September 15, 2024|Spiritual Wisdom|1 Corinthians 2:6-16
John-Daniel Cutler
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As we continue through our study of 1 Corinthians, we will finish chapter 2 this morning.
We saw last week that the apostle Paul turned his attention to the subject of wisdom. To sum up what we have seen so far is that after encouraging these believers in their identity in Christ, Paul exhorts them to stop corrupting their identity through division. It seems one of the major dividing factors between the Corinthian church was their assessment of the various ministers of Christ they had been exposed to. They seemed to be judging them based on their preferred rhetorical style, or preaching style rather than uniting in the fact that they all preached the same gospel. They were trying to operate in the church according to the wisdom of the world.
Beginning at verse 18 Paul begins to show them that the wisdom of the world is inferior to the wisdom of God because it is greater than the world’s wisdom and that it cannot be obtained by human effort. In short, they need to stop trying to use the world’s wisdom and the world’s philosophies to judge things within the church. His main contrast in the previous verses is between the wisdom of the world and the power of God. Having established the superiority of God’s wisdom, he now switches to how we experience the wisdom of God, what we are going to call Spiritual wisdom this morning.
Here’s what I think Paul is getting at, if you are going to pursue wisdom, make sure you are pursuing the greater wisdom of God, spiritual wisdom. Neither Paul, nor we are saying that the world’s knowledge or wisdom is inherently bad. Through man’s wisdom in science and medicine we experience many blessings and breakthroughs.
God gave men intelligence and wisdom to care for one another and to steward his creation, but.
God also placed limits on man’s wisdom. We saw last week that through human wisdom we cannot know God. That is to say, we cannot reason our way to God, we cannot think our way to God. Ultimately, man’s wisdom or in this case, what we would call philosophy, cannot answer the greater questions in life.
Who is God? Why are we here? What is the purpose and meaning of life?
This is where man’s wisdom ends and the need for God’s wisdom begins. If we are going to know Him or understand these questions it is going to require God to initiate and reveal them to us. Paul’s argument is that God has acted on believers, God has initiated this through the revelation of Christ and we can not only understand the wisdom of God in the cross by his power, but we have been given spiritual wisdom in our walk with Christ.
It is to this subject of Spiritual wisdom that we turn our attention to this morning. I want to give you three statements concerning spiritual wisdom this morning as we study these 11 verses this morning, but If you don’t get anything else from today, let it be this.
In Christ, God has given believers Spiritual Wisdom to understand things that are indiscernible to human wisdom.
If you haven’t already, open your bibles to 1 Corinthians 2, at verse 6.
The first statement about spiritual wisdom is this…
Spiritual wisdom is for the mature. (6-9)
This is easy to see in Paul’s opening words, so let’s read verses 6-9 together now.
1 Corinthians 2:6-9 (ESV) 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
Paul begins this section with the connective translated ‘yet’ in the ESV. Paul has a contrast he is going to make in the following verses. The wisdom he is about to address is different from what he has been condemning thus far. If you were here the last couple of weeks, you know that the Apostle Paul has thoroughly condemned wisdom and distanced himself from it. For a quick review.
1 Corinthians 1:17 (ESV) 7 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
1 Corinthians 1:22-23 (ESV) 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
1 Corinthians 2;1 (ESV) 1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
1 Corinthians 2:3-5 (ESV) 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Paul says I did not preach with words of eloquent wisdom, and what I did preach seemed foolish to the Gentiles. You corinthians know that when I came to you I did not come proclaiming the testimony of God, the gospel, with lofty speech or wisdom. Indeed, intentionally, my message was not in plausible words of wisdom because I did not want your faith to rest in the wisdom of men.
Paul is making a point that none of them are saved due to the wisdom of men, but he doesn’t want to leave them there, he doesn’t want them to think that the gospel is actually foolish, but rather he wants them to understand that it is the wisdom of God, it is Spiritually wise.
Paul wants them to understand that there is a true wisdom from God that is good and necessary and it is what they should be striving to grow in rather than dividing over human wisdom.
