The phrase “little did he know” might be used in a story to give critical information to the reader that is unknown to a key character. This narration takes on a perspective called “third person omniscient.” The author knows more than his characters, and that usually sets up dramatic tension. The readers know that the bridge is out ahead but the semi-truck driver shifting up trying to escape from the bad guys doesn’t.

The apostle Paul is not all-knowing, but he knows far more than the “rulers of this age.” Paul doesn’t have all wisdom, but God has revealed “a secret and hidden wisdom” to Paul while the world saw none of the signs. As he explains in this next section of his letter to the church of God in Corinth, the wise and powerful of the world not only miss what God is doing, they have undone themselves through the very thing they considered their triumph.

Again, Paul is not omniscient, but he is providing voice to the third person omniscient narrator and pulling back the curtain on God’s revealed wisdom. The world is lost, the world has lost. The world has not been the same since the Logos took on flesh, was crucified, and rose again as the firstborn from the dead.

I used to think about the gospel as the good news that because of His work on the cross Jesus made salvation possible for everyone. Then I came to think about the gospel as the good news that because of His work on the cross Jesus secured salvation for all who would ever believe. And now I see that the gospel is also the good news that because of His work on the cross Jesus has turned the world upside down. The nations rage and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord. The wise among men plot their overthrow of God, and He who sits in the heavens laughs. If the rulers of the earth would be wise, they would hurry to kiss the Son and take refuge in Him before they perished. But by continuing to pretend that they are something, that they are men of understanding and influence, they bring their own doom to pass.

These spiritual truths are weltanschauung truths, world- and life-view truths. These spiritual truths are concrete walls against the cotton-candy arguments of the world. These spiritual truths are intended to humble us, yes, and they fortify our conviction in the wisdom of God.

Paul has been painting the contrast between the word of the cross and words of eloquent wisdom since 1 Corinthians 1:17. There is folly and offense, there is power and strength, and which is found on which sideline is not according to the world’s scorecard. Paul himself refused to orate himself into esteem or show off his verbal skills, instead he proclaimed Jesus Christ and Him crucified and let God’s Spirit do the demonstrating of power.

Now in 2:6 Paul explains that the wisdom of God in the word of the cross is a deep wisdom. It is a World-Upsetting, Glory-Making, Mind-Bending, Freely-Given Wisdom from God.

Secret and Subversive Wisdom (verses 6-9)

A well is a simple concept but it can reach deep into the earth. The message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is similarly focused but it is anything but simplistic. The word of the cross is deep, and we’re about ready to see how deep it goes.

In contrast to the “wisdom of men” in 2:5, among the mature we do impart wisdom. Paul doesn’t identify the mature, the spiritual adults, by name (or group), but they are the ones whose faith rests in the power of God. They are the ones who believe the gospel of a crucified Christ and are coming to live in light of the cross. These are any (and should be all) Christians. He’s not setting up a new division in the church made up of the spiritual upperclass; he’s confronting divisions not creating them.

But he speaks not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. The this age wisdom is the worldly wisdom of status seeking and self-seeking among the wise, the scribe, the debater of this age (1:20). It’s the usual way of the powerful and noble-birthed (1:26). The rulers of this age are in this category, and certainly include those in political power who put Jesus to death (see verse 8). The Greek word for rulers almost always refers to human kings and emperors and governors (for example, Romans 13:3). But there are spiritual authorities and powers above and behind the men and women. There are supernatural, angelic forces that motivate and manipulate men.

When Jonathan, Andy, and I were on our way back to the Pittsburg airport after the ACCS Conference early on a Sunday morning, our shuttle driver had a lot of questions about “spiritual” things. One of his questions was if we thought there was a “system of evil” behind all the bad things in the world. Yes, there is.

Humankind is more than a collection of individual entities or agents, but a corporeity within which evil and evil forces become endemic and structural. (Thiselton)

And the cross of Christ subverted the whole system. Persons and demons and structures of society are doomed to pass away. They are dethroned. Talk about dealing with corruption by draining the swamp.

Paul and the other gospel preachers imparted a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. The point of this wisdom being secret and hidden is not that it is too deep for humans to understand ever or at all, but that they couldn’t understand it unless God unveiled it. He did not reveal it apart from His Spirit, which is the point in verses 10-13. It is still hidden from men who only have their worldly perspective.

More amazing than the fact that this wisdom was only recently made known is the fact that this wisdom was decreed before the ages, from before the world began, and for our glory. Decreed is fine, but the word is elsewhere translated “predestined” (as in Romans 8:29, and the NASB translates it as such here in 1 Corinthians 2:7). God decided beforehand in His wisdom to mature and magnify all who believe. The wisdom of God is actually the only way that humans can actually be complete in honor.

None of the rulers of this age understood this. They were busy seeking a name and a stage for themselves; Jesus was in the way of that, so they were convinced He had to go. Thinking themselves to be wise, they proved to be the fools. If they had [understood], they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The White Witch wouldn’t have killed Aslan if she knew the deep magic. So also the rulers thought they secured their triumph by killing Christ. They actually and unwittingly secured their doom. “Evil always bungles things in the end” (Thiselton). Little did they know.

