(Audio version; Music-"What I Already Know" by: Point Of Grace and "Amazing Grace" by: Chris Tomlin)
Introduction
As a
Christian, witnessing the events of the world that unfold around us daily can
make you question your own sanity at times. To make matters worse, an
unbelieving world appears to be, at best, blind to what seems so obvious to many
Christians and at worst they are enthusiastic participants. I don’t know about
you but sometimes I look around at what people are saying and doing and say to
myself, “Are you out of your mind?” Let me illustrate:
People
around the world insist that Islam is a religion of peace even while many of
its followers are in the process of invading nation after nation and brutally
murdering anyone who refuses to convert to their “peace movement.”
Israel is
accused of overreacting for seeking to defend itself against the incessant and
brutal terrorist attacks within its borders against its citizens from
Palestinians who in partnership with the terrorist organization, Hamas, have as
their mission to wipe the nation of Israel off the map.
We’re told that murdering babies is
a method of healthcare for women (except of course the women who are murdered
as babies-we’re not supposed to talk about them). And then butchering the
murdered babies and selling their body parts (for a healthy profit) serves to
advance the noble cause of medical research.
We’re supposed to accept that it is
completely normal for a woman to marry another woman or a man to marry another
man even though it is a biological abnormality. All the while ignoring the fact
that if homosexuality became the norm for all relationships, humanity would
cease to exist within just one to two generations.
Criminals break the law with
impunity and when law enforcement attempts to stop lawlessness, they are
accused of over-stepping their authority and are themselves accused of being
criminals.
“Brilliant” scientists insist that
humanity is responsible for changes in the worlds climate conditions—claiming
that it’s either too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry as though they
actually know what, definitively, the precise ideal climate conditions should
be on earth and exactly when those conditions ever existed in the past.
I could go
on and on but I think you get my point. It’s almost like some people are living
in a different universe where they see things completely backwards or upside
down from reality. Well the truth is that many people, including some
Christians, understand the world with the mind of the world where these things
all make perfect sense. However, the reason it seems so foolish to the rest of
us is because we understand these things using a different cognitive process—we
understand Islam to be a blood-thirsty cult with the ultimate goal of
instituting a worldwide caliphate; we know abortion is murdering a baby for
convenience; we know homosexuality is an abomination because it is a complete
contradiction to God’s created order; we know that law enforcement officers are
God’s servants put in place for our good and criminals who are wounded or
killed while confronting law enforcement officers generally get exactly what
they deserve; and we know that God is sovereign over all His creation—including
the weather. It seems so obvious to us because we process the events of the
world differently than does an unbelieving world and, sadly, some believers.
They process and understand the world with the mind of the world where worldly
attitudes and behaviors make sense while most Christians process and understand
the world with The Mind Of Christ
and we often reach the complete opposite conclusions. But what does it mean to
process the events of the world using The
Mind Of Christ?
Subject Text
1 Corinthians 2:10b-16
10bThe
Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who
among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In
the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We
have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that
we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we
speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the
Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14The man
without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they
are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about
all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: 16“For
who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the
mind of Christ.
Context
Corinth was
the most important seaport city in the Achaia province. It was a major
metropolitan city and major trade center. Corinth served to satisfy the desires
of the world. In Corinth, one could find the cults of the gods of Egypt, Rome,
and Greece. Although the temple of Aphrodite lay in ruins during Paul’s time, the
successors to the temple’s 1,000 cult prostitutes continued to practice their
profession in the city streets catering to sailors and traveling salesmen.
Corinth was home to some Jews but primarily Greeks or Gentiles. For many of the
Gentiles in Corinth, like many of the Jews in Jerusalem, the message of the
Gospel was considered foolishness. Paul tells us in the verses immediately
preceding our Subject Text that the
Jews wanted miraculous signs and a conquering Messiah not a humiliated and
crucified Messiah. The Greeks had no need for a God who could be killed. Jesus
didn’t have the divine characteristics of their mythological gods. The Greeks
did not believe in a bodily resurrection and no reputable person would be
crucified—certainly not a God. To the Greeks, death meant defeat not victory. For
the Greeks the atonement for sins and the sacrifice of the cross was
foolishness. The Greeks prized wisdom and intellect. The only problem was that
they were trying to understand the ways of God using the mind of the world,
which is why they considered the things of God—specifically, the message of the
cross, to be foolishness.