Paul and the other Apostles and Teachers do impart or teach according to wisdom.
To those who can receive it. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom
The word translated ‘mature’ here is tel'-i-os. Sometimes translated as ‘perfect’ or ‘complete’.
As in something brought to its completed end.
Here Paul is using the word to describe someone who has grown to maturity. We might use similar language to describe a child that has reached maturity. We are not saying that they are as old as they ever will be, as wise as they ever will be, or as knowledgeable as they ever will be, even if at 18 they think they are, right?
No, we are saying that they have reached maturity, they have progressed beyond childhood thinking.
Paul will reference this idea later in 1 Corinthians when he says, 1 Corinthians 13:11-12 (ESV) 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
There he both acknowledges his deficiencies, that he will not know fully until he sees Christ face to face, but also that he has grown beyond childish ways of speaking, thinking, and reasoning.
This is who he has in mind in verse 6 when he says Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom.
This contrast between maturity and immaturity doesn’t come to complete fruition until chapter 3 when he reminds them that they are not as mature as they think. But we’ll leave that for next week.
The point Paul is making now, is that the wisdom they do speak to the mature is not the wisdom of the world.
Paul describes this spiritual wisdom for us. First by what it is not.
It is not of this age- age here is a period of time. Whatever age you are in, whatever period of time you are reading these words, the truth remains the same, Spiritual wisdom is not of or from the age or time you are in.
Or of the rulers of this age- or leaders of this age. Again he reminds us that what he teaches, spiritual wisdom does not find its roots in the wisdom of the Jewish leaders or in the foremost thinkers in Greek philosophy.
As wise as they are, they cannot attain the wisdom of God through human effort or experience.
Paul goes on to describe what Spiritual wisdom is. What wisdom do they impart?
a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory
Secret- does not mean mysterious, but rather that God’s wisdom is not obvious to the understanding.
The Jews searched the scriptures in their own power but completely missed the wisdom of God that was foretold and revealed in Jesus Christ.
Hidden- God has hidden his wisdom from the world. Paul will say this in 2 Corinthians that helps us understand how it has been hidden.
2 Corinthians 3:12-16 (ESV) 12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. 14 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
Paul says that God’s wisdom, secret and hidden wisdom is revealed in Christ.
Not only that, but that this was decreed by God before the ages. Literally, predestined, or determined beforehand by God in eternity past.
Why? For our glory. Those who have come to Christ and had the veil removed, those that can now understand the wisdom of God, this gift is for our glory. Not in that we elevate ourselves, but we glorify God that He has done this and furthermore, it is for our future glory when we see him face to face and experience his glory in ways that are unimaginable this side of heaven.
Paul illustrates his point that spiritual wisdom is for spiritual people by pointing to the folly of men.
1 Corinthians 2:8 (ESV) 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
In their wisdom the Jews condemned Christ to death, and in the wisdom of the Romans, they carried it out, neither realizing that the man they were putting to death was actually the Lord of glory. How foolish are the rulers of the age, they put to death the Son of God in the flesh according to their wisdom.
Don’t miss this. God chose to use the foolishness of the world to accomplish his purposes of revealing his wisdom in the cross. This is how God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, vs 20.
Paul finishes this section by highlighting from scripture that the wisdom he is talking about is greater than human wisdom. He paraphrases Isaiah 64:4.
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
Why is spiritual wisdom for the mature? Because man cannot get there objectively or subjectively.
God has prepared, speaking of the glory of experiencing God’s wisdom now and forever, he says that no eyes has seen nor ear heard.
Man’s ability to perceive, to test, to observe cannot lead them to understand God’s wisdom.
But more than that, his ability to think, rationalize, to ponder, and think (nor the heart of man imagined). Give a man three lifetimes to imagine and he would never get to the message of the cross, the gospel.
To the Corinthians, Paul says, you need to abandon human wisdom in your pursuit of following Christ because it is altogether useless, the wisdom you need, we do teach and impart, to those that can receive it, the mature in Christ.
