THE SPIRIT OPENS THE TREASURES OF GOD

 Dr. W. A. Criswell

 1 Corinthians 2:9-10

11-08-81  10:50 a.m.

 

It is one in a series of doctrinal sermons on Pneumatology, on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.  And the message today is an exposition of the second chapter of 1 Corinthians.  And if you would like to turn in your Bible to this passage, you can follow the message easily—1 Corinthians, chapter 2, beginning at verse 5:

That your faith should not stand in the mercy of men, but in the power of God.

For we speak wisdom among you that are teleiois, mature.

--Not babbling babes, to whom the message and revelation would mean nothing, but to you, who are teleiois, translated here "perfect," you who are mature.

... yet not the wisdom of this world, for we speak the wisdom of God in a mustērion,

—a secret wisdom that is known to us only by the revelation of God. 

... even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world to our glory... .

As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. 

But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth and knoweth and understandeth the things of God. 

And He, the Spirit, has made known unto us these things that are freely given to us of God. 

Which things we speak

—we are preaching of them this morning-- 

… not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth.

For the psuchikos man--translated here “the natural man”

—the psuchikos man.  The Greek word for the sentient being of man is psyche, in Greek psuchē, and the adjectival form of it is psuchikos.  For the sensuous man, the natural man, the material man, the five senses man,

… receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolish unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But the pneumatikos man, translated here “he that is spiritual” —pneuma, the word for spirit; in the adjectival form pneumatikos.  The spiritual man anakrinō, discerns all things.  To him is revealed the mustērion of God.

Now our basic text:

Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath entered into the heart of a man, what God has prepared for us who love Him.

 

Now I have quoted that verse endless numbers of times, as everybody else has, but I always misquote it.  I always quote that verse as though it referred to the other world that is yet to come.  I quote it, world without end, at funeral services: “Eye hasn’t seen, ear hasn’t heard, heart hasn’t imagined what God has prepared for us who love the Lord.” 

Now there is nothing wrong with that.  It is spiritually true.  But that is in no wise even approaching the meaning of the apostle.  He is not talking about a future world, another inheritance.  He is talking about this world, here and now: “Eye hasn’t seen, ear hasn’t heard, heart hasn’t imagined, but God hath already revealed them unto us by his Spirit.”—here and Now in this present world, at this moment. 

The distinction that the apostle is drawing in this passage is the distinction between man’s wisdom, the wisdom of the world, and God’s wisdom, the difference between truth apprehended by the five senses of the sentient man, and the truth that is revealed, the mustērion that is made known to us, by the Spirit of God.  The distinction that he is drawing here in this passage is between a world that is apprehended by our sight and sense, our sensitivity; between a world that we can see, and feel, and touch, and taste, and smell; between that world and a world that is revealed to us only by the Spirit of God. 

The distinction that the apostle is drawing here is the difference between the psuchikos man and the pneumatikos man.  The psuchikos man, the man of materiality, the physical man, the man of the five senses, and he is avowing that the psuchikos man, the man who is sentient, who has five senses, cannot know revelation.  He cannot by himself in his sentient being discover God.  The ear cannot see Him, the ear cannot hear Him, the eye cannot see Him, the heart cannot conceive of Him.  The visible, audible, imaginable truth of God is only in the revelation of the Holy Spirit.  But he says the pneumatikos man, the man of the Spirit, this man taught of God, is able to receive the deep mustērion, the mysteries, the secret truth of the revelation of God.

Now that is the meaning of the apostle in the passage.  So let’s look at it.  He says here: “Eye hath not seen.”  That is, spiritual, eternal truth cannot be discovered or discerned by observation by the human eye; it cannot be seen.  What the eye sees is temporal and transitory and passing; even its form and its symmetry and its beauty brings a certain sadness to our heart, for it is ephemeral--it is for the moment.  It is not eternal. 

The people to whom Paul is writing this letter lived in Corinth, one of the great, beautiful cities of the ancient world.  It was a city of form and beauty and culture.  The Corinthian column, the Corinthian column, is the most ornate and beautiful of all of the architectural columns ever imagined.  When Mummius, the Roman general, destroyed, plundered Corinth in 146 B.C., after which Julius Caesar rebuilt it—but when Mummius plundered it, when he was given a Roman triumph through the cities of the city of Rome, there were wagonloads and wagonloads and wagonloads of art and sculpture and beautiful masterpieces created by those pagan Greeks.  But what the eye can see is bounded; it is measured in inches or feet or yards.  And even though it is made out of marble, it is perishing. 

