1 Corinthians 2:12,13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world Which suggests worldly wisdom; the spirit that is in worldly, carnal people, and which guides and governs them; a spirit which is earthly, sensual, and devilish. This spirit is not, properly speaking, received, for the carnal and unregenerate always had it; but true believers properly receive the Spirit of God, which before they had not. That we might know Might discern, understand, form just ideas of, and be experimentally acquainted with; the things freely given to us of God Which, without that Spirit, it is as impossible we should know, as it is that the inferior creatures should know the things belonging to man. Which things also we speak Make it our business to communicate to others; not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth To excite men's curiosity, amuse their imaginations, or gain their applause; but which the Holy Ghost teacheth And consequently must be best adapted to convey such ideas as he would impart; and to impress the hearts and consciences of men with a reverent and deep sense of those holy mysteries: comparing spiritual things with spiritual Or rather, as the apostle seems to mean, explaining spiritual things by spiritual words; or, adapting spiritual words to spiritual things; being taught by the Spirit to express the things of the Spirit. The original word, συγκρινοντες, is rightly translated interpreting, or explaining, being used by the LXX. to denote the interpretation of dreams, Genesis 40:16; Genesis 40:22; Genesis 41:12-13; Genesis 41:15; Daniel 2:4; Daniel 5:7; Daniel 5:12. Pearce translates the clause, explaining spiritual things to spiritual men; a sense which the original will doubtless bear; but it does not agree so well with the first part of the verse, where words taught by the Holy Spirit are mentioned. This language of the apostle, as Doddridge justly observes, “may certainly convince us of the great regard which we ought always to maintain to the words of Scripture; and may especially teach ministers how attentively they should study its beauties, and how careful they should be to make it the support of their discourses.” Indeed, “this language, in which the doctrines of the gospel were revealed to the apostles, and in which they delivered these doctrines to the world, is what Paul calls the form of sound words, which Timothy had heard from him, and was to hold fast, 2 Timothy 1:13. Every one, therefore, ought to beware of altering or wresting the inspired language of Scripture, in their expositions of the articles of the Christian faith. Taylor, in the sixth chapter of his Key, explains the verse under consideration thus: Which things we speak, not in philosophical terms of human invention, but which the Spirit teacheth in the writings of the Old Testament; and contends that the apostle's meaning is, that he expressed the Christian privileges in the very same words and phrases by which the Spirit expressed the privileges of the Jewish Church, in the writings of the Old Testament. But if the Spirit suggested these words and phrases to the Jewish prophets, why might not he suggest to the apostles the words and phrases in which they communicated the gospel revelation to the world? especially as there are many discoveries in the gospel, which could not be expressed clearly, if at all, in the words by which the prophets expressed the privileges of the Jewish Church. Besides, it is evident, that when the apostles introduce into their writings the words and phrases of the Jewish prophets, they explain them in other words and phrases, which no doubt were suggested to them by the Spirit.” See Macknight, and 2 Timothy 3:16.