Howbeit we speak wisdom. — Nevertheless, there is a wisdom in the gospel. The assertion is in the Greek a more striking contrast to 1 Corinthians 2:4 than appears in the English. In the original (1 Corinthians 2:4) the word is “wisdom,” and not “man’s wisdom,” as in the English. Thus the statement here is a verbal contradiction of that in 1 Corinthians 2:4. In using the plural “we,” St. Paul implies that he did not stand alone among the Apostles in the method of his teaching.
Them that are perfect — i.e., those who are grown up, and not “babes” (1 Corinthians 3:1; see also 1 Corinthians 14:20). The “wisdom” of the gospel is that deep spiritual truth which only those whose spiritual natures have been trained and cultivated were capable of understanding. This “wisdom,” however, the Apostle had not taught the Corinthians; he had only taught them the alphabet of Christianity, for they were still but “babes” — they were still only “fleshly” (1 Corinthians 3:3). That the Apostle himself not only grasped the higher truths which he designates the “wisdom” of the gospel, but taught them gladly when there were hearers capable of appreciating them, is evident from many passages in the Epistles to the Romans, Colossians, and Ephesians, where he unfolds the “mysteries” of the gospel. (See Romans 11:25; Romans 16:25.)
Yet not. — Better, a wisdom, however, not of this world.
That come to nought. — Better, which are being brought to nought, the reference here being, not to the inherent transitoriness of human wisdom and teachers, but to the fact that they are being brought to nought by God’s rejection of them, and His choice of the “weak” things as the means of spreading the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:28).