God's Message of Wisdom and the Spirit of God PT 3
There are wrong ways and right ways to study the Bible. Wrong ways would be like those who carelessly treat the Bible as if it is some kind of magical item. We have all seen those toys you can buy at almost every store that you ask a question, then you shake it, and it gives an answer like, “yes” “maybe” “no” or “not sure, check back later.” IT seems like some people must use that method with their Bible to make it say some of the things they say. They ask it a question, shake it, and there is the answer. It is not unlike the story of the preacher’s whose car broke down on a country road, he walked to a nearby roadhouse to use the phone. After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed at the bar. "What happened to you, Frank?" asked the good reverend. "You used to be rich."
Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall. "Go home," the preacher said. "Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page and there will be God's answer."
Some time later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch and had just stepped our of a Mercedes. "Frank." said the preacher, "I am glad to see things really turned around for you."
"Yes, preacher, and I owe it all to you," said Frank. "I opened my Bible, put my finger down on the page and there was the answer -- Chapter 11."
Reader's Digest, March, 1993, p. 71.
We of course, do not study our Bible in that careless manner. Indeed, we understand the study of Scripture to be serious, hard, intellectual work. We understand that to gain a proper understanding of the Scripture we must proceed carefully and thoughtfully, exercising our entire mind. We also understand we need to proceed in a manner that is dependent upon God asking him to help us understand. As the Psalmist prayed, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” Our study of Scripture is not unlike that analogy used by Martin Luther. Martin Luther said, “I study my Bible as I gather apples. First, I shake the whole tree that the ripest might fall. Then I shake each limb, and when I have shaken each limb, I shake each branch and every twig. Then I look under every leaf. “I search the Bible as a whole like shaking the whole tree. Then I shake every limb—study book after book. Then I shake every branch, giving attention to the chapters when they do not break the sense. Then I shake every twig, or a careful study of the paragraphs and sentences and words and their meanings.”[1]
I try very hard to model this method to you in my preaching and teaching because it guards quite well against me making the text say what I think or want it to say and it enables me to say confidently this is what God’s word says and this is what it does not say. This method is also particularly helpful when one comes upon a notoriously difficult text such as this one, one that seems as though there are as many different interpretations as there are interpreters!
My point in all of this is to say we must be very careful with how we approach God’s word, and nowhere is that more true than here. This passage has been the victim of a not a few drive by misinterpretations. Bad interpretations of this text are like a bad cold, they keep coming back. After all, if one were not careful here, one could end up being the most pompous, arrogant, pretentious, snobbish, egotistical, spiritual elitist imaginable. Does not Paul say as a “spiritual man” you are subject to no judgment and indeed, you judge all things! Even more, does Paul not say here as believers we possess the mind of Christ so by all rights we should be more than qualified to instruct all people in every matter possible, even God himself, what’s more, we cannot be judged for doing it! What a grandiose thought! Everything I say and judge is pure and right because I possess the mind of Christ and no one can judge me and say I am wrong because I have the mind of Christ! I am on the top of the world! That, of course, is not what Paul is saying.
So what is Paul saying? Put simply, Paul is continuing with his contrast between human and divine wisdom. He is stating in the clearest and boldest of terms that the natural man, the worldly wise man, no matter how intelligent or genius he is cannot understand the wisdom of God, but we who are spiritual through possession of the Holy Spirit can understand and welcome and receive the wisdom of God! This is not to say anything bad about human wisdom. Certainly we have all gained from it and are glad of its benefits like the car, microwave oven, etc. It is simply to say, human wisdom alone won’t get you anywhere and cannot get you anywhere with God. God is unimpressed by it. God regards it as foolishness.
My aim this morning is again to deepen your appreciation for and understanding of the Holy Spirit and to encourage you to live like one who possesses the Holy Spirit.
So let’s get into the details!
We are here confronted with a contrast between the natural man and the spiritual man. The natural man, being so called, because he does not possess the Spirit of God. The spiritual man is so called because he has possessed the spirit of God.
Natural Man
The NIV reads “the man without the Spirit.” The KJV and NASB read, “the natural man.”
We were all of us, without exception, born natural men and women.
The adjective “natural” points to an absence of spiritual discernment, to the person whose horizon is bounded by this life. As one Greek lexicon put it, the natural man is “one who lives on the purely material plane, without being touched by the Spirit of God” (BGAD). Life on this level is without spiritual insight.
