Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 2:11-16, 1 Cor. 2:7, 10
God’s intention is to make man His expression. In order to accomplish this, God desires to come into man to be his life so that man may live Him out. For this, God became a man through incarnation. Eventually Christ, God incarnate, died on the cross. Through His crucifixion He terminated the entire old creation. Hence, Christ’s crucifixion involved not only the death of the Lord Jesus, but the termination of everything of the old creation. By means of this all-inclusive death, the divine life, which is actually God Himself, was released and imparted to God’s predestinated, redeemed, and called people. By believing in the crucified and resurrected Christ, they have received the divine life and the divine Spirit. God’s expectation is that they will now live by this life and walk by this Spirit. This is to live Christ for the expression of God. Furthermore, such a living should not be individualistic; on the contrary, it should be corporate. Thus, God desires that His people be built together into His habitation, the Body of Christ. This is God’s intention.
The believers at Corinth, most of whom were Greeks, received the initial gifts, the divine life and the divine Spirit. But after receiving these gifts, they did not live by them. They did not live by the divine life or walk by the divine Spirit. As a result, they did not live Christ. They failed to take Christ as their life, their content, and their everything. Instead, they remained in their Greek culture and exulted in their wisdom and philosophy. This was their situation at the time Paul wrote this Epistle to them.
In writing to the Corinthians Paul seemed to be saying, “You believers there in Corinth should drop your Greek culture, wisdom, and philosophy. Instead of being Greeks, you should now be Christians. You should no longer live your Greek culture, exult in your philosophy, and boast in your wisdom. You have received Christ, and God has put you into Christ. Now that God has made you Christians, you should take Christ as your life, content, and everything, and you should live Christ. Furthermore, this Christ is God’s wisdom. Greek wisdom is shallow, and it is foolishness in the sight of God. But God’s wisdom, the genuine wisdom, is deep and mysterious. It is far beyond philosophical people to comprehend this wisdom, for it is a wisdom hidden in God and is even the depths of God. This wisdom, the depths of God, is the very Christ in whom you have believed and whom you have received. I urge you to exalt this Christ, take Him as your life and everything, and live Him.” If we understand this underlying concept, it will be much easier for us to understand the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians.
Both Catholicism and Protestantism have departed from the revelation of Christ in these chapters. Catholicism has assimilated many pagan, demonic, satanic, and devilish things. The practice of Catholicism is to take in and absorb heathenism and paganism. This is documented in the book The Two Babylons and in the writings of G. H. Pember. Protestantism has followed the practice of adapting to local culture. As long as the elements of a culture are not sinful or idolatrous, they will be taken in by Protestantism. For example, in China many Protestant missionaries adopted Chinese ethics, and in India, they followed certain aspects of Indian culture. As a result, the so-called church in China and in India became a cultural mixture. In China I saw that the missionaries were happy when the Chinese adopted western culture. The missionaries were also willing to take in the local culture. Therefore, Christianity in China became a mixture of Chinese culture and western culture. Apparently such a mixture is not as demonic or satanic as the paganism in Catholicism. In principle, however, both are the same, for both preach Christ, but do not help people to live Christ, to take Him as their life, living, content, and everything.
What kind of living did you have when you were in organized Christianity? Instead of living Christ, did you not live according to your culture? Surely no one taught you to live Christ, to take Christ as your life and content. Did anyone tell you to breathe Christ, drink Christ, and eat Christ? All this is foreign to most of today’s Christians.
In principle, the situation among believers today is the same as that among the believers in Corinth. The Corinthian believers received Christ, but they did not live Him. They did not have the concept that Christ should be their life, their living, and their content. Instead, their thoughts were focused on Greek culture, wisdom, and philosophy. Furthermore, they exulted in their wisdom and boasted in their philosophy. This caused them to think differently from one another and to have different preferences. Some preferred Paul, others preferred Cephas, and still others preferred Apollos. As a result, they were divided. This division was the root of the evil and confusion among them.
The situation among Christians today is the same as that of the church at Corinth. Therefore, all Christians, including us, need this Epistle. We need to be helped by this book to drop everything other than Christ. No matter what your culture or nationality may be, you need to drop it. We all must forsake our culture, philosophy, ethics, and traditions and center on Christ as our unique portion.