Okay Paul, if Spiritual wisdom is not of this age, if it is beyond human experience and imagination, how do we experience it?
This brings us to our next statement.
Spiritual wisdom comes from God. (10-13)
Paul shifts in verse 10 to talking about where the wisdom they impart comes from. They, the apostles and teachers that the Corinthians are trying to elevate, also did not arrive at it from human means.
Let’s pick up in verse 10.
1 Corinthians 2:10-13 (ESV) 10 these things (the things God has prepared for us-Spiritually discerned things) God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The first point Paul makes is that the wisdom they do have, they received through the Spirit. Specifically, Paul has in mind the work of the Holy Spirit. Don’t miss this. Paul is not saying that he himself was spiritual enough to understand the wisdom of God.
Sometimes we hear this terminology thrown around. I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.
Nonsense. Because a person feels spiritual or sounds spiritual does not mean that they have the wisdom from God because the spirit of man is limited in all the ways we have already discussed.
That is why the most spiritual among men;s religions do not arrive at the truth, but rather at some form of man working his way to God.
God is the only one who knows the mind of God. So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
Paul uses an analogy from human experience to illustrate his point.
I can know things about you, I can even know things about your patterns or behavior, I can even know my wife well enough to predict her reaction in certain situations, but no matter how well I know her, I cannot ever know her thoughts. No matter how well you know me, you cannot know my thoughts, this is why we are encouraged to be long-suffering, patient, and kind towards one another. We are told to be slow to anger, slow to speak, quick to listen. I can judge your actions, but I can never know your thoughts.
This Paul says not only applies to our experience, but is true of God. If we are going to know what God is thinking, he is going to have to tell us.
How does he tell us? He gives those that are His, His Spirit. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.
So that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
Why was Paul able to teach and speak the wisdom of God? Because he had the Spirit of God.
Here we have to stop for a minute and ask some difficult questions.
If Paul knew these things because he had the Spirit of God, why did the Corinthians not know these things? Why was he having to correct and instruct them still?
Did they not receive the Spirit when they were saved?
Of course they did, Paul has already established that in his opening verses.
How about the question, if we have the same Spirit, why do we not immediately understand all there is to understand of Spiritual wisdom?
I think the key to understanding what Paul is saying here is to understand the time frame his audience is in. The Bible, as we know it, had not been written yet. These men and women did not have the opportunity to open God’s word and be instructed by it. Rather God was in the process of inspiring his written word through these men. In this interim, the church was taught by the apostles and prophets the things of God. Things they could understand because they had been indwelt by the Holy Spirit as believers, and only to the point that they had matured in Christ.
During this apostolic age, God used his Spirit filled apostles and prophets to communicate his truth to his people. This is what Paul means in verse 13. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The term interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual is a little ambiguous in the Greek.
In the ESV footnotes, it offers two additional ways to read it.
(ESV) interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language, or comparing spiritual things with spiritual
I think the best way to think about this is that Paul is both explaining where their teachings come from as well as how they can be understood.
Something like explaining to spirit-taught men, spiritual things which we ourselves are taught by the Spirit.
Paul credits both the reception and source of all of God’s teachings to the Spirit of God.
God’s wisdom, his truth, comes to us from God and is taught to us by God.
What are the implications for us today, with no apostles and prophets to teach us?
Are we lost apart from men like this to teach us? Thank God the answer is a resounding no.
Why? Because part of what God did among the first century church is raise up men to record his word.
This is what we mean when we say that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
13 And we impart this (the teachings) in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit,
What is Paul addressing here? The inspiration of the scriptures. Paul did not write in his own wisdom but rather through the power of the Spirit.
So where do we go to learn from God the things of God? His Word.
This is why, week after week, I do not stand up here and say God gave me a message for you or speak from my own wisdom or thoughts, but I stand up here, open God’s word and endeavor with all my might to help you understand it through the power of the Spirit so that the Spirit can teach you the things of God.