In other words, the “natural man” is any person who is unsaved, who does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their one and only Savior from their sin. We are all born this way.
In regard to spiritual things, the natural man has three dispositions or limitations. He does not accept them, regards them as foolishness, and cannot understand them. This is true, because the things of God are spiritually discerned.
Does not accept or welcome
The first limitation of the natural man we encounter is he “does not accept” the things that come from the Spirit of God. The Greek word translated “accept” can be variously translated “receive” or “welcome.” It has an air of welcome about it and is the usual word for the reception of a guest. When the natural man is confronted with the things of God, he does not accept it. He rejects it out of hand.
Illustration of Jack giving us fish
Regards as foolishness
The second limitation of the natural man we encounter is he regards the things of the Spirit as “foolishness.” This explains for us why the natural man rejects the things of the Spirit too. He rejects it because it is all foolishness to him. Paul said the same thing in 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” and in 1:23 “but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”
Cannot understand
The third limitation of the natural man we encounter is he “cannot understand” the things of God because they are spiritually discerned. The emphasis of such language is inability. Just as a blind person cannot see or crippled person walk or mute person speak a natural person cannot discern the things of God. It is wholly impossible.
These are the three limitations of natural persons. They do not accept the things of God, they regard them as foolishness, and they cannot understand them.
A Few Thoughts To Consider:
First, the wisdom of God displayed in the crucified Messiah is rejected outright by the natural man.
The natural person is as Gordon Fee says not “simply incapable of understanding the things of the Spirit, but that, because of their being “merely human” (i.e. , without the help of the Spirit), they ‘reject’ the things of the Spirit” (Fee, 116).” Natural reason and intuition are completely unable to receive the divine realities unaided. None of this is to say the natural man does not make any efforts to know and understand and examine the things of God, but it is to say they analyze divine truth with limited, earthbound faculties and, not surprisingly, find this divine truth wanting. They call it weak, silly, absurd, pathetic, and foolish. For example, the worldly-wise scholars Paul encounters at Athens deem Paul a “babbler” (Acts 17:18) and scoffed at his preaching of the resurrection (Acts 17:32). Gallio regarded the dispute between Paul and the Jews as silly talk (Acts 18:15), and Festus thought Paul to be insane (Acts 26:24). I can remember many times in my attempts to share the gospel with unbelievers being told, “I don’t want to hear that nonsense” or “that doesn’t make any sense to me” or “don’t waste y time with such foolishness.” Consider also with me the words of Christ in John 8:42-47.
Second, our ministry must depend upon the power of the Spirit.
Because it is true that we understand and discern the things of God by the Spirit of God, we must depend upon the power of God in the Spirit in our Christian lives. Nowhere is this truer than in our efforts to witness and in our efforts to have a church that is God centered and Christ exalting and Scripture saturated. Read 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Having just heard of the natural persons outright rejection of Jesus Christ as foolishness, you may be thinking how then can anyone be saved? Perhaps your response is that like the disciples who having heard Christ’s say “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus reply then is as relevant today as it was then, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” It is only by a wondrous powerful act of God by His Spirit that anyone can believe! God and His Spirit make the difference. For the natural person to freely understand and discern the things of God, he must receive the Spirit of God and that requires the supernatural work of God. God must give us the Spirit. The Spirit is the link or the quality that enables us to understand what God has freely given us in Christ Jesus our Lord. So here is the point. Brothers and Sisters in Christ when you witness, as very important as your zeal, logic, reasoning, persuading, pleading, and making the gospel clear is, it means zip without the Spirit of God! Just as Romans 8:7 says, “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so! Repentance, salvation is based on God’s power and His Spirit so spend more time in prayer pleading and wrestling with God to demonstrate his power! Plead with God to open the eyes and understanding of unbelievers that they might see and understand the truth of Jesus Christ!
A wrong response to this passage would be to throw your hands up in frustration, refusing to evangelize anymore because it is hopeless any will understand. Certainly this was not the response of Jesus Christ who knew full well many would not understand it or accept it. Certainly this was not the response of Paul who was called every name in the book and received every form of abuse for it. HE knew full well it is foolishness and a stumbling block to many, that is what drove him to share it and teach it with others. This should not stop you from personal evangelism, but it should prepare you and help you and teach you to rely upon God to demonstrate the power of His Spirit, because Salvation belongs to the LORD!
