The Secret Wisdom

Sermon Transcript

It’s the time of year when many are getting ready celebrate Christmas, and that means many of us are thinking about Christmas presents. Something wise that my wife will do sometimes when getting presents for our kids is she’ll get a few, not to give them all at once, but to buy them now when they are available, and then plan to give them the rest later. One present may be given at Christmas, while another remains hidden until a future birthday.

 

We’ve been thinking about wisdom on Sunday mornings primarily by looking at the book of Proverbs, a book written before the coming of Christ. But today we’re wrapping up 3 weeks of looking at the book of 1 Corinthians, a book written after the coming of Christ, and hundreds of years after Proverbs. Today we are going to see in the passage on which we are focusing that while God given us the gift of revealing some of his wisdom in the things he has made, and while God did reveal some of his wisdom in the book of Proverbs, he also kept some hidden until Jesus Christ came, died, rose again, and sent his Holy Spirit. In the ancient city of Corinth there was a kind of wisdom that people had devised from looking at the world and in some cases even from looking at scripture, that in the minds of sinners had become nothing more than a scheme toward obtaining glory for oneself in the present age. That mindset had then crept in to the church at Corinth to the point that they were judging one another and even the apostle Paul by it and thus exalting themselves or their favorite teachers over one another. We too face the temptation to devise our own wisdom to attain glory for ourselves in the present age. But true wisdom, the wisdom of God, is not the product of sinful humans’ perceptions of the world and even of the scriptures. Rather, the fuller wisdom of God is only revealed by the Spirit of God, and in this passage, we’ll look first at the revelation of that wisdom, and then the ramifications of that wisdom.

 

The revelation of wisdom

 

When our passage begins the author, Paul, had just gotten done saying that his message to the Corinthians when he was among them was simply Jesus Christ and him crucified, without any adornment of plausible words of wisdom, because he wanted their faith to rest firmly in the power of God, and not in the wisdom of men. Picking up from there, our passage begins with a clarification: Paul says that when among the Corinthians he did not bring plausible words of wisdom, but among the mature he does impart wisdom. Throughout this passage we’ll see the pronoun “we”—sometimes it refers to Paul and the other apostles, other times it refers to all of us Christians. Here it probably refers to the apostles, and describes the apostolic approach: To impart wisdom among the mature.

 

When you see that word “mature” here, don’t think of “super Christians” as though Paul’s talking about the talented tenth in a church or something like that; instead of thinking of “super Christians”, just think of “normal Christians”, or “Christians who are acting like Christians”. In the passage just after this one Paul says he couldn’t speak to the Corinthians like this when he was among them because they weren’t acting like Christians, but he clearly does impart this wisdom to entire churches full of normal Christians in letters like Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. In fact, in this letter of 1 Corinthians he will impart much more wisdom than just “Jesus Christ and him crucified” in response to issues in the church in Corinth, even though there is still plenty of evidence of immaturity among them. So we should not make the mistake of thinking that the apostles only impart the full wisdom of God to an elite class of Christians; they impart it to normal Christians, Christians who act like Christians.

 

We should also not make the mistake of thinking that the message of “Jesus Christ and him crucified” is somehow beginner level Christianity, and then as you grow to greater maturity in Christ, you think about and need it less and less. The message of Jesus Christ and him crucified is the message of first importance to Christianity, and it never becomes of second importance just because more time has elapsed since you first believed it. Think of it more like a deep sea explorer—when you first jump into the water, you have to start by just learning to swim. But as you grow in that, you don’t then say, “Ok; done with the water, now on to something else.” No; as you grow in that, you start to dive deeper, because there is still so much more to see inside the ocean, not apart from it. The message of Jesus Christ and him crucified is like the ocean of Christianity, and growing is then going deeper into it, not going farther from it. Paul couldn’t take the Corinthians deeper because although they were in the ocean, they were still doggy paddling. But among those who are willing to leave behind the doggy paddling of the world and go deeper, the apostles took them deeper into the ocean of Jesus Christ and him crucified.

 

One final point of clarification on the “mature” here that I feel bound to make because this passage and the one following it have been the occasion for significant error in the last century or so: If someone says they are a Christian but is not acting like one, we should not simply label them a “carnal Christian” or an “immature Christian” and let them remain in that condition. That’s not what Paul is doing with the Corinthians here. He’s writing them a letter to tell them to stop doggy paddling like the world, and he says if they don’t, he will come with a rod of discipline (1 Cor 4:21). He tells them to remove from among them anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler. In other words, if someone professes Christ but isn’t acting like a Christian, step one is not to assume they aren’t a Christian; step one is to lovingly instruct and correct them. But if they keep not acting like a Christian after loving instruction and correction, then we must stop calling them a Christian.