Text Analysis
10bThe Spirit searches all
things, even the deep things of God.
As a member
of the Trinity, the Spirit would naturally know all the intimate details about
God—who God is and what God is doing in and around us. The implications of v. 10b are so very important that I
don’t want you to miss them. How can we know the ways and the will of God
unless God tells us? Being indwelled by the Holy Spirit is the primary
distinction between Christians and non-Christians in how they relate to God and
the world. This is why Jesus told His disciples it was so important that He
should go away, because it would open the door for the Holy Spirit to enter the
lives of believers. Here’s how Jesus described it to His disciples:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be
with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it
neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and
will be in you…the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said
to you (Jn 14:16-17; 26).
The reason
unbelievers don’t see the world the same way believers see the world is because
of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, the only perspective in understanding
the world around us is rooted in the wisdom of the world that knows nothing
about the ways of Jesus because the world rejects Jesus. Unbelievers are
necessarily constrained to think like the world around them; they have in them
the mind of the world. Conversely, the Holy Spirit teaches Christians the
truths of God in Jesus and in this way Christians see the world from a divine
perspective as people informed by the Holy Spirit who reminds us of all the
things Jesus commanded and much more. Christians have in them The Mind Of Christ.
“The [grammatical aorist] tense
points to the advent of Christianity, ‘the revelation given to Christians as an
event that began a new epoch in the world’s history.’ The Spirit reveals, ‘for
the Spirit investigates everything, even the depths of God’: He discloses, for
He first discovers. The phrase describes an Intelligence everywhere active,
everywhere penetrating the complementary truth concerning the relation of
Father and Spirit. The Spirit is the organ of mutual understanding between man
and God. [Paul] conceives of Him as internal to the inspired man, working with
and through, though immeasurably above his faculties. [The depths] are those
inscrutable regions, below all that ‘the eye sees’ and that ‘comes up into the
heart of [humanity], where God’s plans for [humanity] are developed’…These
deep-laid counsels centre in Christ, and are shared by Him; so that it is one
thing to have the Spirit who ‘sounds the deeps of God; and to ‘have the mind of
Christ.”[1]
11For who among men knows the
thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one
knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
Paul’s
point in v. 11 seems rather obvious
as it relates to humanity but he is illustrating an important point in order to
validate the intimate relationship of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the
Son. No person can be fully known by another person. The marriage relationship
is perhaps the closest relationship where a person knows more about their spouse
than anyone else. And that knowledge only grows as time passes and the
relationship deepens. But even in the most intimate relationship both the
husband and wife have thoughts that are not immediately known to their spouse.
This is not true in the relationship between a person and his or her own spirit—there
are no secrets that a person can withhold from their own spirit. A person’s
spirit knows all there is to know about that person. In this same way, the
Spirit of God knows all there is to know about God. And that’s why the Spirit
is so vital in the life of the believer—we can’t really know God without the
Spirit. And we can’t know how to relate to the world the way Jesus related to
the world without the Spirit who gives us The
Mind Of Christ.
“Since
human wisdom does not belong to the same sphere as the divine, it cannot know
God. Only God’s Spirit apprehends God’s plans and purposes, and only God’s
Spirit can link God and humans together. What God is doing, God only knows…‘It
is not simply that just as individuals have private thoughts not known to
others, God has private thoughts too, rather, if human things are known only to
human knowers, divine things are known only to God’s Spirit.’ Paul’s intention
‘is to draw a thick and heavy line between things human and divine and to place
things of God squarely outside the limits of human knowing.’ That line is
crossed only by the divine Spirit, who works in humans ‘a likeness of the Lord
(2 Cor 3:18) and enables the confession ‘Jesus is Lord.’”[2]
12We have not received the spirit
of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God
has freely given us.