And, as I say, there is a sadness about looking upon it. There is a melancholy that accompanies it. The sunset or the rainbow or the very stars themselves fade away and certainly human and natural beauty. That is why, once in a while, we read of a Hollywood actress who commits suicide. She can not bear the hurt of seeing her lovely form vanish through the years.

It is only the eternal loveliness that endures: Only the King, in His beauty. It is the land that we scan from afar. It is the beautiful and wonderful city of God that endures. What the eye can see, what the psuchikos man can observe, is just outward. It is never inward. It is peripheral. It is never central or dynamic. The five senses, the eye, can never bring a revelation, never. By searching, a man can never find God. What the eye can see and what the man is capable of observing is just the outward, ephemeral, transitory aspect of reality, to things of being.

Then the Apostle avows a marvelous avowal: What eye can’t see and what ear doesn’t hear and what the creative imaginative faculty of man is not able to reach... God hath revealed it unto us by his Spirit. And, we have been made to know the things that have been given freely by God: he great mustērion, The hidden wisdom of God, which He ordained before the world unto our glory, our salvation, our exaltation.

Well, that is a remarkable thing the apostle is avowing. He is saying that we have another sense besides these five sentient senses. We have another sense. We have another faculty. The apostle would avow that the animals, the anthropoids, have the five senses we possess, but we possess one no animal possesses, no anthropoid, no simian, no ape, no other creature. We have an endowment from God that no other creature has, and that is we have the sense of the presence of God. And we have the ability to receive the mustērion, the wisdom of God; not the wisdom of the world, the sentient wisdom that we can learn ourselves, but a wisdom that is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit of God.

And Paul describes in 1 Timothy 3:16 that mustērion, that hidden wisdom. And it goes like this: “And without controversy great is the mustērion of godliness; namely, God was manifest in the flesh.” No human philosophy, or deduction, or speculation would ever reach a revelation like that. This Babe, born of a virgin Jewish girl, poor, in a stable, laid in a manger. This Babe is God Almighty incarnate. The Spirit of God must reveal that truth to a man, otherwise it is foolishness to him. In Christ we have all of God. To love Jesus is to love God. To bow before the Lord Jesus it to bow before God. To sit at the feet of Jesus is to sit at the feet of God. To receive the Lord Jesus is to receive God. To serve the Lord Jesus is to serve God.

The great mustērion revealed to us by the Spirit of God: “He was manifest in the flesh... . He was preached to the people and believed on in the world.” That is a mustērion. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians: “For when in the wisdom of the world, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” This is a miracle of God, a mustērion of the Lord, that, in preaching, in presenting the best that a preacher knows how, the wonderful truth of our Lord, the Spirit of God takes the message and He bears it to the heart of a believer. God has to do something to the heart before the revelation of God is ever received, ever believed, before it is ever meaningful. Otherwise it is foolishness--it has no meaning.

I must close. Our time is gone. Great is the mustērion of God. Not only He was manifest in the flesh and not only is He preached and some believe, the work of the Holy Spirit. But it says here analambanō—“received up,” it is translated-- caught up, picked up, carried up into glory. And the Bible is firm to say that if we are with Him, we are caught up with Him. It uses those words: “Caught up with Him.”  We are lifted up with Him. We are raised up with Him. We are received with Him. He is the Lord of all creation, and we are his brothers and sisters, to reign with Him forever and ever. And that is the most marvelous, redemptive grace of God that mind could imagine: that God receives us and takes us up and picks us up and carries us up with Him into glory.

It is like this: a hunter was standing between the forest and the field, and he saw in the distance a little fawn, a little deer, being run down by the hounds. And as the little thing staggered to die, it turned in terror to face the dogs. But in turning, the pitiful little thing saw the hunter standing there. And with one last burst of energy, the little fawn ran to the hunter and fell prostrate at his feet. The man was amazed. He picked up the little thing in his arms, fought off the dogs, carried it home, loved it, made a pet of it, and kept it as a reminder of such sublime and infinite faith.

The hounds of hell run us down. Look over your shoulder. Look behind you: sin, and death, and the grave, and corruption, and judgment. And in our terror, as we face the inexorable and inevitable foe, we see Jesus, and we fall at His feet.  “Lord, Lord, against such foes, I have no ableness or power to do it; a sinner, a dying man, facing the grave and an eternity for what, Lord?  God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God, be pitiful to me as I fall at thy feet.”

And, if I can trust the promise of the Book, and if I can trust the sweet experience of mother and father and ten thousand times ten thousand sins, Jesus will pick me up and keep me and save me and present me, someday, before the great glory--receive us into glory. This is a revelation of God. Eye doesn’t discover it. Ear doesn’t discern it. The human creative faculty doesn’t reach it. It is something God does for us.

Oh, bless and praise His wonderful name. Now, may we stand together?