1 Corinthians 2.6-16.
Paul and Sosthenes start 1 Corinthians by talking about how they didn’t present the gospel of Christ Jesus with clever, wise reasoning, but with supernatural demonstrations of power.
But this is not to dismiss wisdom! It’s important. It’s just the kind of wisdom they’re talking about comes from the Holy Spirit, and in ancient Corinth, the only kind of wisdom the Corinthians knew about was Greek philosophy. Which, let’s be honest, is kinda clever in a lot of ways. But when the Greeks speculated about what God is like, they got him way wrong. The Greeks, particularly Plato of Athens, were into determinism big-time. There was a whole lot of speculation about the secret will of God or the gods. Stuff that’s actually leaked into Christianity, heavily influenced by former neo-Platonists like Augustine, and of course Augustine fans like Jean Calvin. Determinism has corrupted many a Christian’s concept of God, and kinda makes him out to be evil—if everything that happens was all pre-determined by God, there’s an awful lot of evil baked into the plan, isn’t there?
Proper wisdom, godly wisdom, comes from God himself. Namely the Holy Spirit, who is God, who’s come to live within every Christian and steer us right… provided we listen to him. You wanna know the deep things of God? Start listening to the Spirit!
- 1 Corinthians 2.6-16 KWL
- 6We speak of a comprehensive wisdom;
- a wisdom not of this age,
- nor of the rulers of this age; it’s meaningless.
- 7But we speak of God’s wisdom,
- previously hidden in a mystery,
- which God pre-decided before the ages
- for our glory.
- 8Which none of the rulers of this age knew,
- for if they knew,
- they wouldn’t have crucified the glorious Master.
- 9But just as it was written,
- “What eye doesn’t see and ear doesn’t hear,” Is 64.4
- and doesn’t enter the human heart—
- what God prepares for those who love him.
- 10God, through the Spirit, revealed them to us,
- for the Spirit explores everything;
- God’s depths as well.
- 11For who comprehends about humans,
- and things about humans,
- if not the spirit of a human that’s within them?
- Thus also God-stuff—
- nobody knows it but God’s Spirit.
- 12It’s not the world’s spirit we accept,
- but the Spirit who’s from God,
- so that we might have known
- the things from God which he gives us.
- 13We also speak of God-stuff—
- not in human teachings or wise lessons,
- but in Spirit-teachings,
- comparing Spirit-stuff to Spirit-stuff.
- 14A soulish person doesn’t accept the things of God’s Spirit,
- for it’s “moronic” to them,
- and they can’t understand it
- because it’s discerned through the Spirit.
- 15A Spiritual person discerns everything
- —and is discerned by no one.
- 16For “Who knows God’s mind? Who can advise him?” Is 40.13
- We have Christ’s mind.
Having the mind of Christ.
That last statement in verse 16, “We have Christ’s mind,” is a profoundly radical statement. Who understands God? Well, Christ Jesus. Jn 1.18 And if the same Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus lives within us, we can understand God. Same as Jesus.
Okay, if Christians have the mind of Christ, why on earth do we split into a thousand denominations and fight each other? Why are some of us utter dicks? Why are there Christians in different political parties, if we’re of one mind like the apostles tell us to be? 1Co 1.11 Why don’t we love one another like Jesus commands? Well obviously we don’t all listen to the Holy Spirit. He’s there, waiting to be heard and followed, waiting to grow good fruit in us. And a lot of us are just keeping him waiting.
In verse 14 the apostles refer to “a soulish person.” That’s my rather literal translation of ψυχικὸς/psyhikós, “of the soul” (KJV “the natural man”), or “of life,” since a soul is one’s lifeforce. A soulish person is someone who isn’t using their mind, isn’t following Jesus, but following their gut. They act on impulse; we might say instinct, but some of these “instincts” are actually learned behaviors. The mind is an afterthought—they use it to rationalize all the stuff they choose to do. Act first, think later.
And that’s most people. Including Christians. Including Christians who actually follow the Holy Spirit! Y’see, we’re meant to follow him so carefully and so often, his fruit becomes our knee-jerk reactions. Instead of doing fleshly, selfish things like every other human, we startle other people—and ourselves!—by doing good. Our first response is to forgive, not seek revenge. Is to be kind, not rude. Is to be patient, not demanding. When you see people respond this way in a crisis, it’s because they’ve been conditioned by the Spirit to do as he wants… because left to our own devices, we humans’ll usually make things worse.
Problem is, a lot of Christians are still soulish. They assume when they became Christian, when they received the Holy Spirit, they automatically received Jesus’s divine nature… so they’re good now! The Spirit’s fruit just spontaneously pours out of ’em. They have Christ’s mind; everything they now think is righteous and holy and perfect. And how dare we tell them different; we must be the problem.
Obviously they’ve not changed at all, and have simply slapped Christian labels onto all their pagan thinking and bad fruit. It’s why you see so many of them balk when they hear the Sermon on the Mount: “Well those are nice ideals, but come on; we’re not actually meant to live that way. Not in our society. That’s for the future kingdom of God, after Jesus returns; not today.” No; Jesus legitimately wants his followers to live like that right now. But they don’t wanna live like that, so they don’t, and justify it, and claim they have “the mind of Christ” so it’s okay that they’re willfully disobeying our Lord.
You’ll know these folks by their fruits. Christians who legitimately have Christ’s mind, produce the Spirit’s fruit, have good character, and aren’t jerks. Christians who don’t are soulish and fleshly. Spirit-stuff makes little sense to them, for their “spiritual” life is not a capital-S Spiritual life; the Holy Spirit isn’t part of it.
Divine revelation.
This Spirit-stuff is the “comprehensive wisdom” of verse 6, the “God’s wisdom” of verse 7. Stuff we humans couldn’t figure out on our own; if we could, like the apostles point out, we wouldn’t have killed Jesus! 1Co 2.8 We can’t deduce it from nature. It has to be revealed by the Holy Spirit. And before Christians were granted the Spirit, it was a mystery; no human knew it; nobody figured it out. We got hints from the prophets in the Old Testament, which is why the apostles can quote bible to support their points. But even the prophets hadn’t figured it out!
As Isaiah had put it, and the apostles quoted:
- Isaiah 64.4 KJV
- For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
It’s really good stuff which God has prepared for us, but humanity was clueless. And many Christians are still kinda clueless, which is why they still pursue the world’s wisdom and approval instead of following the Spirit. Why they still adopt human philosophies and try to Christianize them, instead of recognizing the inherent selfishness in much of it, ditching it, and following Jesus.
As for the other Isaiah quote, I’ll have to use a translation of the Septuagint:
- Isaiah 40.13-14 SAAS
- 13Who knows the Lord’s mind, and who was His counselor; who advises Him? 14Or with whom does He take counsel, who instructs Him, and who teaches Him judgment and shows Him the way of understanding?
The original Hebrew has to do with advising the Spirit of the LORD, and how ridiculous it is to imagine we can teach him anything. The Greek translation does too. But those particular words, τίς ἔγνω νοῦν κυρίου/tis égno nun Kyríu? “Who knows the Lord’s mind?” is what the apostles were zeroing in on, and kinda taking it outside its context a bit, in order to make the bigger point: The Holy Spirit has his mind. As does Christ Jesus. And we have the Spirit. So if you want full access to the mind of God, here he is.