 

But normally, Christians act like Christians, and to such, the apostles do impart wisdom. They never move away from Jesus Christ and him crucified, but they do say more than just a rote repetition of those words. They never lead us out of the ocean, but they do take us deeper. Yet even this deeper wisdom, verse 6 goes on to say, is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are destined to pass away. Whether rulers of Jews or Greeks, there is a kind of wisdom any ruler needs to obtain and preserve power in this age. Only certain people in our world today have the know-how, intuition, “wisdom” to rise to power and preserve it. But that’s of limited value because not only the rulers of this age, but this age itself, is doomed to pass away. God gives us reminders of this all the time. A couple weekends ago he gave us a reminder of it when he removed Bashar Al-Assad from power in Syria.

 

Instead, the wisdom the apostles impart is a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. This is perhaps surprising if you’ve been with us for Proverbs 1-9. Multiple times in Proverbs 1-9 we see wisdom emphasizing her availability; she cries aloud in the street and raises her voice in the marketplace (e.g., Prov 1:20), and that’s true. God has revealed himself in the things he’s made, and God inspired the words of Proverbs and the rest of the scriptures before the coming of Christ to reveal himself and how the world he made works. God spoke, everything God said was true, but here Paul is saying that God hadn’t yet said it all. There was still more to God’s plan that he decreed before the ages, a plan that was actually for our glory.

 

Another surprising phrase, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you expect verse 7 to end with “for his glory”? Instead it says “for our glory”. In theology the term we use for this is “glorification,” that final state in which God brings us into the glory for which we were created: He perfects his image in us, he brings us into perfect fellowship with him in his presence, he raises our bodies, never to die again. This is telling us God decreed a plan for that before the ages began. Before the ages began, God devised a way, in his wisdom, to bring sinners who deserve shame to glory, and the way was not through sinners realizing they’d messed up and saying sorry, it was not through sinners resolving to do better in the future, it was not even through sinners just trying to do the wise things the book of Proverbs commends. Instead, the way was through Jesus Christ and him crucified, and so until Jesus Christ came and was crucified, the fullness of the plan remained hidden. And we know the rulers of this age didn’t understand it, because if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, as verse 8 tells us.

 

So let’s consider a Proverb like Proverbs 11:16 – “A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches.” Is that an example of the wisdom of God? Yes; it’s in the biblical book of Proverbs, and so it is the very word of God, and something God wants us to know. Then again, it does tell us something that at least on the surface is something you could discover by observation, even without scripture: Gracious women tend to get honor, and violent men tend to increase in wealth. Doesn’t that sound like just the kind of thing the rulers of the present age would perceive and live in accordance with? Didn’t many of the rulers of the present age get there by violence? If you use Proverbs like that though, if you use any wisdom like that, that’s when it becomes mere worldly wisdom, a wisdom of this age, and it twists the biblical Proverbs out of their context. Though the rulers of this age and the mature can agree that gracious women get honor, and violent men get riches, the mature receive that wisdom in its full context: Rooted in the fear of the LORD, not the advancement of the self, and aimed at a glory beyond the present age, rather than at glory in the present age. If you use Proverbs or any biblical wisdom to merely get health, wealth, and prosperity for yourself in this life, all of which are doomed to pass away, you’ve missed the point of Proverbs. Proverbs is just a part of a bigger plan that God decreed before the ages for our glory, a greater glory than health, wealth and prosperity in this age that is doomed to pass away. None of the rulers of that age understood it; how can we?

 

Verse 10: These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. There the “us” is the apostles and prophets (Eph 3:5). And the reason we can have confidence in such a revelation is because the Spirit of God knows the thoughts of God. Here Paul appeals to an analogy: We can observe a person’s actions, but who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person? Your thoughts are known to you, but not to us. We can make guesses at your thoughts, but we can’t actually observe them and reason to them the way we can your actions. We can put you on trial for murder, but not for murderous thoughts. So also we can observe the works of God and even understand them on some level through disciplines like science and history. The rulers of the present age can look at the world and say some formally true things about it. But no one knows how they all fit into God’s plan that he decreed before the ages except the Spirit of God.

