The context of chapter 2 is not to be separated from chapter 1. Paul is continuing on theme of God’s wisdom and man’s foolishness; that which man thinks of and cherishes as wisdom is not. Paul has concluded chapter 1 with a doxology, praising Christ as the power and wisdom of God, and now he returns to the concept of eloquence, which the Corinthians over-admired. Paul concludes by noting that God’s wisdom can only be received through the indwelling Holy Spirit, who regenerates the elect of God. Let’s take a look.
1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[1] 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
Paul is speaking of his first visit to Corinth, when he founded the church (Acts 18:1-17). His words were never eloquent, and he didn’t lord his knowledge over them like a scholar (1 Corinthians 4:1,8-13; 9:3,19; 10:30; 16:3; 2 Corinthians 11:5-6). Just as children lack physical maturity and will gain that as they grow, so there is spiritual immaturity, and those who are spiritually immature cannot grasp the wisdom of God. There is a process of development, a process of sanctification, a process of maturity, and Paul speaks here of a wisdom for the spiritually mature – a wisdom that they can understand. But being immature, they didn’t appreciate his gospel as the wisdom of God, like they should have and hopefully will as they learn from his rebuke. This is a reoccurring theme through Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.
Paul was not likely a poor orator, and he may have even experienced some nervousness when it came to speaking (v3), but his noteworthy comment here is that the gospel is only a fruitful message when it is preached “with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (v4). In other words, the Spirit makes the gospel work in a person’s heart and mind and life, not the eloquence of the speaker. That’s why faith rests on God’s power and not on our wisdom (v5). Calvin says, “His own preaching, which, in the account of men, was base and contemptible, had nevertheless been signalized by the influence of the Spirit… He unfolds at greater length the sentiment, that there is a heavenly and secret wisdom that is contained in the gospel, which cannot be apprehended by any acuteness or perspicacity of intellect, or by any perception of sense, and is not influenced by human reasoning, and needs no meretricious ornament of words or embellishment, but simply by the revelation of the Spirit comes to be known by the understandings of men, and is sealed upon their hearts.”
Wisdom From the Spirit
6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"[2] -- 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
11The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
Paul notes that his message of wisdom (Christ crucified) falls on the mature, or the spiritual, which is to say, “believers” (v13-15; 3:1). And this wisdom that was “secret” and “hidden” (v7) has now been revealed and made known in the end times (v10; 10:11; Romans 16:25; Ephesians 3:2-6). In fact, God planned it this way “for our glory before time began” (v7). If God wasn’t sovereign over the understanding of the gospel, Paul says, “the rulers of this age…would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (v8). Herod, a Jew, and Pontius Pilate, a Gentile, stumbled over Christ and thought the whole thing foolishness, respectively. But more than that, even Satan doesn’t get it. One minute he tries to stop Jesus from going to the cross, and the next minute, he urges Him to come down off it. But God reveals the gospel to His people by His Spirit. How else can we know God’s deep things? We can use all five senses (v9; Isaiah 64:4), but we won’t grasp spiritual wisdom – true wisdom – apart from the Holy Spirit (see Matthew 11:25; 13:10-12).
One commentator says, “Wisdom is not acquired; the wisdom of God is not something that you climb up a ladder and you qualify to be given because you’re something special as a believer, that you’re a cut above the rest. It’s not acquired, but the wisdom of God…is revealed! It is something that is given to us by grace through faith in the Spirit of God.” In his most famous song, To Bring You Back, Paul Alan sings about the unbeliever “searching for something given, not found,” and being unable to find your place in a world that wasn’t meant for you. In other words, though God’s wisdom is hidden from the world, and though the worldly wise don’t get it, those who love God (the spiritually mature) do. And this is possible – made certain – thanks to the indwelling Holy Spirit, and Paul elaborates on that in v12-16.
12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.[3] 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
16"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"[4] But we have the mind of Christ.
Believers, who are spiritual because we have the Holy Spirit, understand spiritual truth that unbelievers without the Spirit (natural man) cannot grasp (1 Corinthians 15:44-45). And v13 explains that the revelation of spiritual truth is from God’s inspired word (“words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words”). So true wisdom comes by revelation from God, through the inspiration of His word by His Spirit, and through the illumination that the Spirit gives each of us. “We have the mind of Christ” (v16).
Any man can believe in God apart from the Holy Spirit; any man can read the Bible apart from the Holy Spirit. But only the illumination by the Holy Spirit can impart spiritual wisdom. Consider the Ethiopian Eunuch. He believed in God and went to Jerusalem; he headed home reading the Bible; but the Holy Spirit worked through Philip to explain that word in such a way that the Eunuch was joyfully illuminated. One commentator makes this point using John 5. He says, “We find there that the Lord Jesus said that the Scriptures were where the Pharisees would learn of Him, but they were experts in the Scriptures and they couldn’t see Him… We need illumination to understand the word of God.” Calvin concludes, “He at length comes to this conclusion, that the preaching of the gospel does not merely differ widely from the wisdom of the flesh, and consists in the abasement of the Cross, but cannot be estimated as to its true nature by the judgment of the flesh; and this he does, with the view of drawing them off from a mistaken confidence in their own judgment, by which they measured every thing amiss.”
Finally, Psalm 119:18 says, “Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things in Your law.” One commentator concludes, “We need God to open our eyes. He has given the revelation; it’s by inspiration; but we need illumination – and there were a few people who were inspired of God to write the word of God as we have it, but Paul is saying all men who have the spirit of God and who are in Christ can see the illumination of God. We don’t need a modern discovery, we don’t need a special man to interpret it, we don’t need an organization – no church, or cult, or movement has an exclusive right to the pages of this book, or authority exclusively to interpret this book. There’s no special mystical key or experience that men need to have, they just need to have the Spirit of God!”
Footnotes
- 2:1 Some manuscripts as I proclaimed to you God's mystery
- 2:9 Isaiah 64:4
- 2:13 Or Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to spiritual men
- 2:16 Isaiah 40:13
Bible text from Gospelcom.net. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.