What does it mean that eyes have not seen what God has planned for those who love Him (1 Corinthians 2:9)?

Strikingly does the apostle proceed to set out the newness of this work and word of God in terms too often perverted through misapprehension to a mere confession of such ignorance as could not but be in the times before Christ rose and the Spirit was given. It is an application of Isaiah 64:4, yet for the purpose not of direct illustration but of full contrast. The Jewish prophet most consistently was inspired to stop with the acknowledged inability of man to pierce the veil that hides the future blessedness that God has prepared for him that waits for Him. Not so the christian apostle; for the veil is rent, and we are invited to draw near now emboldened by the blood of Jesus. Thus all things are ours, coming no less than present. We look at the things that are not seen and eternal; we seek and have our mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth. It is in vain to say that they are hidden from man. They were so, but assuredly are now revealed to the children of God. They are revealed that we may not doubt or remain in the dark but believe. This is the emphatic statement of the apostle. What God has prepared for those that love Him He has revealed to us by the Spirit.

And the same Spirit, who is the Spirit of adoption, unfolds to us all the things which are freely given to us of God. "It is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." And there people generally stop; whereas the apostle goes on to say, in order to shew the difference between that and our state, "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God … Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God," 1 Cor. 2:9-12. Now is it not a strange things that people should quote that passage which declares that man's heart hath not conceived the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him, and should pass over the declaration which follows, and which contrasts the position of Christians, saying God had revealed them unto them, and given them the Spirit to enable them to understand them? And is it not a sorrowful thing, when the Lord hath put us in such a place that He confides to us (poor creatures as we are), in a certain sense the glory of Christ, having confided to us all His thoughts about Christ, that we should say, "Oh! we cannot pretend to such things as that?" I will not say it is ingratitude - it is worse; it is dishonouring the love God has shewn to us. Suppose a child were to say, "I do not pretend to the confidence of my father; I do not want that; I am simply willing to obey him." I would say to such a one, "You are a very unhappy child, extremely unhappy; you do not know what a child's place is."

(V. 8). Fifthly, of this wisdom, settled before the ages, and of this glory, to which we are predestined for the ages yet to come, the princes of this world knew nothing. They proved their ignorance by crucifying the Lord of glory. They wholly rejected the One Who is the wisdom of God, and by Whom all the counsels of God are brought to pass. This wisdom of God in a mystery tells believers that they are predestined to glory, and the One Who has been crucified is “the Lord of glory”. This glory exceeds the glory of Christ as the Messiah, in connection with Israel, reigning over the earth. The earthly reign is no mystery. The Prophets are full of glorious predictions concerning the kingdom glories. “The Lord of glory” speaks of a wider scene than this earth; it speaks of a universal dominion embracing every created thing and being, over which the crucified One is made Lord.

(V. 9). Sixthly, this scene of glory, to which the wisdom of God has destined His people, lies outside the range of the natural man. The Apostle thus quotes the prophet Isaiah to show that God has secrets, into which man as such cannot enter. His eye, aided by marvellous instruments, can see far into the depths of space and into the minute wonders of nature; his ear can be trained to hear and appreciate wonderful combinations of melodious sounds; his mind is capable of marvellous conceptions and emotions; but there are things which God has prepared for them that love Him that the natural man has neither seen nor heard, and which are beyond the range of the highest flights of his imagination.

(V. 10). Seventhly, the fact that the wisdom of God lies outside the comprehension of the natural man does not imply that the things of wisdom cannot be seen, cannot be heard, and cannot be known, for at once the Apostle says, “God has revealed them”. The things that God has prepared, God has revealed. If, however, God has revealed these things, it is “by His Spirit”. The Spirit alone is competent to reveal these things, for nothing is beyond the range of the divine knowledge and power of the Spirit. He searches all things, yea the deep things of God. We may seek to excuse our lack of spiritual energy by saying that these things are too deep for us; but let us remember that they are not too deep for the Spirit, for He “searches all things, yea, the deep things of God”.

Verse 9 is a quotation from Isaiah 64:4, showing how totally obscure to man are the counsels of God, apart from a direct revelation of God. "Eye hath not seen:" human observation could find nothing here. It was this to which Eliphaz appealed in his reproving Job (Job 4:8); but he was wrong. "Nor ear heard." Never had the ear received this from all the combined wisdom of ages past, - the tradition to which Bildad appealed in his judgment of Job (Job 8:8-10). He was just as wrong. "Neither have entered into the heart of man." No man's intuition could have imagined any such wisdom as was God's; though Zophar (Job 11:6) considered that his own intuition was authoritative. This is the most foolish of all, and of course false.