 

And that can be frustrating, can’t it? You ever been close to someone like a friend, parent, spouse, or kid, and thought, “I wish I just knew what was going on inside their head!” but they won’t tell you? In those cases you may rightly feel that the person owes you that much, but God doesn’t owe that to us. Why should he? What would be unjust about God creating humans and then telling us nothing? Why’s it so frustrating to us, then, when he doesn’t tell us what he’s thinking? Well, sin inclines us to resist the God-ness of God. So what do we do? We saw it a couple weeks ago: We make demands. Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom. Many today say, “Unless I can visibly observe God, I won’t believe in him.” But what if a real being exists who’s invisible? We study history, we study the material world, we even study people, and we make all kinds of observations and theories that are often helpful and fascinating. We can answer a lot of what questions and how questions, but you know what question scientists and historians and philosophers really can’t answer? Why? Why’s it all here, and to what end is it going?

 

And since we can’t observe it, what do many today say? It doesn’t exist! There is no purpose! But that’s like saying because we can’t observe a person’s thoughts, they don’t exist. That a person’s thoughts are hidden from us doesn’t mean they don’t exist; it just means we are dependent on them to reveal them to us, which they can do by speaking to us. And the good news is that God has graciously done just that. So Paul can say in verse 12 that the apostles have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that they might understand the things freely given by God. Freely given! God, who owes us nothing of his mind, has freely given his thoughts to his apostles and prophets, and then look at what they do in verse 13: We impart this in words, words that they didn’t come up with as the result of an experiment or a process of logical deduction, for those things could never get us into the mind of God himself. Instead, the words through which the wisdom of God is imparted are the words taught by the Spirit of God himself, the one who knows the mind of God, and what Paul and the apostles then do is they take these words and impart them to those who are spiritual. They preached them while they were on earth, and thankfully for us, they also wrote them down in letters like the one on which we are focusing today.

 

Do you see the glory of this revelation? We often do want to know the thoughts of God—we want to know why a particular instance of suffering happened. We want to know what God is doing in the middle of a current trial. We want to know whether we’ll get married, whether we’ll have kids, what job we’ll do, how they’ll turn out, and so forth. But even if you knew all that, what is the highest good it could get you? A glory in this age, that is doomed to pass away. Instead, God has decreed a glory for those who love him in the age to come, and he has revealed to us everything we need to know about that plan for us to attain that glory. So he doesn’t tell you why some instance of suffering occurred, but he does tell you that he created a world without suffering, he does tell you that he doesn’t afflict the children of man from his heart, he does tell you that his son came to suffer for our sins so that we could be brought into a world free of suffering, he does tell us that his son is able even now to sympathize with our suffering, and that he will be with us in it, among many other things. He doesn’t tell you the specifics of what your future holds, but he does tell you that he will work it all together for the good of those who love him, that whatever it holds, it won’t be able to separate you from his love in Christ Jesus our Lord, and that one day you will be resurrected to such a glory as to render all the trials of this present life light and momentary in comparison. Do you really need him to tell you more than that? As the hymn says, “What more can he say, than to you he has said, to you, who for refuge, to Jesus have fled?”

 

And no scientist, no philosopher, no ruler of the present age could have figured these things out. All the truths I just shared with you are truths I learned from the Bible, and that’s the only place we can learn them. That’s where we have the words of those to whom God revealed his secret and hidden wisdom, and it’s through their words that God reveals that wisdom to us. Listen to the scriptures read aloud, listen to biblical preaching, and meditate on scripture night and day because in it the hidden and secret wisdom of God is made known to us. I’m sure that self-help book has some nice tips, but all it can equip you for is a glory that is doomed to perish. To know God’s plan for our glory, we need God’s words. That’s the revelation of wisdom; let’s look next at the ramifications of wisdom.

 

The ramifications of wisdom

 

In verse 14 we read that one ramification of wisdom’s revelation is that the natural person does not accept what is revealed. In verse 13 we read Paul saying that he interprets spiritual truth to “those who are spiritual”. Here we get their opposite: The natural person. Sometimes people today use these terms differently than they’re being used in this passage. Someone might describe themselves as “very spiritual” and what they usually mean by that is they believe in some mysterious higher power and maybe practice things like meditation. That’s not what this is talking about. In this passage, the spiritual person is the one who is led by the Holy Spirit, whereas the natural person, then, is one who does not have the Holy Spirit of God living in them and leading them.

 

The natural state of humans since the first humans sinned is one of enmity with God, hostility toward him. Again, our natural inclination is to resist the God-ness of God, whether we acknowledge his existence or not. One of the big problems that creates for us, though, is that we were still made by him for glory. So what do we do? We try to devise a wisdom of our own by which we can be glorious, and end up at best with a glory that is doomed to pass away. The moon has its own glory and brightness; at its fullness, you can often see it in the night sky. But the moon is still moon, and all its glory, all its light, is just a reflection of the sun, which radiates its own light. If the moon got tired of being the moon and demanded instead to be the sun, and so left the sun and tried to start its own little solar system with itself at the center, it would never work. Why? Because the moon can’t radiate its own light. It was made as a reflector of glory, and when it accepts what it is and accepts what the sun is, that’s when its glory actually shines brightest.