When Paul
says that we have not received the spirit of the world in v. 12, he is validating something Jesus said when He referred to
the disciples as being not of the world in the same way that He was not of the
world. In other words, disciples of Jesus, then and now, are not a product of
the world’s wisdom because the spirit of the world doesn’t direct their lives.
Instead, Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit who knows all the intimate
details of God and shares them with us as He sees fit in order to advance His
will for our lives and the world. Christians relate to God and the world around
us on the basis of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit who resides within us. What
does this reality look like in our everyday lives? Let’s consider just one of
the examples I gave in the Introduction
to this lesson: Christians filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit understand
abortion as murdering an innocent human baby. Unbelievers filled with the
wisdom of the spirit of the world understand abortion as a method of birth
control—even refusing to acknowledge that the baby is actually another human
being! It is a glaring and stark distinction—the wisdom of the Spirit of God
leads to life while the wisdom of the spirit of the world leads to death.
“Paul makes
[the] point once again by way of antitheses to those of the present age. He is
forever reminding the Corinthians that they belong to a different world order,
a different age, and therefore must not do as they are now doing—pursue or
think in terms of merely human sophia
[Gk. ‘wisdom’]. In receiving the Spirit, it was not ‘the spirit of the world’
that ‘we have received’…[Paul] is not suggesting that there is a ‘spirit’ of
the world comparable to the Holy Spirit, nor is he referring to demonic
‘spirits.’ He is rather saying something about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who
we have received is not ‘of this world’; rather, he is, ‘the Spirit who is from
God.’ The implication, of course, is that since they have the Holy Spirit, who
is not of this world, they should desist thinking like this world.”[3]
13This is what we speak, not in
words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing
spiritual truths in spiritual words.
Do you
understand the implications of v. 13?
Christians have been entrusted with the spiritual truths of God! Christians
have access to understand who God is and how God operates in the world. It may
be a limited understand but even that limited understanding is far more
valuable than any understanding that comes from the wisdom of the world. Let me
try and explain it like this: I might have an idea of how a clock functions by
looking at it’s inner workings but only the clock-maker knows exactly how it
was made and exactly how it is intended to function. In the same way,
unbelievers might have an idea of how creation functions by observing its
respective elements and its function through the lens of history but only the
Creator knows exactly how it was made and exactly how it is intended to
function. And Christians have access through the Spirit to the knowledge of the
Creator.
So what does this mean in our
world? For those of you who are not Christians, you’re not going to like what I
have to say: Only Christians should be in positions of leadership because only
Christians are able to understand the world according to God’s plan and
purposes—only Christians have The Mind
Of Christ. That means that only Christians should hold governing offices;
only Christians should be teachers and school administrators; only Christians
should own and manage businesses. Why? Because all of these things are part of
the God’s created order and only the Creator knows how they are intended to
function. So it stands to reason that only those who have access to the Creator
should hold positions of leadership within God’s created order. Unfortunately,
that’s not the reality in our world. Many, maybe even most, people in positions
of leadership and influence are not Christians. And that explains the growing
immorality and foolish thinking in the world—broken people filled with the
spirit of a broken world can do nothing more than perpetuate brokenness. But
spiritual people filled with the Spirit of God can lead the world into the
truths of God—especially when it comes to the truth of the Gospel; the truth
that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ who died for us to provide a way for
us to become reconnected with God having been separated from God because of our
sins. And this is the trajectory toward which all of creation should be
directed. But only those who have The
Mind Of Christ can lead the world along that trajectory.
“Paul
explained that the gospel message had not been given with words of human wisdom
because no human wisdom can adequately explain God’s wisdom. In order to speak
the Spirit’s message, believers must speak words given by the Spirit. In order
to explain spiritual truths, believers must use the Spirit’s words. Paul’s words
are authoritative because their source was the Holy Spirit. Paul was not merely
giving his own personal views or his personal impression of what God had said.
