal state stops a believer too. The spiritual receive them, and their desire to know only grows.
For who of men hath known the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? thus also the things of God knows no one except the Spirit of God.
Paul has just said that the Spirit searches the depths of God. Now he asks what it takes to know a mind — starting with your own private thoughts, and ending with God Himself.
The first half of the verse rests on a plain fact about human life.
What is in a man's mind is not known to anyone but the spirit of the man himself who has the thoughts. No one knows the unspoken thought of my mind except my own spirit. In the same way, no one knows the unspoken thoughts and plans of God except the Spirit of God.
Paul picks a particular word for the part of a man that does the knowing, and that choice carries weight.
The Spirit of God penetrates the deep things of God, as no creature could ever do. So He is the one who can reveal them. Verse 11 illustrates this with the spirit of a man. It is a man's spirit that knows the things of a man. Knowledge, intellect and understanding are connected with the spirit, not with the soul. The soul is marked more by desire and feeling.
The phrase "so also" is not a flat comparison. It moves from something hard to something impossible. One writer traces both halves of that step.
No one knows what is in another's mind. He may guess more or less accurately. But no one can inwardly know what is in another's mind unless that person tells him. The spirit of the man himself knows, and no one else. It is shut out not only from animals lower than man in the scale of creation, but from his fellow men. The same is true of God, but with far greater force. No one can come to know the things of God unless they are revealed. Only the Spirit of God knows them.
The Spirit knows God's thoughts the way your spirit knows your own. So the verse tells us who the Spirit is, not only what He does.
"The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God… no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 2:10-11). Omniscience, another attribute belonging to Deity alone, is before us here as belonging to the Spirit. He knows and searches all things, knows the end from the beginning, for He is God.
The verse quietly closes a door. Ability, education and hard thinking are real, but they do not open onto God's mind — and this has always been the point at which people go wrong.
The root error of all this departure from the truth is surely the refusal to accept God's verdict that "those who are in the flesh cannot please God," and the acceptance instead of the false idea that man is competent to judge the things of God, ignoring our fall through Adam's disobedience. In matters of this life men certainly have natural abilities; but Scripture plainly tells us that "no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 2:11). Even the apostles… used to say, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as coming from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God."
The illustration has a striking turn in it. What no human being would ever surrender, God has given away.
Only the spirit of a man can understand the things of a man. No man would give anyone else his own spirit, even if he had the power to do so. He does not want another person to know the deep secrets of his heart. But God has given us His Spirit so that we might know the wonderful secrets of His heart — things revealed by the Spirit that God has given to us.
The Spirit's knowledge does not stop with Him. One writer counts the stages it passes through.
There are three things. The Spirit unfolds and reveals the things; by words given by the Holy Spirit we communicate them; and by the Holy Spirit too they are received.
- Locked. An unspoken thought belongs to the thinker's own spirit alone. No one else can reach it — not his fellow men, and not the creatures below him.
- Locked tighter. What is hard between two people is impossible between man and God. His thoughts stay hidden unless He reveals them.
- The key. Only the Spirit of God knows them, and He knows them because He is God — omniscience is an attribute of Deity.
- Unlocked. No man would hand over his own spirit and expose his heart. God gave us His Spirit so that we might know His heart.
- Passed on. The same Spirit reveals the things, gives the words that carry them, and enables us to receive them.
But *we* have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which [is] of God, that we may know the things which have been freely given to us of God
Paul has just said that no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now he tells the Corinthians which spirit they have received. The verse sets two spirits side by side, and gives God's reason for giving His own: so that His people would understand what He has already handed to them. The older translations these writers use say "know" where the ESV says "understand."
For one writer, this contrast never changes. He then marks the change it made for God's people.
The Spirit of God and the spirit of the world are always in contrast… We have to say, "no eye has seen"; these things are so great we cannot conceive them, but God has revealed them by His Spirit. Believers in Old Testament times could not find out or know these things, but with us it is the opposite. We do know them, and He has given us His Spirit "that we might know the things."
So what is the "spirit of the world" like? One writer describes movement that never arrives.
The spirit of the world is restless. It is always active and always searching, either to find something new or to invent some cure for the many-sided misery of man. It may turn to theory or to practice, but it never finds the remedy that satisfies… The spirit of the world always advances, but never reaches its end. It leads on to what is coming, but what has never yet come. The Spirit which is of God is the very opposite.
The verse before compares knowing God to knowing another person's private thoughts. One writer takes that comparison further.
If a man could hand over his own spirit, the one who received it would know all about him. Every secret of his heart and mind would lie open. No man would ever let anyone know the deepest secrets of his heart. But this is exactly what God has done. So that we might know His secrets, He has given us His Spirit.
