I Corinthians 2:1-10
Intro - 2:1-5
In 2:1–5 Paul describes the content, the manner, and the results of his preaching during the time of the establishment of the Corinthian church.
Having shown that God’s wisdom upends human wisdom in the proclamation of a crucified Messiah (1:18–25)
Which is further illustrated in God’s choice of the foolish and insignificant things of the world (1:26–31)
Paul now describes his own ministry among them as a ministry that exemplified the wisdom of God (2:1–5).
The Result of Paul’s Preaching (2:1-5)
1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
Testimony
Some critical Greek translations have it as “mystery of God”
The mystery is truth revealed by God, not truth discovered by human investigation and argument. Humans do not find this truth; it finds them.
Lofty speech or wisdom
What Paul rejects is self-presentation and haughty speech
His manner of preaching did not conform to a desire to win the approval of his audience, nor was it based on the schemes of human intelligence.
Both empty the cross of its effectiveness
The gospel always points beyond humans to God and Christ and becomes garbled whenever humans exploit it instead to headline themselves as its stars.
2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Paul wanted to be sure their faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
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.
Weakness, fear, and trembling
By using the term “weakness” Paul numbers himself among the “weak things of the world” chosen by God in order to shame the strong” (1:28; recall also 1:25)
“Fear and trembling” may have little to do with human circumstances of peril and more to do with Paul’s demeanor in carrying out his apostolic commission.
In Phil 2:12 Paul exhorted the believers in Philippi to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
Power of God
Mere intellectual persuasion does not save people.
Faith, then, was induced by a demonstration of the Spirit’s power and not by human thought or wisdom
Intro - 2:6-10
Here Paul expands on the hidden nature of God’s wisdom in relation to this age (2:6–9) and in connection to the Spirit (2:10–16)
Simply stated, the wisdom of God cannot be known unless God makes it known.
More specifically, God’s wisdom is revealed through the Spirit, who searches the deep things of God (2:10).
God’s wisdom is not a matter of human intelligence or discovery but rather of divine disclosure.
God’s Wisdom Through His Spirit (2:6-10)
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.
Wisdom
Paul does not mean that God puts a premium on ignorance and rejects wisdom of any sort.
There was a wisdom taught by the Spirit which Paul wanted his readers to grasp firmly.
Some of his readers had done so (no doubt Paul hoped that someday all would do so).
He referred to them as the mature, probably including the individuals mentioned in 16:15–18.
They are the same people he described as spiritual people (2:13, 15).
Rulers of this age
Probably a reference to such earthly rulers as the Jewish chief priests and the Roman procurator Pilate who sentenced Jesus to die (see v. 8), but by analogy it also includes all rulers who do not believe in Jesus.
Also the demonic forces of evil
7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
Secret and Hidden
The message which Paul proclaimed was God’s secret wisdom, known only by God’s revelation (Matt. 11:25).
Wisdom of God
This “wisdom of God” is centered in Christ and includes all of God’s plans for the history of salvation from before the ages (“before the foundation of the world,” Eph. 1:4) to the unending future of eternity (1 Cor. 2:9; Rev. 11:15; 22:5).
It includes everything Paul preaches, “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).
First, God’s wisdom is “hidden in mystery.”
“Mystery,” is a common Pauline term used to describe something previously unknown but now disclosed by revelation.
God’s mystery is not a riddle that men can solve but rather a secret that the human mind by itself is wholly unable to penetrate.
God’s wisdom remains hidden until he chooses to disclose it.
As 2:9–10 clarifies, God’s wisdom is known to those who love God by revelation from the Spirit.
Second, God’s wisdom was predestined before the ages for our glory (2:7b), that is, God purposed before the ages to bring his people to glory through the wisdom of Christ crucified.
In 2:7b, Paul’s perspective is vast, taking into account what God determined “before the ages” all the way to the consummation of 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.
The reason the rulers of this age (cf. 1:20) did not understand this wisdom was because they lacked the Spirit (2:14), and thus were coming to nothing.
That the rulers did not know God’s secret is demonstrated in the crucifixion (see Acts 3:17; 4:25–28; Luke 23:34) of Jesus, the “Lord of glory,” a title applied to Christ by Paul only here.
In referring to “our glory” and Jesus as the “Lord of glory,” Paul implicitly connects the destination of God’s people with Jesus.
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”—
The blessings of salvation were prepared by the Father, carried out by the Son, and applied by the Spirit (Eph. 1:3–14) to all believers who as a result love God (1 John 4:19).
The citation emphasizes the hiddenness of God’s plans and the incapacity of humans to know them, which sets up the emphasis on the revelation of the Spirit to follow in the succeeding verses (2:10–13).
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
These things
Relating to verse 9
The only way the Corinthians could know this was by the Spirit, who knows and reveals these deep things of God about salvation.
God has revealed
The fact that God has revealed his plan to us through the Spirit once again strikes at any notion of boasting or self-sufficiency, which is critical to Paul’s overall argument (recall 1:29–31).
The context supplies that Paul is speaking of God’s plan of salvation in Christ crucified
Searches everything
And the Spirit searches all things, which means, not that he conducts searches with a view to obtaining information, but that he penetrates all things.
There is nothing beyond his knowledge.
Depths of God
In particular Paul specifies the deep things of God.
Deep is often used of the mighty depths of the sea, and thus comes to mean the ‘unfathomable’.
It is impossible for any creature to know the innermost depths of the divine counsel, ‘the depths of God’.
But they are known to the Spirit, the Spirit who has revealed the truths of which Paul speaks.
Bible References on Mystery, Spirit, and Things Revealed
Col 1:24–28; Eph 3:8–13; 17-18, Rom 8:27; 11:33, Dan 2:19–23,