Spiritual wisdom does not come from having a great pastor, it does not come from having a great church, God certainly uses those things to his end, but spiritual wisdom comes from God.
It is much better for you to have a faithful pastor than a wise one, amen?
Why? Because I cannot give you Spiritual wisdom in my own abilities or knowledge, I cannot impart to you spiritual wisdom unless God first uses his word to give me Spiritual wisdom. The best I can do is take you to the place in scripture that God used to teach me and try to open it up for you, to get to the root of what it means so that God can teach you. This is why we are committed to expository preaching and it's why you should not run from a church that doesn’t regularly preach expositionally from the Bible.
The church at large would be better off if it stopped doing topical sermons designed to meet the felt needs of people, or sermon series using disney movies and just opened the Bible week after week and exposed the meaning to the people. Amen?
Why does this bother me so bad?
Because what the church desperately needs is spiritual wisdom that can only come from God, and friends, God has already spoken to us fully and finally in the living word, Jesus Christ, of which the written word is all about.
So, if spiritual wisdom is given to us by God, how do we grow in it?
So far we have seen that Spiritual Wisdom is for the mature, Spiritual wisdom is from God, and finally, our last statement this morning is…
Spiritual wisdom cannot be understood apart from the Spirit.(14-16)
We have looked at who spiritual wisdom is for and where it comes from, now we are asking, how do we walk more fully in it. Let’s pick up in verse 14 of chapter 2.
1 Corinthians 2:14-16 (ESV) 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Verse 14 has been at the forefront of my mind this week.
Paul does not say that the natural person may not accept, or probably won’t accept, he says that they do not accept the things of the Spirit of God.
He returns to a previous point he made concerning the wisdom of men, that they think the word of the cross, the gospel, that is the fundamental truth of the Spirit, is foolish to those who are perishing.
But he presses on. The natural person is not able to understand them.
The word Paul uses here translated able is understood as the power whether by virtue of one’s own ability and resources or to have power through favorable circumstances or by permission of law or custom.
To be able is to possess the power to do something, don’t miss this, by virtue of your own ability or resources. By favorable circumstances. Or by permission.
Paul joins this word with the greek word for not, implying the opposite.
The natural person does not possess the power within themselves, even if they have the most favorable circumstances that one could have, to what?
To understand, to come to know.
Paul unequivocally says the natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit of God.
He is unable.
A natural man here is one acting in accord with the fallen nature of man inherent to every human being apart from Christ.
The first implication from this truth is that we cannot simply convince someone that the gospel is the truth. You can have the best gospel presentation in the world and your ability to present the foundational truths of the Bible, your ability to articulate the gospel can be amazing and the natural man cannot understand the truth you are sharing.
I think we intuitively know this, but in practice we can and often do act contrary to it.
We say to ourselves, ‘Well if the moment is just right, I’ll finally share the gospel with them’ as though the things of the Spirit can be understood by the natural man if the moment is right.
Or we say, ‘I’m building a relationship with them first, so I can gain permission to share the gospel with them’ as though God’s wisdom is acceptable to a natural person if they trust us or see us as a friend.
Or we say, ‘If I could just get them to church or get them to my Sunday School class, they could hear the gospel from someone more knowledgeable than me’, as though the natural man’s problem is simply that they need a great presentation to understand the things of God.
That all sounds a little silly when we say it out loud, doesn’t it?
Why? Because, as I said, I think we intuitively know it.
If you don’t believe me, try this, ask someone in the church to pray for your lost friend, or your lost family member, and one of the first things they are going to say is some form of ‘God, we ask that you open John’s eyes to your truth’, or ‘we pray that you would soften Sue’s heart to your word.’ What are we asking? That God’s Spirit would act on that person in such a way that they could understand the things of God.
Why are we asking it? Because we know that the natural man cannot understand the things of God.
Why? Because they are spiritually discerned. The word discerned can be translated ‘judged’. The idea is to determine the nature of a thing. Paul says, apart from the Spirit, man cannot rightly judge the things of God to determine if they are true and good.