 

The natural person, though, is like a rebellious moon. The natural person has turned from God and remained in that state, and therefore they do not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Rather, they are folly to him. You come to the natural person with the message of the cross, and what’s he say? That seems like a ridiculous path to glory. That’s not the path through which me and the rulers of this age have attained glory. The cross is humiliating, the cross is shameful, the cross is for losers, and you want me to what? You want me to depend on a crucified savior, worship a crucified savior, then take up my cross and follow a crucified savior, and you’re telling me that is the wisdom God decreed before the ages for our glory? That’s foolish.

 

Have you ever tried explaining the things of the Spirit to a natural person? It’s been compared to explaining colors to a blind person, and that’s about right. There is a way to do it, but they won’t really get it unless they gain the ability to see, and the natural person will not really get it unless God opens their eyes. Verse 14 says the natural person not only does not understand the things of the Spirit; it says he cannot, because they are spiritually discerned. For the natural person to accept the message of Christ crucified, for the natural person to accept the plan of God for our glory, the Holy Spirit must first open their eyes and enable them to see. So you explain the gospel to them: That there is a real, invisible, everywhere-present being who made everything and made us to be glorious reflections of his image, but we have fallen from that glory and have instead given our worship to things God made, so that now we stand guilty in his sight and are doomed to pass away under his wrath. But God the Father, out of sheer love and mercy, sent God the Son to take on human flesh, to reflect his glorious image, then to die on the cross for the sins of all who would ever believe in him, and then to rise from the dead to eternal glory in his presence, so that now whoever will turn from their sins, turn from their efforts to make themselves better, and rest upon him alone for salvation will be forgiven of their sins, remade in his glorious image, and ultimately resurrected to everlasting life with God in a new heavens and new earth. You share that message, and the person with whom you’re sharing it doesn’t fall down and profess faith in Christ, nor does the person react aggressively and profess hatred of Christ. They just kinda sit there. And you’re like, “So what do you think? What questions do you have?” and they’re just kinda like, “No questions. I think I get it,” but you can tell it did nothing in them. Maybe you take them to church and after the service you ask them what they thought and all they say is something like, “Oh it was nice. Thanks for inviting me.” And you’re thinking, “Nice?! I mean, if there’s one thing that wasn’t, it was nice. Didn’t you hear about the glory of God and the weight of our sin and the power of Christ to save and the reality of the coming judgment?” They may have heard the same words you did, but they were not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. You try to explain to them that becoming a Christian means turning from your sins and trusting in Christ for salvation and they’re like, “Right; nobody’s perfect, but it’s about trying to get better every day,” and you’re like, “No! That’s not what it’s about,” but they just don’t get it. It’s not that they object to it; it’s that it seems to just not compute.

 

And look, maybe your explanation of the gospel could have been clearer; I know my sermons could be better, but no amount of human technique will enable the natural person to accept the things of the Spirit of God. They simply cannot. So don’t beat yourself up over it if you share the gospel and people don’t get it. Definitely don’t try to solve that by adding plausible words of wisdom to the gospel so as to get them to like it. If you’ve taken the often intimidating step of speaking the words of the gospel to someone who doesn’t yet believe and you are praying for God to open their eyes by his Spirit, you can trust that God is seeing that and saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

 

And I understand that some of you in the room today are still natural people. You still hear sermons and feel pretty clueless about what was said, you still don’t know what to say when someone asks you what you got out of it, maybe you’ve tried reading the Bible even and you’ve gone away discouraged because none of it made any sense. And if that’s you, I’m not saying any of this in an effort to make you feel bad about that, but I do want to give you what you need from the Bible to get an accurate sense of where you stand with God. I read the Bible regularly for probably three years assuming I was a Christian while really understanding none of it and remaining unchanged by it, and that’s a really dangerous place to be because while in that state you think you’re spiritually ok when you aren’t. For some of you today the first step toward God might just be admitting that you’re still a natural person, even though perhaps you profess to be a Christian and even have spent a lot of time in church in your life. Then pray, confess to God that you can’t see, and ask him to give you eyes to see and a mind to understand the things of His Spirit. Talk to a pastor or a member here about it, keep praying, and keep seeking the truth of scripture until the Spirit reveals it to you.

