The Mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:6-16)

What do we really need anyways? It is the age of information. All kinds of information are being flooded and inundated through media at the speed of light. But not all is genuine. There are a lot of twisted and faked information stimulated by the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age. Just watch media commercials! What futile and empty claims they are! What we really shall hear is a message of wisdom from God. 

“We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.” (1 Corinthians 2:6-7)

So, Paul is saying that he spoke a message of wisdom from God among the mature. Yes, only the mature in Christ can hear for it is unpopular and disliked by the wise and learned of world. What the world wants to hear is the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. People love to hear the philosophy and wisdom of the world. It’s called itching ears. “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3) Those popular wisdom and philosophy are marked with very high price, although they come to nothing soon or later.

But what Paul preached is God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. The mystery of God can be understood by the mature. God is always pleased to hide the mysteries and to reveal them to the mature. Our Lord Jesus says so, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” (Matthew 11:25) The self-righteous and proud cannot understand it for God has blinded the hearts of those who say they are wise and learned enough so they don’t need it. Paul puts it in a plain language in Romans Chapter 1.

”For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.” (Romans 1:21-23)

On the other hand, our God is pleased to reveal the mystery of truth to little children who humbly accept their complete inadequacy and shortage in the sight of Holy One. Those hearts and minds are poor in spirit to whom God is willing to pour out His confidence and adequacy by letting them to have the kingdom of heaven. But the rulers of this age cannot understand the mystery of God. That’s why they crucified the Lord of glory, the blessed Christ of God.

“None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Corinthians 2:8)

It has been prophesied by the Prophet Isaiah and fulfilled in our hearings. 

However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,

what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived” —

the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)

These things can only be revealed by the Spirit of God for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. It’s the supernatural and divine act of God which no human can do. Anyone who claims to do is a liar. The truth of God is not coming from earth but from heaven. No human mind can be known and understood the mystery of God unless otherwise it is made known by the Maker. It is also true that the mystery of God is what our humanity desperately need to be fully known and understood to fulfill our lives.

The mystery of God has been revealed in the Son Christ Jesus. In the Son God has manifested the full and perfect revelation of the mysteries of God, especially in the cross of Calvary. “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” (Galatians 4:4-7)

Paul says that he determined to preach Christ and Him crucified who is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but for those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and wisdom of God. No other way is found in coming nearer to the Father except through the Son of Man Christ Jesus our Lord.

“Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)

The mystery of truth can be revealed and made known through the Spirit of God for the Spirit searches the deep things of the One who sent. The promise of the Spirit is what Abraham and all the descendants of him has received. Man is made to be the resident of the Holy One. Jesus says, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23) Jesus Christ bought back His own with the blood of Calvary and sealed up with the Spirit.

“For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.” (1 Corinthians 2:11-13)

God is a realist who is the truth. In Him, all the ultimate realities are found. What is seen is not all. Behind what is seen there is what is unseen. In fact, what is seen is the manifestation of what is unseen. Seeing is not believing but believing is seeing. No one has seen God except the Son Jesus Christ who is the image of God. Our Lord Jesus has demonstrated that all things hold together in Him. No disease was not refusing to be released before Him. No evil spirits were not obeying Him. No wind and storm did not submit under His feet. No human was not subjected before Him. Just think about how our Lord Jesus handled the angry and self-righteous crowd who brought a woman caught in an adultery recorded in the Gospel of John Chapter 8. James Russell Lowell said pertinently in a poem.

“Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne,—

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

and, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow,

keeping watch above his own.”

The truth of God Paul preached was not taught by the world but by the Spirit. We are all taught by the Spirit, so we know the truth in Christ Jesus. The truth of God cannot be made known by the wisdom of the world, so no one can understand the kingdom of heaven unless being born again. Romans Chapter 8 teaches this truth so plainly.

“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” (Romans 8:6-9)

Now, Apostle Paul reveals one of the most significant truths that we have the mind of Christ. No wealth can give it. No higher education in the universities can deliver it. No wisdom and philosophy can reveal it. No science and technology can lead to it. It’s because the things that come from the Spirit of God are discerned only through the Spirit. But God is pleased to give us the gift of the mind of Christ through the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,

‘Who has known the mind of the Lord

so as to instruct him?’

But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:14-16)

Prayer: Thank you Lord Jesus for sending the Spirit just as He promised to give to those who believe in Him. Thank God for hiding the mystery of Christ to the wise and learned of the world but revealing to little children who simply and humbly trust and believe in Christ Jesus. In Christ’s name. Amen.