That he may instruct him.— "Him, refers here to spiritual man in the former verse, says Mr. Locke; for St. Paul is shewing, not that a natural man, and a mere philosopher, cannot instruct Christ;—this nobody, pretending to be a Christian, could imagine;—but that a man, by his bare natural parts, not knowing the mind of the Lord, could not instruct, could not judge, could not correct a preacher of the Gospel, who built upon revelation, as he did." Many interpreters, however, think it more agreeable to the construction, and its connection with what follows, by Him to understand God. This part of the epistle is very artificially conducted: the Apostle is now aiming at the great point of establishing his authority, which had been suspected among them; yet he does not directly propose, but obliquely insinuates, arguments againstsuch suspicions; arguments which might possess their minds, before they were aware of what he intended to effect by them. This important remark will often present itself to the attentive reader of St. Paul's Epistles. See Doddridge, Guyse, and Pyle.
Inferences.—It should be the resolution of every Christian, and especially the determination of every minister, to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified; (1 Corinthians 2:2.) to esteem this the most important of all knowledge, to cultivate it in their own minds, and endeavour to propagate it to others. Fraught with this divine science, those ministers of the Gospel who know least of the excellency of speech, and the enticing words of man's wisdom, will do more important service for the reformation of the world, and the salvation of souls than without it the greatest masters of language, or adepts in philosophy, will ever be able to effect. Let the princes of this world boast of the knowledge and refined policy, which is so soon to perish, (1 Corinthians 2:6.) by which so many of their subjects perish, and sometimes themselves before their time:—In how many instances does it leave them to imitate the destructive maxims of those, who, under pretence of public good, but really under the instigation of the basest private passions, crucify Jesus, the adorable Saviour,—the Lord of glory! 1 Corinthians 2:8.
We should continually pray to God to teach us more of that hidden wisdom, which they who are truly initiated into real Christianity know, and which opens upon us views and hopes beyond what eye hath seen, or ear heard, or it hath particularly and fully entered into the heart of man to conceive, 1 Corinthians 2:9. There is no need we should distinctly conceive it; it is enough that we know in the general it is what God hath prepared for them who love him: a consideration, which many surely teach us to despise that which he so often bestows on those who hate him; on those with whom he is angry every day.
Happy will it be, if that spirit which searcheth all things, even the hidden things of God, give us more deeply and affectionately to know the things which are freely given us of God, and to adore that grace from which we receive them. These things we learn with the highest advantage from the holy Scriptures, where they are delivered in words which the Holy Ghost taught, 1 Corinthians 2:12-13 words therefore the most admirably adapted to express those spiritual and sublime ideas which they were intended to communicate; and in which, consequently, we learn to speak of the things of God with the exactest propriety, and the purest edification.
May we be enabled spiritually to discern them, with whatever contempt they may be treated by natural, that is animal men; by those who, though conceited of their rational powers, can relish little or nothing but what relates to this low and sensual life! 1 Corinthians 2:14. Conscious of that inward discerning, which discovers all things to us in their true light, even things of infinite importance, may we pity that undiscerning rashness of blind arrogance and pride, with which some, who think themselves the wisest, in proportion to the degree in which they are the most wretched of mankind, may treat us; and not only us, but that gospel which is our glory and our joy! 1 Corinthians 2:15. We have the mind of Christ delivered to us by his holy apostles, who were intimately and miraculously instructed in it. Let us humbly receive the oracles which they deliver; and whilst others are presuming haughtily to censure them, may we think ourselves happy if, with meek submission to their unerring authority, we may sit at the feet of such teachers, and regulate our lives by their instructions!
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The apostle had before declared with what unadorned simplicity he had preached to his Corinthian brethren the doctrines of the gospel; they needed no varnish, and he trusted to their native weight and evidence to recommend them. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God; he used no rhetorical arts nor affected curious speculations, but plainly declared the message which he had received of the Lord, the truth of which was attested by prophesies and miracles, and sealed to their hearts by the demonstration of the spirit. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified, avoiding all shew of Jewish or Grecian literature, and above all things insisting upon that one distinguished point, in which all the lines of our salvation meet as in one centre, from which all the privileges of the gospel flow as from their source, and under the influence of which we can alone be engaged and inclined to all the service to which our Saviour calls us, constrained by his dying love. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, deeply sensible of his own insufficiency for the arduous work; in his outward circumstances and appearance, poor and despicable; exposed to innumerable difficulties from the enmity of the world without, and the envy of some within, who wanted to make a party against him, and, above all, deeply exercised in his own soul, lest his message should be despised and rejected by them to their eternal ruin. And my speech, and my preaching, was not with enticing words of man's wisdom; these he studiously avoided, but he taught with much more effectual evidence, in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, not only by the miracles which he wrought in confirmation of his mission, but by the energy with which the Holy Ghost accompanied his preaching to their consciences: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, as supported by mere human evidence, or wrought by mere moral persuasion or argument, but in the power of God, arising from a divine conviction of the truth, resting on divine testimony, and produced by the operation of God. Note; (1.) Nothing is more contrary to the spirit of the gospel than the affectation of being admired as orators, instead of being useful preachers. (2.) Christ, in his person and offices, should be the great subject of all our discourses; nothing so effectually reaches the conscience as the doctrine of the cross. (3.) Faithful ministers have peculiar trials, both from without and within, trembling sometimes for themselves, conscious of their own infirmities; and trembling for the people, lest that which should be to them a savour of life unto life, should, by their unbelief and prejudices, become a savour of death unto death. (4.) The faith of God's people is not the effect of mere human persuasion, but of divine operation.
