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.