The knowing that results is not information collected from outside.
It is the same with God, only with far greater force. No one can come to know the things of God unless God reveals them. Only the Spirit of God knows them. But here is the priceless privilege of the Christian. We did not receive the spirit of the world. We received the Spirit that is from God, and for this very purpose: that we might know — inwardly know — the things freely given to us by God.
So what does the Spirit show us, and how sure can we be of it?
Here God throws open to us the full treasure-house of His gifts of love. As we gaze in wonder at one gift and then another, the Spirit assures us they are all ours.
The same grace lies behind both the giving and the knowing — and the youngest believer is not excluded.
Where the blood has been put, the oil can follow. That is the anointing from the Holy One, by which the very babe in Christ knows all things. God's grace has freely given him everything along with God's own Son. That same grace would bring him into the conscious knowledge of it all, and into the joy of communion. This can only be by the Holy Spirit of God.
Paul writes "we," and one writer refuses to narrow it.
Your minds are not able to take in the truth, but the Spirit of God stoops to work in man. In what believers? The apostles or the early disciples only? God forbid we should be so unbelieving! The very thing that has preserved the church of God all through the ages has been the possession of the Spirit. This is a cardinal truth of Scripture.
Every believer has the Spirit, yet not every believer knows the same amount.
This does not mean that all believers have the same conscious knowledge. But all have the same Spirit, who is able to communicate the things of God. We come to know them as far as we are willing to be taught and led by the Spirit.
Two opposite failures can block that learning — feeling too little, or reasoning too far.
Dullness of affection may keep us from profiting by what God has revealed. Or the activity of our own minds may carry us beyond what is written. So let us take care. Let us seek, with awakened affections and minds controlled by the Spirit, to enter more fully into all that has been revealed…
- Contrast — the Spirit of God and the spirit of the world stand opposed. One keeps searching and never arrives. The other makes known what God has already given.
- Gift — God did what no person would do. He gave His own Spirit, so that we could know His deepest secrets.
- Purpose — God gave the Spirit so that we would know His things from the inside, not just gather facts about Him.
- Reach — the "we" covers every believer, not the apostles only. The same grace that gave the Son brings even a babe in Christ into conscious knowledge.
- Measure — all share one Spirit, but knowledge grows as we let Him teach us. Cold affections and restless reasoning both hold it back.
which also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, communicating spiritual [things] by spiritual [means].
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But [the] natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him; and he cannot know [them] because they are spiritually discerned;
This verse cuts the human race in two: the man born with only natural life, and the man who has the Spirit of God. The problem is not that God's things are too hard to follow; the natural man has nothing in him that can take them in.
So who does Paul mean? The answer covers every person from birth, and learning does not move anyone out of the class.
By the "natural man" the apostle means man as he is born and grows up, without being born of God or the Holy Spirit given to him. He may be very learned, scientific, intellectual and refined. Still, until the Spirit gives him life, he is the natural man. He does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are folly. Nor can he learn them and make them his own, grasping their truth, because they are spiritually discerned. He does not have the Spirit of God, since he does not believe in Christ.
Behind "natural" stands one Greek word. It tells us where a man's life comes from.
The adjective ψυχικός, animal, appears in 1 Corinthians 2:14; 15:44, 46; and James 3:15. Its meaning may present some difficulty when applied either to a man's moral condition or to his body. We think it well, then, to note what the word points to in these passages. It points to that which, like the first Adam, lives by having a soul, and not by the mighty energy of the Holy Spirit.
So why can he not know them? The answer is a missing sense.
A blind man does not know for himself what the beautiful colours of a flower are. He has no sense of sight to perceive this loveliness of God's handiwork. Our power for discerning divine things lies in having the Spirit of God within us, who is like eyes to our souls. … The simplest believer on earth, with the Spirit of God within him, knows more of God's things than the wisest of men without the Spirit. The natural man may sit in judgment on God's Word and God's character. But to the Christian his pride is like that of a council of deaf men giving their opinion on harmony.
That has a hard edge for anyone who reviews the Bible as a critic:
He is not speaking of any special class of men. He means man in his unconverted state, man without the Spirit of God… it is man in nature, whether he is a learned philosopher or an ignorant clown. He cannot know the things of the Spirit of God. How then can he form or give a judgement about the word of God?
The verse leaves no middle ground. Even sincere religion can fall on the wrong side of the line.
In the Spirit's estimate there is no place for the large group who in practice waver between two opinions. Not to receive the witness of God is to reject it. … Knowing the gospel, and even agreeing with its truth in the mind, is not the same thing as receiving it. … A religious profession may be quite sincere, and yet the person making it is still a natural man.
