1 Corinthians 2:15 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Corinthians 2:15

Comments

‘But he that is spiritual judges [discerns] all things’ – things in the Bible, that is – ‘yet he himself is judged [discerned, understood] of [by] no man.’ Of course he isn’t, because a person who doesn't know the mind of the Lord, doesn't understand a Christian. Why is that Christian so happy? The natural man cannot understand; he doesn't judge him, discern him. Why does the believer forego the world and the pleasures of the world? They cannot understand us, the unbelievers. Why isn’t he crushed by hard circumstances? He doesn’t understand that we have hold on divine resources. Why is he so calm in distress? Why is he not building for this life? I don't understand that person, says the unbeliever. Why does he forgive people who offend him? Why does he apologise for his own faults? Why does he keep his wife, why does she keep her husband? How come they love each other so much and are so kind to each other? They don't understand the believer, his distinctives, his character, and his ways, aims, and tastes. ‘Yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ’, the will of Christ, the truth of Christ. There are two steps in Paul’s reasoning. First, the natural man cannot understand the mind of the Lord. His proof text comes from Isaiah 40:13. The mind of the Lord is so high above the mind of the natural man, it is so alien to him, that he cannot grasp the thoughts of God. The clearest evidence of his failure to know the mind of God is that he is utterly unfit to instruct or counsel or advise the Lord. To do that he would have to know something of God’s thinking; he would have to at least understand what God is planning, the way he looks at things, but the mindset of the natural man is so far removed from this that he is utterly disqualified from counselling the Lord. He cannot even understand God’s thoughts, let alone improve on them as any counsellor would need to do. But secondly, if the natural man does not know the mind of the Lord, then neither does he know the mind of the Christian, for the Christian has the mind of Christ. Paul has already shown that God has given believers his Spirit in order that he might share his very thoughts with them (verse 12). His summary of this remarkable state of affairs is here: ‘But we have the mind of Christ.’ So just as the unbeliever is incapable of understanding God’s thoughts, he is also incapable of understanding the thoughts, the motivation, the goals, the standards, the resources of the spiritual man. Of course Christians can relate to non-Christians on a secular level, but when it comes to matters of faith, there is an insuperable barrier between them without the illuminating work of the Spirit.

Application

How can Christians and non-Christians work together in the gospel? How can Bible-believing churches work hand in hand with churches that reject the fundamental truths of Scripture? They have nothing in common. The liberals cannot grasp the thinking of evangelicals. They are heading in different directions, and it is disobedience and wilful ignorance of what Paul says here to even try to cooperate together. Christians are left in this lost world to try to win it for Christ, not to behave as if churches composed of natural men and women are capable of understanding or contributing to the work.

Questions

Do believers really have the mind of Christ? We are not said to have the mind of Christ in the sense that we have got the infinite mind of God; of course not. You have the mind of Christ in the sense that you have his truth, his teaching. You love the same things that he loves, and hate the things he hates. We have a true understanding, though at a far greater level. What a privilege! You and I have the will of the eternal Son of God grafted into us in our understanding.

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1 Corinthians 2:15 Commentary and Bible Study