What does it mean that the Spirit searches all things (1 Corinthians 2:10)?

It is not meant by this then, as so many strangely quote it, that such things are still beyond our ken. The apostle immediately goes on to assure us of the very opposite of this, and of the perfect competency of the Teacher to whom now we are committed: "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

It seems at first sight a singular expression to be used of a divine Person. We might ask with surprise, How can the Spirit of God need to "search" the things of God? Is He not necessarily participant with the Father and the Son in all divine knowledge? Surely, and absolutely so; but it is the Spirit in us that is spoken of in this way, in that blessed, mysterious working in the people of God which is at once so unfathomable a profundity and so clear a reality. It is He who works in the working of our minds as led of Him; and thus He brings us into ever fuller communion with the Father and the Son.

In verse 10, etc., you get three distinct steps: the Spirit of God revealing, whether to Paul or others; then the Spirit of God communicating what was revealed; and last, the receiving by the Spirit. The Holy Ghost in us searches all things; there is nothing hid. The prophets searched "what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify"; having the Spirit they began searching out. It is the Spirit in us who searches. There is a power of the Holy Ghost to give all the counsels of God. You find elsewhere that the Spirit of God is identified with the person He dwells in. He makes intercession for the saints to God; Rom. 8. I have not the word only, but the Spirit within me, and the mind of the Spirit according to God.

(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”.

(V. 11). What is in man's mind is not known to any but the spirit of the man himself who has the thoughts. No one knows the uncommunicated thought of my mind except my own spirit; so no one knows the uncommunicated thoughts and counsels of God save the Spirit of God.

For the Spirit of God penetrates the deep things of God, as no creature could ever do; and it is He therefore who is capable of revealing these. This is illustrated in verse 11 by the analogy as to the spirit of a man. It is a man's spirit that knows the things of a man. Knowledge, intellect, understanding is connected with the spirit, not with the soul, which is more characterized by desire and feeling.

"The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 2:10-11). Omniscience, an other attribute of Deity alone, is before us here as belonging to the Spirit. He knoweth, and searcheth all things, knoweth the end from the beginning, for He is God.

Do you limit His competency or question His willingness to show us all the truth, yea, things to come, in divine love? Expressly is it added, as if to meet our hesitation, "for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." Such a declaration may well silence every argument of unbelief, as disposed alas! to trust in the ability of man as to distrust the gracious power of God on our behalf. The Spirit who searches all, and knows all, is now in the believer to whom all is revealed in the written word of God. He who sounds the depths of God is able to instruct His children; and He is as ready as able, being here for this as for other loving purposes worthy of God and in virtue of Christ's redemption.

It is the Holy Spirit then by whom God has revealed to us what of old was hidden; and He is thoroughly able to do so, seeing that He searches the very depths of God, as indeed He is God. This the apostle illustrates by an analogy drawn from human nature. "For who of men knows the things of a man save the spirit of the man that [is] in him? So also the things of God knows† no one save the Spirit of God. But we received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that [is] from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God." (Vers. 11, 12.)

No man knows what is in another's mind. He may conjecture more or less accurately, but none of men can know inwardly what is in another's mind and has not been communicated to him. The spirit of the man himself knows, and no one else. It is shut out not only from animals inferior to man in the scale of creation, but from his fellows. So, but with incomparably greater force, no one can come to know the things of God, unless they be revealed: only the Spirit of God knows them. But here is the inestimable privilege of the Christian. It was not the spirit of the world we received, but the Spirit that is from God, and this expressly that we might know, inwardly know, the things freely given to us by God.

We are in the conscious relationship of children, and have not merely an acquired objective knowledge, but realize what God has vouchsafed in our own minds. Were any courting the spirit of the world? What a descent for a Christian! What a forgetfulness of our new and divine and eternal associations through our Lord Jesus! Here then it is a question of knowing through the Holy Ghost the things freely given us by God, and to this end is the Spirit given to the believer now that Christ was come and had wrought redemption. Where the blood has been put, the oil can follow, that unction from the Holy One whereby the very babe in Christ knows all things. For the grace that has freely given him all with God's own Son would put him in the conscious knowledge of all and in the joy of communion; and this can only be by the Holy Spirit of God, who accordingly anoints us when established in Christ, that is, when firmly attached to Him.

And now mark the principle of it. The wisdom of God centred in the Lord of Glory, whom the leaders of the world crucified; and, to bring out its characteristic blessedness into the strongest relief, the Apostle quotes from the prophecy of Isaiah as to how it had been in his day: "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 the quotation is too often left, whereas the Apostle's design is to contrast the present state of things with what existed in the prophet's day, and so he adds, "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." So that all that had been wrapped up in the heart of God for those that love Him, unseen, unheard of by them, and never for a moment conceived of, had now come out to be the revealed and possessed portion of faith by the power of the Spirit. The inspired revelation of these blessed things of God's own nature and counsel is alone by the Spirit, the communication of them is in words that He alone could teach, and our reception of them is as equally and absolutely by that same blessed Spirit (vers. 10-14).

But that reminds me of another thing, for I feel that we want to rivet these things together closely. The other truth is "eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him, but"' — and here is where most people stop, — "God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." Now you see we have before us things that the heart of man could not grasp, things of infinite fulness, yet that Spirit searcheth into those depths, has come down and reveals to us out of infinite fulness the precious deep things of God; the Holy Spirit unfolding to us that which the heart of man could not grasp. And this brings together for us again the precious fact that in the word of God, in this absolutely perfect word, we have a suited instrument for the Spirit of God to make known to us the things that have not been thought of by man before.

I want to dwell particularly upon the second chapter of 1 Corinthians and the prayer in Ephesians 3. Let us turn back and pick up the thread where I left it. "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" (v. 9). That is His expression concerning the mystery and it does two things for us. It gives us an unearthly concept of the tremendous grandeur and blessing and fullness that there is in what is being spoken of. It is something great beyond all the best thoughts that men are capable of. But it is also a categorical statement that all the avenues by which the natural man receives knowledge are quite inadequate to deal with the true knowledge of the wisdom of God. Thankfully, there is a "but" in verse 10, "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

How that revelation came about is described from verse 10 down to verse 13 and all I have time to say about it now is that it is absolutely perfect and full. The things themselves have been uncovered in the presence of the apostles. To those men was given the gift of the Spirit of God so that they might understand the things of God and the same Spirit imparted to them the very words in which that revelation must be recorded. Everything is flowing on for our full blessing but the theme is not in the slightest degree developed further. Why? Because of what the Corinthians were. This is precisely what the chapter says. You have got the fact and the completeness of the revelation taking you down to verse 13. But there are three kinds of men spoken about here. The natural man can't receive these things, they are all absolutely foreign to his powers and his way of thought-"the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." I can only say of this state that the natural man means the unconverted man. There is the spiritual man (v. 15) and you have that same man mentioned a little lower down (v. 1), "I. could not speak unto you as unto spiritual." The second kind of person therefore that is brought forward is a spiritual man. There is a third kind of person that exists and he is called in verse 3 the "carnal" man and because these Corinthians were carnal the matter cannot be explained further to them.