Wisdom Hidden from the Rulers

“Yet a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing” (1 Corinthians 2:6). The word of the holy teachers of the mysteries goes forth in lowly speech, yet it plants in us an unadulterated knowledge of the divine mysteries. It shows that Christ is wisdom, not through the fine speech of the world’s wise men, but as he is attested by his own nature. None of the rulers of this age knew him (1 Corinthians 2:8). These rulers are the evil and hostile powers, who have spoken through the wise men of the world.

“For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). The saying is very reasonable. For by his own cross Christ triumphed over the evil and hostile powers, nailing to the wood “the bond written against us” (Colossians 2:14–15). He drove Satan away from his tyranny over us, abolished the sin of the world, opened the gates of Hades to the spirits below, and pulled down the power of death. How, then, could the suffering on the cross be anything but hateful to the unclean demons? So they would not have crucified him, had they known for certain that he was the Redeemer and the Lord of glory.

That the crucifixion of Christ, carried out through the madness of the Jews, was the work of the devil’s savagery, the inspired John showed plainly when he said of Judas, “After the morsel, Satan entered into him” (John 13:27). Satan did not know that Jesus was God. For if he had known and been convinced of it, how could he have tempted him in the desert, saying, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread” (Matthew 4:3)? And the Savior himself, as all agree, took care to escape the notice of the rulers of this age, so that, unnoticed, he might suffer, and by his own blood win for himself and for his own Father all that lies under heaven.

“Even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). The depths of God are the hidden knowledge laid up in the sacred writings. The Spirit knows it and reveals it to the souls of the saints, and makes the mind within them a divine mind.

“The natural man” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The natural man is the one who lives according to the flesh and has not yet had his mind enlightened through the Spirit. He has only the inborn, human understanding which the Creator puts into the souls of all.

“But the spiritual man judges all things” (1 Corinthians 2:15). The spiritual man judges all things and, so to speak, sifts them finely with exact care, but he himself is judged by no one. That those called natural need spiritual teachers, by all means, for their benefit and training, Paul makes plain by adding, “For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?” (1 Corinthians 2:16; Isaiah 40:13). It is as if he said: No one could instruct the natural man unless he had the mind of Christ. By “instruct” he means “prepare him to understand.” And who are those that have the mind of the Lord? He showed this himself when he went on, “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), that is, the Spirit who speaks in the saints, unveils mysteries to them, and makes the mind within them a divine mind.

So, although the saints could have understood and spoken things better and loftier than what they wrote, they wisely measured their teaching to the state of those they were leading into the mysteries.

“And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of the flesh, as to infants in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1). It was not for want of a word strong enough to raise you to perfect knowledge that I was kept from speaking to you of the more perfect things. It was because you are infants in your condition and have an unsteady mind, one that has not yet advanced to the knowledge of the more perfect things and cannot yet take in mysteries.

“I planted” (1 Corinthians 3:6). Paul planted, Apollos watered, and God called them to growth. What, then, is the planting, if not what belongs to the beginning of faith: to acknowledge and to say that God is the Lord of all? And what is the watering, if not the sowing and pouring in, as it were, of the words that come from teaching, which nourish the believer’s mind to strength so that it may also prove fruitful?