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he was writing the very thoughts and
words of God. Today, all believers pass along the gospel message—trusting in
God’s Spirit to speak the spiritual truths.”[4]
14The man without the Spirit does
not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually
discerned.
A few
months ago, I had a lengthy discussion with a self-proclaimed atheist about the
issue of abortion when she claimed that outlawing abortion would end the life
of the mother. As you can imagine, I was confused at how she reached that
conclusion so I asked her to explain. She explained that taking way a woman’s
right to have an abortion would mean that she would lose her ability to have a
productive work-life and that would be tantamount to ending her life. I tried
to explain to her that an innocent human life created in the image of God was
far more valuable than a productive work-life but she thought I was a fool for
believing in God in the first place. You see, according to v. 14, without the Spirit, what is perfectly clear to you and me as
Christians is nothing more than foolishness to unbelievers. I’ve had similar
conversations with unbelievers about the Good News of Jesus Christ that usually
end with me being accused of being a fool for believing in fairytales.
“People
without the Spirit are not able to accept the things that come from the Spirit.
Only those who are under the influence of the Holy Spirit can receive Christian
instruction with open hearts. The Christian message appears to be foolishness
to people without the Spirit. They cannot understand the teachings of the
Spirit…Paul didn’t mean that unbelievers have absolutely no understanding of
the Christian gospel and instruction…Paul meant that unbelievers cannot lay
hold of or deeply appropriate the Christian message. People without the Spirit
are impaired in their ability to understand and accept the instructions of the
Spirit because their orientation in life is so contrary to the Spirit.
The
teachings of the Spirit are foolish and cannot be understood because they are
spiritually discerned. People without the Spirit cannot grasp the revelation of
God’s wisdom because they hold to wrong standards of judgment. They employ the
standards of human wisdom to judge the truth claims of Christ. The revelation
of the Spirit, however, is properly evaluated only by the Spirit’s work in the
heart and mind of a person.”[5]
15The spiritual man makes
judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s
judgment: 16“For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may
instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
I want to
warn every Christian about the danger of vv.
15-16. Before you use these verses to insist that your view is the only
view that is legitimate, you had best be sure that you can make that claim in
the presence of God. You may not be subject to the judgment of unbelievers for
your beliefs but I promise that you will be subject to God’s judgment for them.
If you allow your words and deeds to be guided by the Spirit then you have
absolutely nothing to worry about but you had better be aware of the dire
consequences if you try and use these verses to advance your own personal
opinions and agenda. Having said that, these verses should give you the courage
to share the message of Christ as well as all other biblical truth because it
is truth that has been revealed to you by the Spirit of God. Furthermore, a
sinful, self-prioritizing world, can judge you to be foolish, arrogant,
hate-filled, or ignorant but that judgment is meaningless because it is rooted
in worldly wisdom, which by its very nature is distorted and flawed. How can
someone who relies on the wisdom of the world judge the ways of someone who has
the privilege of knowing the “deep things of God?” When Jesus said that the
Holy Spirit would guide us and remind us of everything He taught, it means that
the Holy Spirit transforms not just our lives but also our minds. Where once we
relied on worldly wisdom to make judgments about life, we can now make
judgments that are consistent with biblical truth because we have been given The Mind Of Christ.
“As the
Spirit searches all things, the person guided by the Spirit also can examine
all things, particularly God’s ways, that were formerly hidden. Unspiritual
persons cannot do this, because they have no help to bridge the knowledge gap
and cannot make correct assessments. By saying that the spiritual person is
examined by no one, Paul could mean that the unspiritual person, who misjudges
the cross as foolishness, also misjudges believers as fools. Their judgments
are invalid.”[6]
Application
Have you
ever heard of John Newton? You might not be familiar with his name but I’ll bet
you know his greatest work. I’ll get to that shortly but first I want to tell
you about who he was and the kind of life he lived. Newton lived during the
middle of the 18th century with a love for the sea. He went on his
first of six sea-voyages with a merchant navy captain when he was just 11-years
old. He lost his first job in the merchants office because of “unsettled behavior
and impatience of restraint.” In other words, he was quick to become angry and
lose self-control—a characteristic that would rear its ugly head often in the
years ahead.