Most of those believers who are baptized into a particular denomination are shaped, not according to Christ or the Bible, but according to that denomination. They speak and behave according to that particular denomination. Now that we are in the church life in the Lord’s recovery, we should not be shaped by something other than Christ. We should have only Christ, not traditions or regulations. For example, there is a difference between a sister who does not wear makeup because she shapes herself according to the recovery and a sister who does not wear makeup because she lives Christ by walking in the spirit and calling on Him. Likewise, a brother may give up smoking because he is trying to conform himself to the practices of the recovery, or he may do so because he lives Christ and no longer has any desire to smoke. Instead of shaping ourselves according to the recovery, we should simply live Christ.
It is very common among Christians to have many things in place of Christ. Believers may have ethics, morality, culture, philosophy, doctrine, and tradition instead of Christ. In a very real sense, today’s Christianity is Christless. Among Christians almost anything can become a substitute for Christ.
The underlying concept of 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 is that we must drop everything except Christ. When Paul came to Corinth and preached Christ, he determined not to know anything among them except Jesus Christ and this One crucified. This indicates clearly that he forsook everything except Christ. As we read 1 Corinthians, we need to be deeply impressed with this underlying thought. We need to see that we must drop everything but Christ and genuinely take Christ as everything to us. Christ truly is all-inclusive; He is everything, even the depths of God.
In 2:11 Paul says, “For who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him? So also the things of God no one has known except the Spirit of God.” The spirit of man is the deepest part of his being. Its faculty can penetrate the innermost region of the things of man, whereas the mind of man is capable only of knowing superficial things. So also, only the Spirit of God can know the deep things of God.
The Greeks were famous for gymnastics and philosophy. Gymnastics were for the training and development of the body, and philosophy was for the development of the mind. Today there is also a strong emphasis on developing the body and the mind. The spirit, however, is altogether neglected. When we mention the spirit, some do not understand what we are talking about. To them the spirit denotes a demon or phantom. Even many Christians do not know the difference between the human spirit and the soul. Many Christians believe in dichotomy — the teaching that man is of two parts, body and soul — and only a minority follow the Bible to believe in trichotomy — the truth that man has three parts, spirit, soul, and body. The believers at Corinth knew how to exercise the body and the mind, but they were ignorant concerning the human spirit. Thus, in verse 11 Paul teaches them about the spirit and says that the spirit of man knows the things of a man. Those who do not exercise the human spirit cannot fully know the things of man. Just as only the spirit of man knows the things of man, so only the Spirit of God knows the things of God.
In verse 12 Paul continues, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things which have been freely given to us by God.” As those who have been born of God by His Spirit, we have received the Spirit of God. Hence, we are well able to know the deep things of God which He has freely given to us for our enjoyment.
Paul wanted the believers at Corinth to know that, as human beings, they had a spirit to know the things of man, and that, as believers in Christ, they had received the Spirit of God to know the things freely given by God. The Christians there lacked the proper knowledge of these two spirits. They had a keen mind and a strong soul, but they did not realize that they had a human spirit. Furthermore, they neglected the Spirit of God whom they had received. Thus, in verses 11 and 12 Paul reminds them of these spirits. He points out that they have a human spirit within them and that they have received the Spirit from God to know the things freely given by God. According to verse 9, these are the things prepared by God and ordained by Him. All these things are related to Christ. In order to know these things, the Corinthians had to pay attention to their human spirit and to the Spirit of God.
Referring to the things given to us by God, Paul goes on to say in verse 13, “Which also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, communicating spiritual things by spiritual things.” The Greek word rendered communicating literally means mixing or putting together, as interpreting or expounding. It is common in the Septuagint, found in verses such as Genesis 40:8; 41:12, 15. The thought here is to speak spiritual things by spiritual words. The stress is not on the person to whom the speaking is done, but rather on the means by which the spiritual things are spoken. The apostle speaks the spiritual things, which are the deep things of God concerning Christ, by the spiritual things, which are the spiritual words taught by the Spirit.
Paul says that he did not speak the spiritual things in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit. This means that he did not speak in the words of Greek philosophy or wisdom. Rather, he communicated spiritual things by spiritual words. In this verse, Paul uses the same term with two meanings. First, spiritual things refers to the spiritual things themselves, the deep things of God concerning Christ. Second, the expression refers to spiritual words. Spiritual things are designated by spiritual words. These spiritual words are spiritual things used to designate spiritual things. For example, the word table denotes an object called a table. Because the word table is a designation of an actual table, we should not regard the word as one thing and the table as another. The speaking that is according to Greek wisdom is not spiritual. But the words taught by the Spirit of God are truly spiritual things. Thus, spiritual things are both the things given to us by God concerning Christ as our portion and also the words taught by the Spirit of God. Like Paul, we need to speak spiritual things by spiritual things.
