1 Corinthians 2:9-11

Our better days are coming!

Teach me Holy Spirit the ways of Your Son, Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 2: 9-11

9 But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 

Paul uses Isaiah to assert that people cannot understand the things of God through human faculties they must rely on the Spirit graciously given to believers by God. He emphasizes that love for God—not love for wisdom or knowledge—yields an understanding of the things of God, including His plan of salvation through the cross. Yet Paul later explains that God grants wisdom and knowledge as spiritual gifts. What the Corinthians desire (and overemphasize at the detriment of the gospel and Christ’s lordship over their lives) will come after they’ve accepted Christ and recognized who He is and what He has done for them. God grants insight regarding His work to those who follow Him and do His will.

God has shown the hidden wisdom of God to those who follow Christ. Paul argues that people desiring to know more or have greater wisdom should seek to walk more closely with Christ, as God reveals His eternal work to people this way.  Just as people know their own minds, so the Spirit (pneuma in Greek) knows the things of God. Faithlife Bible.

Only the Holy Spirit could reveal the truths of God. The first verb refers to innate knowledge; the second refers to experiential knowledge. We could never have discovered the mysteries of God or the benefits of Christ’s death by ourselves. But we can know them by experience because they have been freely given to us by God. NKJ Bible.

Job 32:8 | But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.

Proverbs 20:27 | The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 | Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Isaiah 64:4 | For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him.

Isaiah 65:17 | “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.