God makes Himself known morally. That is what man's conscience refuses to face.
Man's thoughts differ so far from God's that man can see nothing but foolishness — even in the most wonderful display of God's saving power. No wonder. If man is to know God at all, he must know Him morally. But men's consciences shrink from looking at God in His moral character… We must know God, not as fallen man can understand Him, but as He has revealed Himself. Only the soul taught by the Spirit can grasp this.
Commentators add a caution: having the Spirit and being spiritual are not the same thing.
We do well to remember that it is the "spiritual", not simply the one who has the Spirit, who discerns all things. A man must, of course, have the Spirit to be spiritual. But being spiritual means a condition in which a man is under the control of the Spirit. Such people discern all things, yet they themselves are discerned by no one.
- Source. "Natural" means a life drawn from the soul alone — the life of the first Adam, not the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Scope. It covers every man as born, philosopher and labourer alike. Learning changes nothing while the Spirit is missing.
- Sense. Missing the Spirit is like missing sight. The simplest believer knows more of God's things than the wisest man without Him.
- Stance. Not receiving is rejecting. There is no neutral seat, and even sincere religion can leave a man in this class.
- Shift. Only God's work changes this: new birth and the gift of the Spirit. Then the man under the Spirit's control discerns all things.
but the spiritual discerns all things, and *he* is discerned of no one.
Paul has just described the natural man, who cannot receive the things of God's Spirit. Now he turns to the opposite case: a believer who can weigh everything, yet whom no one else can weigh.
Everything turns on the word "judges." One writer points to the plainer word in the margin of a reference Bible:
The word "judges," occurring twice in verse 15, is just the word "discerns," as the margin of a reference bible shows. Read discerns and the sense is clearer. It is only the spiritual believer who has spiritual eyesight to see all things clearly.
Another writer traces the term Paul uses:
The simple form of the word means "to judge." Anakrisis was the technical term for the inquiry or preliminary investigation that comes first.
The word does not just mean "Christian." The same letter later says some believers are still of the flesh, and that difference decides who enjoys this promise:
"The spiritual person" does not describe every believer, for some believers are "of the flesh," even though they have the Spirit of God (ch. 3:1). It refers to those who in practice depend upon the leading of the Spirit, as every believer ought to. A believer who is of the flesh will not discern all things. Some of his thoughts may be spiritual, but the flesh is so mixed in with them that his outlook will be confused. But the one who is spiritual discerns all things… He is a puzzle to men, for he thinks and acts on a different level, not driven by self-centeredness, but by a genuine regard for the glory of God.
This discernment is not sharper human reasoning. It belongs to the Spirit who lives in the believer and directs him:
The Holy Spirit in man is a real and divine power. But He also works morally, and in the understanding of the person in whom He lives. The spiritual man discerns all things. All means are at his disposal. He judges all things. He takes notice of all things when needed, according to the Spirit and by His direction. It is not his reason which judges; he judges spiritually of all things. He judges himself instead of pretending to judge God, as if he had a capacity independent of Him.
That order matters. No one can separate right judgment from being spiritual:
If a man is spiritual, he judges all things, and he must be spiritual to judge. If he is not spiritual, he cannot judge; but if he is spiritual, he first judges himself.
The second half of the verse follows from the first. The same Spirit who makes his judgment sound also shapes a life others cannot read:
The power of the Spirit in him makes his judgment true and just. But it also gives him motives and a way of life that make no sense to anyone who does not have the Spirit.
Kelly connects this standing to what the apostle goes on to quote from the prophet Isaiah:
It is because of the Spirit of God that the believer now stands in such an astonishing place. He can discern all things, yet no man can discern him. How foolish, then, for any believer in Corinth or anywhere else to long for human wisdom! What makes it even more striking is what the apostle adds from Isaiah 40:13. There the prophet insists on the supremacy of the Lord's understanding. He is unsearchable Himself, yet He searches everything. The Christian is just as independent of man's measuring and teaching in divine things, and this comes through the Spirit of God dwelling in him.
One writer notes the apostle using this judgment on ordinary matters of home life:
He applies the judgment of the Spirit in him to circumstances of the most domestic character. This is how he judges all things. He is only a looker-on, so he can calmly see what those caught up in it cannot… A great principle may be at stake in a very small matter.
Some read Jesus' words "Judge not" as cancelling this verse. Commentators answer that the two speak of different things:
The Lord does not blame spiritual discernment of people or things at all. It is a clear and weighty privilege of the Christian, for his own guidance and for the help or warning of others… What the Lord warned the disciples against is the bad habit of fault-finding. It so often leads people to suspect evil motives without grounds, against the holy instincts of love.
