1 Corinthians ~ Part 5

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As I mentioned in my last post, we continue to explore Sha’ul’s Letters to the Corinthians.

Regarding Divisions within the Congregation ~ Part 4

Wisdom from the Ruach

Sha’ul argues that the Ruach is necessary to understand God’s wisdom since it cannot be perceived through human nature. Sha’ul wants the Corinthians to recognize their need for true wisdom from God’s Ruach before he resumes his appeal for unity beginning in 3:1.

⁶ Yet there is a wisdom that we are speaking to those who are mature enough for it. But it is not the wisdom of this world or of this world’s leaders who are in the process of passing away.

The mature. The Greek word used here, teleios, refers to those who understand and conform to the message of Yeshua. Sha’ul also may be applying the term ironically to the Corinthian Believers, who considered themselves to be highly spiritual when, in fact, they were immature in the faith.

⁷ On the contrary, we are communicating a secret wisdom from God which has been hidden until now but which, before history began, God had decreed would bring us glory.

Secret wisdom means it is not plain to the person looking for an understanding of the world, themselves, and others. Rather, it can be understood only through revelation from God’s Ruach.

⁸ Not one of this world’s leaders has understood it because if they had, they would not have executed the Lord from whom this glory flows.

This world’s leaders, including both the Jewish and the Roman individuals who had a part in putting Yeshua to death.

⁹ But, as the Tanakh says,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard

and no one’s heart has imagined

all the things that God has prepared

for those who love him.” ^[1]

¹⁰ It is to us, however, that God has revealed these things. How? Through the Ruach. For the Ruach probes all things, even the profoundest depths of God.

Depths of God refers to the deepest wisdom that God’s Ruach reveals to Believers. This highest wisdom, as understood from the previous context and throughout the letter, is Yeshua HaMashiach, the Lord of Glory, “and Him crucified.”

¹¹ For who knows the inner workings of a person except the person’s own Ruach inside him? So, too, no one knows the inner workings of God except God’s Ruach. ¹² Now we have not received the Ruach of the world but the Ruach of God, so that we might understand the things God has so freely given us.

Ruach of the world. God’s Rauch is not like the Ruach of people or anything that can be comprehended, computed, or reasoned in this world. While God’s work is eternal, everything in this world is temporal – including current rulers and evil spiritual beings.

 

 

¹³ These are the things we are talking about when we avoid the manner of speaking that human wisdom would dictate and instead use a manner of speaking taught by the Ruach, by which we explain things of the Ruach to people who have the Ruach.

Without God’s help through the Ruach (v. 12), people lack the ability to understand His plans or work.

Wisdom for the Spiritually Minded

¹⁴ Now the natural man does not receive the things from the Ruach of God – to him, they are nonsense! Moreover, he is unable to grasp them because they are evaluated through the Ruach.

The natural man is identified as a person who does not have the Ruach from God; therefore, he does not welcome what comes from God’s Ruach. He is not able to know the Gospel that “comes from God’s Ruach” because he considers it nonsense. It is the Ruach who convicts and reveals.

¹⁵ But the person who has the Ruach can evaluate everything, while no one is in a position to evaluate him.

The spiritual person can discern everything with respect to this wisdom, yet he himself is examined by no one. The spiritual person’s discernment is an understanding of the deep things of God freely given to the Believer. The “spiritual person” is examined by the Lord as a Judge to determine how faithful he has been in living and proclaiming the Gospel.

¹⁶ For who has known the mind of Adonai?

Who will counsel him? ^[2]

But we have the mind of the Messiah ^[3]

Sha’ul validated his statement in verse 15 by appealing to Isaiah 40:13. When the “spiritual person” is scrutinized by “the natural man” with respect to spiritual things, the natural man does not have the capability to instruct those who have the mind of Messiah. Sha’ul’s point from Yesha’yahu is that no natural man can instruct the Lord with respect to God’s deep things.

In our next post, we will continue to explore Sha’ul’s Letters to the Corinthians beginning in 1 Corinthians 3:1.

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^[1] Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) 52:15, 64:4.

^[2] Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) 40:13

^[3] 1 Corinthians 2:6–16.