Newton
spent his later teen years at sea until he was pressed into military service as
part of the Royal Navy. However, his propensity towards “impatience of
restraint” made it difficult to exist in an environment of military discipline
where he consistently rebelled against those who were in authority over him.
Not willing to humble himself to the authority of his superiors, he deserted
the navy. He was eventually apprehended by naval authorities and put in prison.
He petitioned his superiors to discharge him to serve on a slave ship. There,
Newton went from bad to worse as he became an active advocate of slavery.
Newton’s depravity continued to spiral downward. He was known as a
“free-thinker” which is someone whose opinions are based on reason, independent
of authority or tradition. Newton continued to be arrogant and insubordinate
and lived with complete moral abandon. He later wrote of himself, “I sinned
with a high hand…and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” Newton was
right at home with the barbarism of slavery and the slave trade business. What
some saw as evil, Newton saw as an opportunity for profit. What you may not
know is that Newton was raised by his Christian mother who taught him the Bible
at an early age. Nevertheless, Newton had no use for the transformative message
of the gospel and considered the faith of his mother as foolish. Until, that
is, his sin-filled life left him in rags and begging for food—a condition that
began to soften his hard heart.
In 1747
Newton became a sailor on a ship called the Greyhound. On a voyage back to
Liverpool, the Greyhound was engulfed by a violent storm. At some point during
the voyage home, Newton had been reading Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ and was struck by one particular line in the
book that read, “uncertain continuance of life.” Faced with the uncertain continuance
of his own life in the midst of a violent storm, Newton gave his life over the
Christ. They reached the safety of Liverpool and Newton began focusing his
attention on restraining the worst excesses of the slave trade. Eventually,
Newton became increasingly disgusted with slavery and his role in it and quit
the business altogether and became an ordained Anglican minister.[7]
Still don’t
recognize who John Newton is? He is the man who wrote the Christian hymn that
has been remade countless times and is sung even today. Newton authored Amazing Grace. And there is one
particular line in the hymn that I want to highlight to illustrate the point of
this lesson. The line is: “I once was lost but now I’m found, was
blind but now I see.” Before Newton became a believer he fancied
himself as wise and enlightened in the ways of the world. It was only after he
became a believer that he realized he was actually blind without the knowledge
of God. Before becoming a follower of Christ, Newton was guided by the wisdom
of the world and lived with the mind of the world. As such, his life was
defined by gross immorality and brutality toward other human beings. However,
once he became a believer, his eyes were opened and he began to be guided by
the wisdom of the Spirit of God. Accepting Christ started a change of heart and
a change of mind in Newton. Once influenced by the mind of the world that saw
nothing wrong with the exploitation people, Newton later received The Mind Of Christ that recognized the
inherent value in all humanity as having been created in the image of God. And
if you are a Christian, this is the mind that is in you as well. I hope this
gives you some degree of comfort and encouragement when the world considers you
and your ways foolish. Remember believers are blind; they process and
understand the world with the mind of the world—a world that is broken. You
were once blind but now you see; now you process and understand the world
differently—with a new mind; a transformed mind; with The Mind Of Christ.
[1] W.
Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s
Greek Testament, Vol. II, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 1983), p. 781.
[2] David E.
Garland, 1 Corinthians—Baker
Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academics,
2003), pp. 98-99.
[3] Gordon
D. Fee, The First Epistle to the
Corinthians—The New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand
Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 112-113.
[4] Bruce
Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, and Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 655.
[5] Richard
L. Pratt, I & II Corinthians—Holman
New Testament Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2000), p.
37-38.
[6] Garland,
1 Corinthians, p. 101
[7]
Christianity Today, “John Newton: Reformed slave trader,” (August 2008),
accessed October 18, 2015, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/pastorsandpreachers/newton.html.
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