- Discern, not condemn. The word means to examine and discern, so the verse gives the believer spiritual eyesight, not a judge's bench.
- Spirit-led, not merely saved. The promise belongs to the believer who depends on the Spirit in practice. Where the flesh mixes in, the outlook blurs.
- Self first. The one who judges all things starts by judging himself. The Spirit directs that judgment; his own reasoning does not.
- Down to the smallest matter. He stands outside the situation, so he sees calmly what those inside it cannot. A great principle can hang on a very little thing.
- Unreadable to others. His motives and his way of life make no sense to anyone without the Spirit. That is why no one can judge him.
For who has known the mind of [the] Lord, who shall instruct him? But *we* have the mind of Christ.
Paul has just said that the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit. The spiritual man discerns everything. Paul now ends the argument with a challenge from the prophet: no one has known the Lord's mind well enough to instruct Him. His answer sounds almost too large to be true.
The closing question is a quotation. The prophet used it to show how far God's understanding rises above human reach.
What makes it even more striking is the quotation the apostle adds from Isaiah 40:13. There the prophet insists that the Lord's understanding is supreme, as he had already insisted on His endless goodness and power. No one can search Him out, yet He searches everything: "who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, and who, as His counsellor, will teach Him?" In divine things the Christian is just as free from man's measuring and teaching, and this comes through the Spirit of God living in him.
The question expects the answer "no one." What follows is not a boast about natural ability but about a gift.
In verse 15 the Apostle tells us that "the spiritual discerns all things". This does not mean that they know the mind of the Lord by nature, or that they can instruct Him. But the Lord has given believers His Spirit and teaches them. So they can say, "We have the mind of Christ."
Writers point to the word Paul uses for "mind". It means the power by which a person thinks.
When it comes to thinking as God thinks, Paul uses a very strong word: "But we have the mind of Christ." Others have pointed out that the word for "mind" here means "the same thinking capacity". The marvel is that we have the thinking capacity "of Christ." We can understand divine things with the same kind of mind as Christ. We have this by having the Spirit Who searches the depths of God.
This does not put the believer on a level with his Lord.
So Paul writes — not to the Ephesians or the Philippians, but even to the Corinthians — "We have the mind of Christ." He means the intelligence of Christ, the capacity of spiritual understanding. Of course we do not have it in the same measure as the Lord. He had, and was Himself, the wisdom of God, and that without limit. We have nothing except in Him and by Him, and so only in dependence on Him.
The mind of Christ is not a store of divine knowledge handed over to us to keep on our own.
In the last verse we have the same contrast with the Old Testament: "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" The prophet's challenge gets its answer: "But we have the mind of Christ." If I have Christ's mind, I have the thoughts that are in it and all that they include. We do not have the divine mind in the abstract. We have the Holy Spirit living in us, and then comes all the revelation of the mystery.
This is presented as something new, and one writer draws the line sharply between Christians and Israel — using Joseph, the son of Jacob who read God's meaning before others saw it.
The mind of Christ is more than the works or the ways of God in judgment. It is all His counsels in Christ… So we have the mind of Christ — as Joseph, before he was exalted, was the interpreter of God's revelations… But it is never said that Israel has the mind of Christ. They will see the displays of His power, and will recognise and celebrate them. But is that having the mind of Christ as we have it? The Egyptians knew what Joseph knew when the things came. But did they have the mind of Joseph?
The mind of Christ is a right to be used. Others will say that using it takes too much upon yourself.
Do you value such a gift? Do you value your right to bring every person and everything to be judged by the mind of Christ that is in you? Religion that comes from the flesh tells you that judging this way takes too much upon yourself. Religion that comes from faith tells you that this is exactly your proper place.
A possession left unused makes the claim hollow.
"But we have the mind of Christ." Marvellous, precious declaration of fact! Having the Spirit of God, this is the revelation of the mind of Christ. The believer has this. Then he should certainly seek to make use of it in daily experience. If not, he is not "spiritual."
- Question: Isaiah asks who has measured God's mind well enough to teach Him. The answer is no one. That makes what Paul says next startling.
- Gift: The believer does not reach the answer by himself. The Lord gives him His Spirit and teaches him, so he can say he has the mind of Christ.
- Capacity: The word points to the power of thought itself — the same kind of mind as Christ for divine things. But never in His measure, and only in dependence on Him.
- Reach: We do not hold divine knowledge in the abstract. The Spirit lives in us and opens up the thoughts of Christ — something never said of Israel.
- Use: Use this mind. Weigh every person and everything by it, and expect others to say you take too much upon yourself.