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.
William KellyThis 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.
Leslie M. Grant"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.
Hamilton SmithWith 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.
J. N. DarbyAnd 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.
The Christian's FriendScripture 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.
An Outline of Sound WordsThese 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.
An Outline of Sound WordsFor 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.
William KellyHow 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.
Hamilton SmithThe 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.
Numerical Bible NotesWe 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.
George DavisonCould 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:
William J HockingThese 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.
J. S. BlackburnThe 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.