1 Cor 2:9-13 - Preaching, Parsing and Power - Part 2

9-13 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"—10 these 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.


Paul’s entire thrust in this and preceding verses is that the knowledge of God comes by revelation from God and not by the perspiration of man. We cannot think our way to God. Unless we are born of the Spirit we cannot, of ourselves, spiritually appropriate even the plain facts about Jesus Christ and the gospel accounts. We cannot believe unless God reveals His Son in us and to us. He uses facts. He uses the gospel. He employs preaching, teaching, study and other forms of witnessing. But He reveals His Son only to and in those whom He has given to the Son from eternity past.

Paul speaks of "us". When he does this he cannot be speaking of mankind in general since he has just argued that the natural man (all unregenerate people) cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. So the "us" is we who, by the grace of God, have believed. In this epistle he is mainly referring to the Corinthian believers, but the inference is that all that are in Christ have the Holy Spirit in them revealing the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way that they know whom they have believed and are persuaded of His message and His truthfulness.

So we see that it is the same Holy Spirit that is in all and through all. He inspired the gospel message in all of its stages of revelation and through all the writers of scripture - and He dwells in the hearts of all regenerate people revealing that message in a deeply spiritual way to the inner hearts of His people. We don’t know, we don’t believe because we are wise or obedient and humble - we are wise and obedient and humble (to whatever extent that may be true) because we have been granted faith to believe.

Now, the gospel is the reason for the creation. By this I mean that redemption is no afterthought. God decreed the fall and He purposed the redemption before ever a star twinkled in the infinity of the universe. His secret decrees included those who would be saved in Christ by the grace and mercy of God alone, and those who would be passed over and left to the consequences of their willing sin. The Bible teaches this so that we may know it - but it does not tell us the secret things, such as which people are elect and which are not. We are told the preceptive will of God. {De 29:29}

But, while God is infinitely deep and therefore infinitely beyond our full comprehension, His infinite Spirit knows all of those depths and is able to communicate to our souls much more than we are capable of receiving. God can fill us with new things about Himself eternally and we shall never come to the end of learning more about Him. That is at once both frightening and joyous information. And it is information that not only confirms to us in our deepest hearts that we belong to Him, but is vital as a precondition for that knowledge to become reality to us.

Verse 12 confirms this. And it points out once more that there are two spirits at work in men; the spirit of the world (driven by many spirits, and by the prince of the fallen spirit himself) and the Holy Spirit (the Spirit Who is from God - not which is from God). The Bible is constantly drawing lines and men are constantly trying to erase or to smudge them. God does no leave any one that luxury. In love He is constantly making the distinctions and showing the exclusivity of the kingdom by warning and by speaking in contrasts. Heaven or hell. Lost or saved. In or out. Of the devil or of God. The spirit of the world or the Holy Spirit. Whole chapters in Leviticus are given over to establishing the principle of exclusivity - separation - purity - holiness. We are called to a holiness without which no one shall see God.

It is indeed in Christ that we find and abide in this holiness, but it is not apart from the means God has decreed by which we are found and kept there. And those means are the preaching and teaching of the whole counsel of God - from the Word, in the Spirit - so that His true sheep will both hear and heed His voice.

So the "we" who impart the wisdom of God is first the Apostle, but also all Christians who have received the love of the truth by the Holy Spirit. And I hope it is plain by now that we are the vessels, the conduits, the means by which God the Holy Spirit works to propagate Christ in the Word, just the same as He did when we received Christ. He is there in the transmitter (in the preacher) and in receiver (in the hearer). If the Word is preached then God did it through men. If the Word is received, then God did it through men. God is the mover of history through providence and of the hearts of men by His Spirit. And men have a duty to willingly do what God is doing.

Christ did this perfectly. He always did what the Father was doing and said what the Father was saying. Christians do this far less perfectly, but they desire to be found in the will of God. Unbelievers do the will of God unwillingly - or shall we say "unwittingly". Do we see yet for ourselves that it is God and God alone to whom all glory belongs because He is the Author and Perfecter of our faith? Do we grant that He is in all and through all and that all things are from Him and to Him and for Him? Do we see that we are included only by His grace? I hope it is so for me.