Or, The Power of a Spiritual Starting Point
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:14-16
Date: October 29, 2017
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Today is a monumental day in church history. It is the closest Sunday to October 31st, the day that is usually acknowledged as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther made public his 95 Theses against indulgences. It is as impossible for us to know how much we’ve been influenced by the 500 year-old Reformation effects as it is for a fish to know how wet the water is. We’re in deep Christian waters due to God’s blessing on the Reformers’ work.
1 Corinthians 2:14-16 is not the text of Scripture that broke open the protest, but it sure does explain a lot of what was happening. This paragraph probably isn’t the first one that comes to mind when we think about the five solas or the five points of the doctrines of grace, and yet it does, at least in context, touch all ten doctrines. For many years after my own “conversion” to Calvinistic theology, verse 14 may have been my single-most referenced verse regarding evangelism and preaching and teaching and pastoral counseling, especially when it came to wondering about why it seemed so difficult for people to listen.
Paul has been poking at the immature divisions among some of the Christians in Corinth since his greeting to them at the beginning of the letter. Their quarreling came about because they were focused on the wrong things. It is not too simple to say that they were focused on man’s things—his abilities and accomplishments and social ranking—rather than on God’s things. This is no good on a number of levels, including the self-evident demotion of themselves. If you could choose, whose trail would you rather follow to the top of Mt. Wisdom? The path of the old Sherpa or that of the new prancersise instructor? And what does it say when you start dividing into tribes by what brand of hair product the prancerciser-prophets use? You’d say that has nothing to do with whether or not they can get us to the top of the mountain.
The philosophers of the world are the pracerciser instructors. They are dancing around selling their particular brand of leotard as the key to wisdom, and the only thing sillier than that is that Christians copy their moves. As if a certain hair spray or pair of stretchy pants will help us promote Christ.
You can’t get someone to love the gospel with gimmicks. And it’s laughable for men to convince themselves that they can think God-level thoughts apart from God-given help. It illustrates the great axiom: to misjudge is human. We are constantly getting things wrong, including our stubborn tenacity to deny that we’re getting things wrong. “Nuh-uh.” The only way out of this, the way that Luther and Calvin and Tyndale and other Reformers realized, is by God’s Spirit.
Here is a Reformation text worthy of a 500 year anniversary, even knowing that it will only be any good to us as God’s Spirit helps us to appraise what we’ve got and why it’s so great.
In 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 there are two declarations of reality, one about the limits of human judgment and one about the reach of spiritual judgment, and then one amazing celebration of these realities.
Paul’s just said in the previous paragraph that he and the preachers of the cross “do impart wisdom…a secret and hidden wisdom of God…revealed to us through the Spirit.” He’s completely dependent on God’s Spirit for his own understanding: “we have received…the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” He doesn’t need or use rhetorical eloquence as defined by the world, he is “interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual,” the ones who have God’s Spirit.
Now he contrasts the one who is spiritual (verse 13, and again in verse 15) with the one without the Spirit. He’s called the “natural man,” the man in his humanity apart from external, supernatural help. He’s got two problems that are quite logical within his own system.
The natural person [man] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him . Man can think. He’s a rational creature. Homo sapiens are the genus of wise men. One of our best prancersisers even used Latin to verify our existence by our thinking: Cogito, ergo sum.
Any reasoning man would question an infinite God humbling Himself by limiting Himself and lowering Himself to take on the form of a man, to take on the form of a servant, all the way down to “even death on a cross” (see Philippians 2:5-8). The all-powerful God would die for the ones who were killing Him? This is unmarketable fiction. Who would buy it?
Yet this is what some people call “good news” and they sing about it and call this cross-work a work of glory. They refer to a crucified Christ as the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). A natural man won’t receive it. He’s got a place to put that sort of story in his mind, the same place he would put a paper invite to LinkedIn: the garbage. Based on the premises of his starting point, it is illogical to believe these things.
As a matter of fact he doesn’t accept it. As a principle of will he won’t accept it. And in terms of capacity he can’t accept it. It doesn’t mean that he can’t ever, but he can’t ever naturally, he can’t intrinsically, within his own human power.
The natural man is not able to understand [the things of the Spirit of God] because they are spiritually discerned . A man who is five feet tall cannot stand next to and see the top of a ten foot tall box, not without a boost. In spiritual things, he doesn’t even know where the box is or how tall it is, let alone see what’s on top.
His argument is sound: glory comes from status, sacrificial death lowers status, therefore there is no glory in sacrificial death. It is folly to the Gentiles and a scandal to the Jews. It makes sense with the definitions he’s using. His argument is sound, but it is not valid because all his examinations start with definitions limited to the human level and, in truth, there’s more than just the human level.
His obstinacy and impotency are part of his depravity. And it is consuming, total, troubling. He’s blind but thinks he sees. He won’t and can’t believe without divine intervention. And do we (prancersising preachers) think we can convince him to see by selling him a different pair of leotards? Or talk about his blindness while sitting on couches drinking lattes? Or attract him out of blindness with our Christian rock band? That’s foolish, but now it is us who are the fools.
