1 Corinthians 2:9-11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But This ignorance fulfils what is written concerning the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom; eye hath not seen, &c. No merely natural or unenlightened man hath either seen, heard, or known; the things which God hath prepared, saith the prophet, for them that love him “These words do not immediately respect the blessings of another world, but are spoken by the prophet of the gospel state, and the blessings then to be enjoyed by them that should love God, Romans 8:28. For all the prophets, say the Jews, prophesied only of the days of the Messiah.” Whitby. Indeed, as he adds, both the context and the opposition of these words to the revelation of these things by the Spirit, show the primary intent of the apostle to be, that no human wisdom, by any thing that may be seen, heard of, or conceived by us, can acquaint us with the things taught by the Holy Spirit, without a supernatural illumination. But God hath revealed Yea, and freely given, 1 Corinthians 2:12, them to us by his Spirit Who intimately and fully knows them; for the Spirit searcheth Knows and enables us to search and find out; all things Which it concerns us, and would be for our profit, to be acquainted with; even the deep things of God Be they ever so hidden and mysterious; the depths both of his nature and attributes, and of his kingdom of providence and grace. Or, these deep things of God “are the various parts of that grand plan which the wisdom of God hath formed for the salvation of mankind, their relation to and dependance on each other, and operation and effect upon the system of the universe, the dignity of the person by whom that plan had been executed, and the final issue thereof in the salvation of believers; with many other particulars, which we shall not know till the light of the other world break in upon us.” Macknight. For what man knoweth the things of a man What individual of the human race could know the things belonging to human nature; save the spirit of man which is in him Unless he were possessed of a human spirit? Surely the spirit of a creature inferior to man, can neither discern nor comprehend the things peculiar to the human nature. Even so the things of God Things that belong to the divine nature; knoweth no man No mere man; no man devoid of divine teaching; the teaching of the Spirit of God. In other words, as soon might brute creatures, by the help of the faculties peculiar to them, understand human things, as a man, only possessed of human faculties, could, merely by the aid of them, understand divine things; and indeed much sooner; for God is infinitely more elevated above man, than man is above the brutes.