Only in God’s wisdom could crucified the Lord of glory not be an oxymoronic statement. It’s the only time this title is used for Jesus in the New Testament, and it refers to glory as being His to display and to dispense. He gives glory to those who love Him.

as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

The as it is written phrase always introduces a quote from the Old Testament. But there is no single, obvious source for this statement. It sounds similar to a mix of Isaiah 64:4 and Isaiah 65:17, and perhaps that’s what Paul had in mind. No matter, it emphasizes that this world-upsetting, glory-making wisdom is mind-bending and it cannot be gleaned by human investigation, tradition, or imagination.

Isaiah 64:4, in particular, ends with “a God…who acts for those who wait for him.” “No heathen people ever conceived a God who would actually take care of those who placed their reliance on him” (Lenski). Who has imagined a God this kind? A God who designed to give the weak and unimpressive glory? Inconceivable (according to worldly wisdom).

No eye has seen empirical evidence for it, nor ear heard oral history of it, nor the heart of man imagined an abstract theory what God has prepared for those who love him. These are the truly mature ones (2:6). These are the saints who call on the name of the Lord (1:2). The ones who love Him aren’t great but, in His wisdom, He’s pronounced our glory.

Spirit-Revealed Wisdom (verses 10-13)

Verse 10 begins a new sentence. Paul continues to explain the imparting of wisdom in this paragraph, but the emphasis turns from the glory of the wisdom to the giver of the wisdom. Paul was not the ultimate teacher.

These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

This is the doctrine of illumination. We understand God’s wisdom only by God’s work. He destroys our false but intoxicating paradigm for explaining the world and opens our eyes to see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). And this well runs deep.

God’s Spirit reveals truth to us, and He knows things. By the Spirit’s work we are born again (John 3:5-6) and come to believe that Jesus is God and that Jesus died and rose again for our sin. This is amazing. But the Spirit gets us to the depths of God. Can we agree that if there was a single repository, a Fort Knox, of true wisdom, it would be in the depths of God? So when God reveals wisdom to us by His Spirit, God is revealing Himself to us, His purposes and thoughts and nature. And when God reveals Himself to us, God is revealing the cross.

This is why Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me” (John 8:28). The self-sacrificing love of God in the Son is the glory of God. This is why the self-elevating love of ego in the world cannot be true glory. It is what men agree upon for a while (see John 5:43-44). It’s why we like those who are glorifying themselves; we know all about that. But giving true glory to another? Who isn’t on your level? At your own cost? Because it’s who you are in the nature of your being? No wonder the rulers of this age didn’t figure it out.

All men are doomed to die apart from this wisdom without God’s self-disclosure. That’s why in verse 11 Paul illustrates that even people can’t read another person’s mind. We’ve got to communicate even between mortals, let alone between the transcendent and the this-worldly.

This wisdom can’t be earned or bought or explored or demanded. It can’t be gotten by skill or by study or strength. It is grace. We have received…the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. What have we been given? The Spirit has set us in a bucket and started to lower us down into the well. We’ve been given promises: “what God has prepared” (2:9). We’ve been given all speech and all knowledge (1:5), hope of being sustained guiltless (1:8), fellowship with the saints and the Trinity (1:9). We’ve been given wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption in Christ (1:30). We’ve been given a reason to boast that won’t get us laughed out of eternity (1:31). We’ve been given understanding of God’s election and decision to give us glory (2:7).

So sermons used by the Spirit are different. They don’t have to be cute or clever. They don’t have to be dressed up with extravagant words for the worldly. Preaching and teaching is only as good as the Spirit does the teaching. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. This might not be the best translation of verse 13, it might be preferable to understand it as “explaining spiritual things with spiritual words.” That said, the unspiritual people are the subject of the next paragraph, so this might set up the contrast. Either way, these truths are not communicated by the power of persuasive rhetoric as men define it.

Conclusion

Believer, be encouraged. God decreed this wisdom for you for your glory. God has prepared unimaginable things for those who love Him. God reveals these things through His Spirit. God even gave you His Spirit so that you could understand these things that are freely given to you by Him. You do have to be mature, reading more than bullet points and pull quotes and scanning the headlines. This is wisdom after all, but it is divine.

The world has no categories for wisdom such as this; God’s wisdom subverts and pulls the shirt over the world’s so-called wisdom. The world can’t see how good this wisdom is, how glory could come from denying self; God’s wisdom gets glory by way of a cross. The world won’t accept that this wisdom is gift; God’s wisdom is grace to us. How does the world work? What are the rulers setting up today that will work for our glory? How does the God who created the world work? We have His Spirit. We know His Son who died on the cross.

The application of these truths ruin any reason for division in the church. These truths also regulate the life of the church, as the following chapters unfold. The word of the cross leads to the way of the cross. We do not have the spirit of the world. We have the Spirit from God and we are no longer stuck in the system of the world. We understand the things freely given us by God.

Christian, the World-Upsetting, Glory-Making, Mind-Bending, Freely-Given Wisdom of God is yours.