There is one word in 1 Cor. 2. In these days it is well to give heed to it. In verse 9 we read, "It is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." The things of the world are always put in contrast with the things of God; but that is not the special teaching here. Nor is it that the things which are the subject of revelation, when put in contrast with our present state, are so great that we cannot conceive them. "For God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit." But the apostle is contrasting the state of the Old Testament saints with that of the saints in the present dispensation. In the time of Isaiah their hearts could not enter into the things that God had prepared for them that love Him; but we are in a different condition. In verse 13 he says: "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." This is commonly called inspiration. When the Spirit of God teaches, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually discerned. There are what may be called three steps in the process of inspiration. First there is the revelation of the things; then there is the word the Spirit teaches; and then the condition of mind in which it is received. We have the living power of the Spirit of God on the one hand, and the word of God on the other, to keep and guide us in our path here. If I take the word of God by itself, and say I can judge of it, and understand its teaching, I am a rationalist. I would be entirely wrong in thinking man's mind capable of judging God's revelation. But when I seek to judge it spiritually, I am right at once. And having the Spirit of God in me to discern it, I have God's own guidance in everything. That is how we are to walk in our present circumstances. And while God has set forth the ruin of the church, as connected with man's responsibility, He has shown us that there is, for the path of faith, just as much wisdom and power as at first. J. N. Darby.

In 2 Corinthians 2 the mystery is brought before us in a special way, "the wisdom of God in a mystery." The wisdom of God is hidden from the men of this world, and hidden in the very language that conveys it to the Christian. This hidden wisdom reveals to us the things that God had "predetermined before the ages for our glory." These wonderful things do not belong to earth or to time: they were in the mind and heart of God before the ages of time, and they were for the enrichment of those that the great men of this world think nothing of. It would not have been surprising if the Scripture had said these things in God's hidden wisdom were for His own glory, or for the glory of Christ; but how surpassing wonderful that He had plans to bring the weak things He had chosen, the ignoble and the despised of the world, into brightest glory with Christ His own beloved Son. But such is the wisdom of God! Our glory will not be found in this world: it will be with Christ in the ages yet to come. The things that God has given to us, that are so glorious, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have (they) entered into the heart of man." Our place down here, beloved friends, is in rejection, the outside place of shame: but "If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him."

From the first Eden, over now six thousand years, we look on to another, brighter and more blessed, God's own Paradise; where the tree of life, in new luxuriance and beauty, hangs its glorious fruitage over the perpetual stream that flows from the throne of God itself. Who can miss the comparison, albeit no doubt there is contrast also, between these two? Who can fail to see that the one is designed to be the shadow of the other; and that the contrast is but to remind us that the first is only the shadow, and cannot be the very image of that before whose transcendent beauty all pictures and forecasts fail? The first scene is the earthly and the fleeting; the second heavenly and eternal. Earth is made the mirror of heaven, as indeed to mortal eyes (it would seem) must be, to convey to us what "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," but which "God hath (nevertheless) revealed to us by His Spirit."

And further, we are told that "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us;" thus producing in us a happy sense of our being objects of divine love. And as to intelligence, we now know what prophets declared they did not know. If a prophet said, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him," we reply, "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." (1 Cor. 2:9-10.) Thus we see at once the actions of the Spirit, both in the heart and in the mind, according as it is written, "I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."

It must be remembered that not sense nor experience brings us there. Even Noah may have heard or seen little, if any thing, of that which he passed through; but none the less real was that eventful passage. For us, faith alone can make us realize a plan as to which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man" what nevertheless the Spirit of God through the Word has revealed to us. We are there (if in Christ) apart from all experience; and what experience we are to have of it will be the fruit of, and in proportion to the vigor of, our faith alone.

There remains a rest even for God's people, just as Israel were journeying on to Canaan; they cannot have rest in a world which is contrary to Christ. We are exercised in the wilderness, we are in conflict, too, with wicked spirits in heavenly places; and that is not rest. Israel will get their rest in time; but I drop that for the moment, and apply it to ourselves. It is a blessed thought, that there will be rest and joy for this poor sin-stricken world, but for us it is a heavenly rest - we are blessed in heavenly places in Christ. Where God can rest in His love, we can rest. If God rests in His love, there is nothing wanting. He is active now in His love, seeking to save that which was lost; but that is not rest; He rests in His love when those whom He has brought by His love are there, and no single thing is lacking to their enjoyment. It is ours, that rest, but we are not there yet. Christ is waiting too, He does not yet see the full result of the travail of His soul, but He will do so, and be satisfied. That rest, of course, is according to God's nature. He brings us now, "holy and without blame, before him in love," having the adoption of children, knowing God as our Father, and the blessed rest of God's people is also according to His nature. And it is all revealed now, the veil is rent, and all that is revealed which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard. The Father fully revealed in the Son, the essence of all the blessing. The more spiritual we become, the more we learn what it all is. We get the figures of it in Revelation, where the spiritual apprehension lays hold of it, so that we can live in it, but it is clear we have not come to it.