 

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, but the spiritual person is the one who does, and the ramification for them is in verse 15: The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. A blind person cannot judge colors, but if you can see, you can tell when something is black or white, red or green, purple or yellow, orange or blue. If you have the Spirit of God in you, you do have the ability from him to judge the difference between truth and error, good and evil, true teachers and false teachers, wise and foolish. The mature, spiritual person is the discerning person. A person with 20/20 vision will not look at a white canvas, hear someone else call it black, and say, “Well now if that’s what you see when you look at it, who am I to say otherwise? I don’t want to be so narrow-minded as to delegitimate other perspectives and insist on mine as the one right one.” No; they’re going to say, “That’s not black. It’s white.” And the person calling it black is going to say, “Prove it” and what’s the person who can see going to say? Well I can’t prove it, but I can see, and I can tell you that’s not a black canvas.

 

If you have the Spirit of God, test the things you hear. Be discerning. Not everything claiming to be spiritual or Christian is true and good. If someone claims to teach the Bible but what you hear them saying doesn’t align with the gospel by which you were saved, don’t just take their word for it. If someone says they’re a Christian but their life consistently testifies against that profession, don’t just take their word for it. Granted, sometimes your hunch may be wrong—spiritual people are not spiritually perfect. That’s part of why God puts us in churches. Consider the illustration of two people looking at a canvas; one sees it and recognizes it as white, while another keeps telling them it’s black. What might the person who sees white say? Well, why don’t we call over 10 other people who can see and take a poll? If all ten agree that it’s white, guess who’s probably wrong? Incidentally, this is one we reason we are a congregational church, a church in which every member of the church gets a vote on our statement of faith (what we say is true), our membership (who we recognize and affirm as a fellow Christian), and our leadership (who we recognize as a true teacher). As one commentator on this passage, Charles Hodge, who ironically is not a congregationalist, said, “Those who can see, have the right to see.” If you have the Spirit, you should have a vote. The spiritual person judges all things.

 

But, the spiritual person is himself to be judged by no one. If you are keeping in step with the Spirit by keeping in step with the words he’s inspired in scripture, you should not care too much what anyone thinks of you. Certainly if ten of your fellow church members come to you and say, “Hey; you are not keeping in step with the Spirit” you should seriously consider the possibility that you are the blind one in that scenario and they’re trying to help you see. But when it comes down to it, you are still responsible before God to assess what they’ve said by the standard of what God has said, and because you have the Spirit, you have the capacity to do so. Because it is possible, and it seems this is what was happening to Paul, for even a large number of professing Christians to be so out of step with the Spirit that they are actually judging you not according to the Spirit, but according to the ways of the natural person.

 

We expect that from the world, or at least we should. You should expect that natural people will think the way you are living is foolish. I mentioned earlier the experiences you might have trying to explain the gospel to the natural person; you ever try to explain your life to the natural person? Like, has a natural person ever gotten close enough you to notice that you don’t live like they do, even in little ways—“Why don’t you drink more? Why don’t you just sleep over at your girlfriend’s place? Why don’t you just marry this person; who cares if they aren’t a Christian? Do you really have to go to church every Sunday? How you just gonna let them talk to you like that? Why don’t you live in a bigger house? Why don’t you live somewhere safer? Why are you working less and making less money so you can give more time to ministry? Why would you adopt these kids when you could have your own? Why wouldn’t you get an abortion if the kid has downs syndrome or use this reproductive technology if you can’t conceive? Why would you move to this third-world country without any of the conveniences and comforts of America just to tell them about Jesus? How can you say that such and such is wrong?” Your life will look foolish to the natural person; you should expect that from unbelievers, but you may even experience it from other professing believers! If you do, don’t let it bother you.

 

For, verse 16: Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Why should the spiritual person be judged by no one? Because the spiritual person is keeping in step with the mind of Christ, and who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? If you are living in accordance with the spiritual truths the apostles taught in the scriptures, which you now understand because you have the Spirit, and someone judges you for it, do you see who they are ultimately judging? Not you, but God! And who has the right to sit in judgment on him? Forget yourself. If you are in Christ, you have the mind of Christ; why would you care what someone who doesn’t thinks of you?

 

Can you sense how freeing it could be to forget yourself like that, to stop worrying so much about measuring up to the judgments of people? Then even if they judge you, you don’t have to be devastated by it and return evil for evil, nor do you have to feel bad and change what you’re doing to gain their approval. Instead, you can just keep in step with the Spirit, love them, communicate spiritual truth with gentleness and respect, and trust God with their response. And you can stop judging others by the standards of natural people yourself, and instead simply receive the wisdom of God that looks foolish to the world, but that has now been revealed through his apostles, the wisdom that centers on Jesus Christ and him crucified on our behalf, so that though we were doomed to pass away with this age, we have been redeemed from this age, and look forward now to glory in the age to come.