Read 1 Thess. 1:4-6.But because you are all Bible scholars (and also because we have just finished going through Thess. In S.S.) you remember when Paul preached the gospel in Thessalonica there was tremendous rioting and severe suffering so what made the difference between those who believed and those who did not believe – the Spirit of God. In Acts 17:32-34 we read of two responses to Paul’s preaching of the gospel. Some sneered and some believed. What made the difference, God’s Spirit.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ because the Spirit of God has made this great difference in our lives, enabled us to see and know the wisdom of God is also why our ministry, our church life, indeed, our very lives are to be modeled after God, His Way and His Word and His Spirit. This is why our boasting is to be in God alone, so that it rests on God’s power! Our ministry, our lives, our church must match the message. It cannot be done in our strength alone, for that will surely fail, it must be done in God’s strength. IT is God who makes the difference! We must therefore seek to fully rely upon God , to fully follow God! God and His Spirit make the difference.
To do ministry, live life, do church any way we want is to void it all of its power! It astounds me that there are churches all over the world that before they do anything they poll the audience and surrounding homes and neighborhoods, what they would like to see in church and how they think church should be, they then proceed to model their church based on those polls! They have built their churches on the image of man not the image of God! They have built their churches in the wisdom of the world, not God! So many churches have made it into entertainment, but church is not about entertaining, it is about spiritual edification and strengthening.
Third, give praise and glory to God for his work of Salvation in your life!
Praise God who has called us into eternal life, who has in his wisdom chosen to reveal the things of God to us by His Spirit so that we may “understand what God has freely given us;” not because of our high IQ or riches or wealth or anything other than because God is a gracious God who has mercy on whom he will have mercy and compassion on whom he will have compassion! What a majestic God, what a gracious God, boast in Him. Praise be to God that what is impossible for man, God is more than able to accomplish and he has provided us with the link or quality we need to know and understand freely the things of God. Think at how different your life is because of the spiritual awakening in your life brought by the Holy Spirit! Unlike the natural man who does not accept the things of God, regards them as foolish and cannot understand them. We gladly receive the word of God, regard Christ not as foolishness but as the wisdom and power of God and we can freely understand the things of God! What a work of marvelous, astounding, stunning grace!
Fourth, if you are still a “natural man” repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.
If you are still among those who do not embrace the cross as the very wisdom of God and who do not welcome the things of the Spirit into your life, then the point of the text is for you an urgent invitation and warning.
Consider this morning what a terrible condition you are in w/o Christ
Consider how perfectly suited the gospel is to your need, the Lord of Glory dying in the place of sinners
Forsake Pride; look to Christ the wisdom and power of God, believe, be saved
The Spiritual Man
With verse 15 we move from the natural person to the spiritual person. The Spiritual person, in contrast to the natural person, is born again by the Spirit. He possesses the Holy Spirit, the link or quality, that enables him to freely understand the things of God. Just as we are given three limitations of the natural man, we are here given three qualities of the spiritual man. He examines all things, is not subject to any man’s investigation and he has the mind of Christ.
Again, it is here I must caution against jumping to conclusions and having no regard for context and the flow of thought. If one was to throw caution to the wind here, you could end up believing and doing many things that would make Paul blush.
Let me start by with what Paul is not teaching with these words.
First, Paul is not talking about some kind of elite super spiritual mysticism where because we possess the Spirit of God we know all things and can judge all things infallibly. As Gordon Fee laments, “this paragraph has endured a most unfortunate history of application in the church…almost every form of spiritual elitism, ‘deeper life’ movement, and ‘second blessing’ doctrine has appealed to this text. To receive the Spirit according to their special expression paves the way for people to know ‘deeper truths’ about God. One special brand of this elitism surfaces among some who have pushed the possibilities of ‘faith’ to the extreme, and regularly make a ‘special revelation’ from the Spirit their final court of appeal. Other ‘lesser’ brothers and sisters are simply living below their full privileges in Christ” (Fee, 120). Any attempt to correct those leads to a hiccough and quick reciting of being subject to no man’s judgment. Such a reading of the text is an unfortunate travesty, since these people are usually among those most needing church discipline!
