1 Corinthians 2:9 Commentary and Bible Study

The apostle is now going to speak extensively about revelation of salvation. There are two senses in which the words of this verse must be taken and applied. Take them first in context: this ninth verse explains the eighth verse. The apostle has in mind the fact that the light of the gospel, exactly how salvation would be procured for us, the coming of the Son of God, his substitutionary atoning death of Christ: these things though revealed and prophesied in the Old Testament were not as clear as they became with the incarnation of Christ. The people of old were urged to trust in the mercy of God. They were given all the types and the shadows, and the sacrifices of the ancient worship, teaching that there must be a sacrifice, a price paid, and blood be shed in order for sin to be forgiven, but they could not see the detail. Despite the hints of Isaiah chapter 53 and other passages, they could not see clearly how it would be done. Why not? Because the human eye is blind to these things. Man will not trust in God and his pride is so great. Human beings never thought about an atoning death of Almighty God himself as the way of dealing with sin and purging it away. If they think of it at all, they conclude, ‘Well, I should be capable of earning my passage to him.’ In their pride they invent religions of works, imagining they can accomplish salvation. It does not occur to the fallen human mind under the judgement of God that nothing can be done; salvation must be entirely a gift of God. Even the Jews, before the coming of Christ, were largely in darkness. If they trusted in the mercy of God, they did not quite understand why; that would come with the bright beams of gospel light and gospel day. No one was preaching it, not even the prophets. They were urging repentance and trust in the mercy of God, but they could not see how it would be done. When Isaiah had the prophecy given to him that we call chapter 53, that suffering servant suffering for sin, he peered at this passage, just as we do. With hindsight we look at that chapter, and say, ‘Look, it is so clear’, but they could not see it anything like so clearly. God has prepared something. The word ‘prepared’ implies in the Greek the idea of a progressive work, not something sudden. God does many things just at a word, instantaneously, suddenly, but the preparation of the gospel was something carefully done over time. The coming of Christ and gospel blessings was made ready by centuries of prophecy and training of the mind of man by all the types and the shadows. Also, the world had to be brought into a more orderly condition, even, yes, under the tyranny of the Roman Empire. That bought a degree of trade and the movements of armies and commercial people, never seen before. It brought about conditions where the light of the gospel could shine throughout the world, and those great Roman roads would be built. The message of the gospel could rapidly travel out and Christianity could be established worldwide. God prepared these things ‘for them that love him’, or who will be brought to love him. It culminated in the historical coming of Christ, the Son of God with his miracles, his character, and his teaching, and then his going to the cross of Calvary, his suffering and death, his resurrection and ascension; the world had to be prepared for these things. It had to be proved that the human race could not please and satisfy God without a Saviour. So you had the centuries of polytheism and even the privileged Jewish nation which had many believers in it, but the vast majority were never believers. God was saying, ‘Even though I take aside out of the world an entire nation, and privilege them, and give them revelation, worship, and prophets, and even though I intervene in their national affairs and do miracles and brought great deliverances, they still rebelled against me. But just as verse nine speaks of the blessings to come in gospel days, it really does look on beyond that and speak of the blessings that come for believers in the eternal hereafter. It is not one or the other; both senses are spoken of in this glorious verse. We have got the hints of it, but we have not seen or experienced the fullness of the things that await us in the eternal glory. They are described to us in a measure in words that we can understand, but we have not experienced and felt them. The eye has not even intellectually grasped their fullness, nor has the ear really heard anything that does justice to them, nor has it entered into our imagination. I cannot even grasp it with the wonders of the human imagination. Just start with the lowest things that we shall see in eternity. You can find somewhere away from a city, where the skies are clear at night. You can go to the top of a mountain and on the clearest of nights you can see the whole panoply of stars, all the heavens in a breath-taking way, and just try to take in the expanse of the universe, until you are almost overwhelmed by the vastness of it. Yes, but that is nothing to the apprehension we shall have of the immensity of God's realm in the eternal glory. Then think of the love of God. You have had sensations of his love at times, and have marvelled at it: ‘that he could love me.’ You have had tokens of love in human relationships, when you have felt the love of another, so deeply, but in eternity that sense of the mighty everlasting love of God will be so amplified beyond anything we could think of. If we were capable of feeling shame, we would feel so ashamed at how we underestimated Christ and took him for granted.