The second implication is that you cannot understand the things of God if you are operating in your flesh. It’s not that you cannot as in you are not able, Paul goes on to say that we have the mind of Christ, it is that you are trying to understand the things of God in your own wisdom and power.
Paul says that the spiritual person judges all things. The word judges shares the same root as the word discerned in verse 14. The person who is filled and controlled by the Spirit has the ability to rightly judge the things of God.
Here is the problem, and we will look at this more fully next week. There are times when we fail to walk in the Spirit, when we fail to make use of the wisdom available to us and try to work out these things in our own power and wisdom. We have the mind of Christ but we are not crucifying the flesh, we are not, as Paul says elsewhere, keeping in step with the Spirit.
Here is where I find encouragement, and I hope it will encourage you as well.
According to the Apostle Paul, when God gave you His Spirit, when he made his home in you, you received everything you need to rightly judge the things of God, because the Spirit of God reveals the things of God. How do we experience this wisdom?
What did Paul say in verse 6? 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom,
There is wisdom available within the inspired and infallible Word of God.
Paul, Peter, John, Luke, etc… These men wrote according to the wisdom of the Spirit given to them, with words taught by the Spirit. And what an age we live in, where everyone of us has a Bible in our own language, probably multiple ones. We have access to digital Bibles and audio Bibles, there has never been a more Bible saturated culture than the one we live in now.
Why then is the church, particularly in America, increasingly Biblically illiterate? Why do we have polls that show us an alarming number of self-professed evangelicals do not believe in some of the fundamental and historic doctrines of the faith?
If I take Paul at his word, and therefore God at his word, the only reason is because we are an increasingly immature church. The symptoms are that we are quicker to rely on what passes our intellectual tests or what sounds nice or what doesn’t offend than we are to seek God’s truth in God’s power. We are quicker to flock to churches where messages make us feel good instead of confronting us with God’s truth. We want to be entertained, not challenged.
What’s the answer?
We have to grow up, we need to mature, to press on to adulthood in Christ.
We need to get serious about our walk with Christ, which means we may have to let go of some things that are getting in our way, things that are keeping us too busy to immerse ourselves in God’s word, too busy to make gathering with the Saints our priority of the week.
For those of us with kids, we need to make sure we are placing our walk with Christ and obedience to his word at the forefront of our parenting.
Second, it may mean we have to let go of some things that we believe that were taught to us by men, according to man’s wisdom, and are not in line with Spiritual Wisdom. For some it may mean admitting, maybe for the first time, that although you have been a Christian for years, you are spiritually immature. It may mean humbling yourself before God and a mature brother or sister and just saying, walk with me in this.
For all of us, those who are immature and for those who are mature, it means immersing ourselves in the word of God. Why?
Because spiritual wisdom has come from God and can only be understood when the Spirit takes His written word and teaches us the things of God. It cannot be understood apart from the Spirit.
We have looked at three simple statements this morning summarized from these verses in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church.
Spiritual wisdom is for the mature.
Spiritual wisdom comes from God.
Spiritual wisdom cannot be understood apart from the Spirit.
If we had to sum it up this morning, here is the main idea Paul is getting at.
‘Spiritual wisdom is for spiritual people.’
What that means for you depends on where you are.
If you have never understood the things of God, if Christ crucified for you seems foolish, we are praying that God would move on you this morning, bring you to life, indwell you with his Spirit, and cause you to believe in the message of the cross.
If you belong to Christ, but you realize this morning, that you are not mature. That although you understand the gospel, the Bible and its truths are hard for you to understand, we are praying that, having realized that, you would cry out to God and ask him to teach you through his word, and then you would immerse yourself in the word of God, praying that the Spirit within you would illuminate what he inspired in the writers of the scriptures.
For all of us this morning that belong to Christ, may we leave here with a greater hunger for the things of God, may we leave here with a greater desire to walk by the Spirit, to be taught by the Spirit, and to grow in Christ all the more until the day we meet him face to face.
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