Second, Paul is not saying we no longer need to study God’s word to come to a proper understanding of it. Paul told Timothy to “do your best to present yourself to God who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
In another way, best as I can understand and state it: All that is said about the Spiritual man in v 15 stands in stark contrast to what has been said of the natural man, particularly, that while the natural man is wholly unable to understand the ways of God, the spiritual man can, because he possesses the Spirit of God even the mind of Christ. Here, as never before, Paul draws a thick and heavy line between the believer and unbeliever. It is saying God, by his Spirit, enables us to gladly receive and understand the wisdom of God, to discern or to judge the ways of God.
Judges all things
In contrast to the natural man, the spiritual person can make judgments about the things of God because we have the Spirit of God and as v.10 says it is the Spirit who “searches all things, even the deep things of God;” Not necessarily all things, of course, as DT. 29:29 says the secret things belong to the Lord, but all things that pertain to the work of salvation, matters that were formerly hidden and secret in God but now revealed through the Spirit. In short, the person lacking the spirit cannot discern what God is doing; he sure will try, but only fail without God’s help, the one with the Spirit is able to do so because of the Spirit. Like those two disciples who were on their way to a village called Emmaus whose minds were opened by Christ “so they could understand the Scriptures.”
Is not subject to any mans judgment
This leads to the second thought of Paul that the Spiritual person “is not subject to any man’s judgment.” This simply means that the person who belongs to this age, the natural person, is not in a position to judge as “foolish” the person who belongs to the age to come. As a wise man once said, the profane person cannot understand holiness; but the holy person can well understand the depths of evil. This understanding is reinforced by Paul’s quoting of Isaiah 40:13. Paul is asking rhetorically of the natural person how they can expect to know true wisdom, and thereby pass judgment on the one who has the Spirit, when they do not have the mind of the Lord?! Who is the person that wants to match wits with the LORD? Professing to be wise, they are fools!
Has the mind of Christ
This leads to the third thought which again is making a contrast between the spiritual and natural persons. In contrast to those who lack the Spirit, and thereby do not know the mind of the Lord, nor are able to pass judgment on those who do, the spiritual person has the mind of Christ. Mind of Christ is another way of expressing that we possess the Spirit of God.
Thoughts To Consider:
First, because we are in possession of the Spirit of God, indeed the mind of Christ, our lives should be very different from those without such possession.
The natural person’s view of everything is distorted, twisted and crooked hence so is their manner of life. Our view of everything, our discernment is through the mind of Christ hence our lives should reflect Jesus Christ! Our values and worldview should be radically different from the wisdom of this age. If you possess the Spirit, live by the Spirit and in this way you will not satisfy the lusts of the sinful nature.
Those who do not believe have a heart and mind deceived by Satan (2 Cor. 4:4)! Those who do believe possess the spirit and mind of Christ! What a difference there should be in our lives then! The Corinthians division reveals that they are not living the way Christians, taught by the Spirit and endowed with the mind of Christ, should live. They are living as though they do not possess the Spirit of Christ with their idolizing of human men and worldly bickering, fighting, and jealousy.
So many have used this text to purport some kind of spiritual elitism, I am better than you, I am more spiritually mature then you so my understanding is better, but that misses the entire point! Paul is not teaching spiritual elitism, he is teaching the difference between believers and the world! He is not teaching one believer is better than the other, rather his point is the difference between believers and the world. You have the mind of Christ, be like Christ! As Brown asserts, “to have the mind of Christ is to have a cruciform mind.” It requires putting to death selfish ambitions, humbling oneself, and giving oneself for others. Philippians 2:2-5 Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore I urge you brothers in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing, and perfect will.”
Second, because we are in possession of the Spirit of God, indeed the mind of Christ, we should be united in mind and thought.
Our unity, our oneness, centers not in each other, but in what each other possesses, Jesus Christ. He is the white hot gospel that melts our hearts of stone together in love, mercy, and grace. Will we agree on everything, no, will we ever have a perfect church, no, but we do have a perfect Savior and we do each posses the perfect mind of Christ, so we unite in the person, work, and glory of Jesus Christ our Lord!
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[1]Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers (Garland TX: Bible Communications, 1996, c1979).