The Roman Catholic Church used worldly ways to spread the Pope’s empire, not Christ’s kingdom. Selling pieces of forgiveness papers is natural. Convincing people to go on a pilgrimage (and pay) to look at special old bones is natural. It makes a man feel better, at least for a little, about how he impressed God. It’s natural to believe that God would give a man some credit for doing that.
But the Scriptures reveal that Jesus alone is our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. He purchased our peace and saves us by grace (1 Corinthians 1:3, 4). Our faith doesn’t rest in the wisdom of men, others or own own, but in the power of God.
Two words are repeated from the end of verse 14: discerned and spiritual. The ESV doesn’t translate them the same way, but the contrast is even more clear by using the same vocabulary.
[But] the spiritual person [man] judges [discerns] all things . The “natural” man is limited, even if he isn’t always wrong. But if the world operates in ways he can’t know, doesn’t that pump the brakes of how impressed we can be by him? He can explain what a nucleus is, but he’s entirely wrong about why every nucleus in the world exists.
The man helped by God’s Spirit gets God’s wisdom even to the depths of God (1 Corinthians 2:10). God’s Spirit reveals what true wisdom and true love and true glory are in Christ’s death. We get how to be reconciled to God and how to be in fellowship with one another. We receive the things of the Spirit of God.
Verse 15, though, doesn’t limit the spiritual man’s discernible powers to “spiritual” things. Verse 15 says the spiritual man judges all things . How about the gospel? Government? Goat-hair sweaters? Goat cheese? Grammar? Gender? Having the Spirit doesn’t mean that we know all the facts about everything, but it does mean we can put the facts into their proper context.
“The natural man does not probe and judge aright even the common things of this life, to say nothing about the gospel; does not see their true nature, purpose, relation, etc. He magnifies these things out of all proportion and hence devotes himself to them exclusively and thus misuses them.” (Lenski)
The Spirit gives Christians insight into every thumb’s width in the world.
Differentiate: to develop distinguishing characteristics; to become distinct in character.
It’s a great word. The spiritual man, the one who judges all things, is himself to be judged by no one . Here’s the third use of “judge” in the paragraph and it shows more power of a spiritual man. Paul is explaining that whoever came up with the standards to judge the public speakers in Corinth were using the wrong ones, so they were wrong.
This verse has been used to defend the worst sorts of queer teaching and twisted behavior by professing Christians. “I am judged by no man, including, you, Mr. A Chump Pastor.” There is a sense in which this is true ultimately; every man answers to God as his final judge. But it is also the Spirit who makes us spiritual has revealed His Word and He’s revealed boundaries for believing and behaving. He’s also at work in a fellowship of spiritual people, making us into one body with different members that depend on each other (1 Corinthians 12).
But being judged to be fools by natural men should not bother us. It should give us unassuming assertiveness. It’s one of the things spiritual people know how to judge: why they’re being judged.
The final verse in the paragraph explains both of the previous verses with a surprising, yet scriptural celebration of the powerful mindset we’ve been given.
”For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13. The context of Isaiah 40 is a humbling of all humanity before the LORD God who did indeed measure the waters in the hollow of His hand and weigh the mountains (and sherpas and prancersising philosophers) on His scale. He can be likened to no other. “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” So you discovered a new species of flower? Congratulations, you’re ready to counsel the Creator of the flower. You reasoned that reason could answer all your questions about the meaning of life. Whom do you think you are, Mr. Hume? It’s not actually that impressive.
But we have the mind of Christ . “Christ” parallels “Lord” in the quote; Jesus Christ is the mighty, ruling, rewarding, recompensing God of Isaiah 40. The word mind “νοῦς denotes ‘a constellation of thoughts and beliefs which provides the criteria for judgments and actions’” (Jewett quoted by Thiselton). To have the mind of Christ here means to have a mind that humbles itself in light of the cross (see also Philippians 2:5-11).
In the context of Isaiah 40, Who has the mind of the Lord? is impossible. But in 1 Corinthians 2, who has it? We have by His Spirit! Certain of the Corinthians thought they were smart, and they misjudged the situation.
The Renaissance and the Enlightenment and Modern Science have seen artists and thinkers and researchers and inventors and doctors who have made terrific advances for humanity who don’t have a clue about Why. They have found and developed and produced some fantastic things (by God’s common grace), things Christians can give thanks to God for, but because of the natural man’s starting point, the best he can do is be inconsistent.
Man-made religion is no better, such as were pre-Reformation conditions. The Bible, as illumined by the Spirit apart from human tradition and human rhetoric, puts man in his place to receive the glory God predestined before the ages began. It is by grace through faith in Christ. And we have His mind! What’s in His mind? What can He explain about all the things He’s created? How far and deep do His interests extend?
So seeking status and boasting in anything other than Christ is logically less impressive. And if you’re talking with a natural man, pity and patience and Christ are better than arguments and proofs and cleverness. When we come to read the Bible or hear it read and taught, we remember that it’s a spiritual thing and we should depend on the Spirit.
Reformations happen when preachers preach a crucified Christ alone and God’s Spirit awakens Christians to see all things in God’s wisdom.