2nd, The apostle had disclaimed all affectation of human wisdom. Howbeit, says he, we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, (τελειους,) and grown up to greater maturity in knowledge, understanding, and grace; demonstrating the infinite wisdom and suitableness of the divine contrivance, in the grand scheme of man's salvation, through faith in a crucified Jesus.—Yet not the wisdom of this world, such systems as philosophers have invented or will approve; nor of the princes of this world, such as the proud Rabbis and great men of the earth comprehend, or conceive, who, with all their boasts of science, come to nought, and perish in their pride, if they be not humbled to genuine repentance. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. The divine contrivance for the salvation of lost sinners had been unknown to the Gentile world, and but dimly revealed to the Jews in mysterious types and figures; but now the fulness of time was come, when the mystery of grace should be unfolded. And this design of the divine wisdom none of the princes of this world knew, neither the Roman governor, nor the high priest and elders of the Jews; for had they known it, they would not have crucified him, who in essential Deity is one with the Father, and justly claims the title of the Lord of Glory. But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Low as their apprehensions were of the crucified Redeemer, yet has he brought in a salvation for lost souls, unutterably glorious, by a contrivance far above human conception, and has prepared for those faithful souls, who, sensible of his amazing grace, feel the power of his divine love in their hearts, such inestimable blessings as pass man's understanding. But these glorious things God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit, by a divine illumination in the preaching of the gospel; for the Spirit, who is the great agent in the conversion of the sinner's soul, illuminating his darkness, and quickening him from his state of death, searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God; and who alone, being perfectly acquainted with his counsels, is fully able to reveal them to us. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? None but our own spirit can discover what passes in our secret thoughts; even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God: none but that eternal Spirit, who is essentially God, and one with the Father and the Son, (as a man's soul is one with him, and conscious of all that passes in his breast) can know or reveal these unto us. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, that we should be guided by its wisdom, or follow its maxims, but the Spirit which is of God, whose office it is, in the oeconomy of man's salvation, to enlighten the darkened mind, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, even all those inestimable blessings and privileges, of which, by grace through faith, we are made partakers. Which things also we speak, declaring, from happy experience, the truths which the Spirit hath revealed to us, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, affecting to set them off with figures of oratory, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, to add to which would be but to gild the brilliant, which shines infinitely brighter in its native lustre; comparing spiritual things with spiritual, the types with the antitype, the prophesies with their fulfilment, the Old Testament with the New, which serve to cast mutual light and glory on each other, and supply us with expressions, which most forcibly and clearly convey the Spirit's meaning to the heart. But the natural man, who continues under the darkness of his fallen mind, whatever attainments in human wisdom and literature he may have made, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him, because he cannot reconcile them to his corrupted reason and defiled mind; neither can he know them; he is as much under a moral incapacity of ever attaining to the true understanding of spiritual things, as the blind man is under a natural incapacity of discovering the brightest objects till the faculty of vision is given him, because they are spiritually discerned, and therefore cannot be comprehended without divine illumination. But he that is spiritual, and taught of God, judgeth all things, discovering the excellency, all-sufficiency, and suitableness of God's method of salvation, and distinguishing truth from error. Yet he himself is judged of no man; no natural man, however wise or learned, discerns the principles upon which he acts; or can comprehend the truths which the spiritual man experimentally knows; or can confute him by any reasonings, when he sees that he has the word of God for his guide, and the Spirit of God has promised to lead him into all truth. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? What philosopher ever soared so high as to penetrate into the secrets of God's eternal mind, that he may instruct him who is spiritual, in these supernatural truths? Darkness and folly are evident in all the schemes and notions of the wisest sages; but we have the mind of Christ, are divinely led into the knowledge of his designs of grace, and therefore can never be moved away from the hope of the gospel, by any pretenders to science, or by the disputations of philosophers, with whatever sounding names or titles they may be dignified. Learn hence, (1.) That the wisest sage and the most illiterate peasant are on a level, respecting the knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation. (2.) If all the wisdom that ever existed in the whole fallen race was centered in one natural man, he would in this state be as incapable of communicating one tittle of divine truth to us, as the glowworm of enlightening the universe. (3.) It is the distinguishing character of genuine Christians, that they are all taught of God, not only by external revelation, but by the Spirit's internal illumination. (4.) The love of God, now shed abroad in our hearts, is the earnest of that inheritance which he hath prepared for the faithful. (5.) We are not to wonder that those, who are most advanced in human literature, are usually most averse to the truths of God. The reason is evident, 1 Corinthians 2:14 and they will not humble themselves. (6.) A spiritual understanding of the Scriptures is a better qualification for the ministry than all Roman or Grecian literature.