The believers at Corinth talked about Christ not in spiritual words, but in the words of Greek philosophy and wisdom. As a result, they impressed others with philosophy, not with Christ. Paul, however, did not use philosophical terms when he spoke concerning Christ. Instead, he spoke spiritual things by spiritual things. He used spiritual words which are equal to the spiritual things themselves. In verse 13 Paul seems to be saying to the Corinthians, “I cannot use words of Greek wisdom to communicate spiritual things. These are words taught by man’s wisdom. As such, they are not spiritual things, and they are of no avail in communicating spiritual things. If I used the wisdom of words admired by you Greeks, I would not be able to speak spiritual things to you.”
We all should learn from Paul not to try to speak in the common expressions of the people. This means that we should not lower the standard of our preaching to the standard of common human expression. Ordinary human expression is not adequate to convey spiritual things. As soon as we depart from the standard of Spirit-taught language to the words taught by human wisdom, we shall no longer be able to convey spiritual things to others. For this reason, in my speaking and writing I endeavor to remain in the words taught by the Spirit.
We must resist the temptation to lower the spiritual standard. Instead, we must seek to bring others up to this standard. Having seen the vision of God’s economy, we must maintain the standard of this vision, even when others encourage us to come down to their level with the claim that they cannot understand what we say. This kind of demand has come to me many times and from many different directions. Nevertheless, I refuse to descend to the level of human wisdom. On the contrary, I encourage others, by God’s mercy, to come up to His standard. We simply cannot communicate spiritual things by means of Greek philosophy, Chinese ethics, or with the expressions common to American culture. Spiritual things can be communicated only by spiritual things, that is, by spiritual words. This is an important lesson for us to learn.
Those who translated the Bible into Chinese learned the importance of using spiritual words to communicate spiritual things. For example, the New Testament often uses the expression “in Christ.” However, in the Chinese language there was no way to express the fact that one person could be in another person. The translators did not change the expression “in Christ.” They did not try to adapt to the limitations of the Chinese language in this matter. Instead, they invented a new Chinese expression to convey the thought of being in Christ. Later, this expression became popular in the spoken Chinese language. This illustrates the fact that if we communicate spiritual things by spiritual words, others will eventually learn and come up to God’s standard.
Verse 14 says, “But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Verse 13 stresses the spiritual means, that is, the spiritual words by which the spiritual things are spoken. Verses 14 and 15 stress the spiritual object, that is, a spiritual man, not a soulish one, who is able to discern the spiritual things. Both the means and the object need to be spiritual. The spiritual things must be spoken by the spiritual words to the spiritual man.
A soulish man is a natural man, one living in his soul, not in his spirit. Such a man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Rather, he rejects them. The religious Jews who required signs and the philosophical Greeks who sought wisdom (1:22) were such natural men, to whom the things of the Spirit of God were foolishness (1:23).
The things of the Spirit of God in verse 14 refer to the deep things of God concerning Christ as our portion. A soulish man cannot know these things, for he does not have the constitutional capacity for spiritual perception. Hence, he is not able to know spiritual things. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, examined, and investigated by spiritual persons with spiritual means.
According to the context of 1 Corinthians, a soulish man is one who lives according to Greek culture. In principle, those who live according to their culture are soulish. If a Chinese believer lives according to Chinese ethics, he is soulish. Likewise, if an American brother lives according to modern American culture, he also is a soulish man. Hence, a soulish man is a person who lives in his culture.
In verse 14 Paul emphasizes the fact that the things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned. If we would discern spiritual things, we must know that we have a spirit. Then we need to realize that the Spirit of God dwells in our spirit and go on to exercise our spirit to discern spiritual things in a spiritual way.
In verse 15 Paul says, “But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he is discerned by no one.” To be spiritual is to move, act, and live in our spirit by the Spirit of God, who dwells in our spirit. Those who do not exercise the spirit have no way to discern a spiritual man. Just as a cow has no appreciation of good music, so a soulish person cannot discern a spiritual person. Today many Christians can be compared to cows listening to music: they have no appreciation or discernment of what they hear. These Christians can readily understand worldly things or natural things, but they are not able to discern spiritual things or spiritual people.
Verse 16 is a conclusion to this portion of 1 Corinthians: “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Who will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” Because we are organically one with Christ, we have all the faculties He has. The mind is the intelligence faculty, the understanding organ. We have such an organ of Christ so we can know what He knows. We have not only the life of Christ but also His mind. Christ must saturate our mind from our spirit, making our mind one with His. When we are one with Christ, His mind becomes our mind. This should not merely be a doctrine to us; it must be both our experience and our practice.
