ordinary christianity for the world.
Corinth, A Church Divided, 1 Corinthians 3:12-16
Poetic Praise
Two Spirits
1 Corinthians 3:12-16
"The natural man, that is, the wise man of the world (1 Corinthians 1:19, 20), the wise man after the flesh, or according to the flesh (v. 26), one who hath the wisdom of the world, man's wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:4-6), a man, as some of the ancients, that would learn all truth by his own ratiocinations, receives nothing by faith, nor own any need of supernatural assistance. This was very much the character of the pretenders to philosophy and the Grecian learning and wisdom in that day" (Matthew Henry).
Paul tells us in verse 12 that there are two spirits active in the lives of people — the "spirit of the world" and the "spirit who is from God." The spirit of the world could also be called the natural spirit in that it does not recognize or honor God, while the spirit who is from God does. Understanding the difference between these two spirits hinges on our yielding to the reality of God and denying the temptations and deceptions of the world.
Webster defines spirit as 1) an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms; 2) a supernatural being or essence; 3) temper or disposition of mind or outlook; 4) the immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person; 5) the activating or essential principle influencing a person, an inclination, impulse, or tendency; 6) a special attitude or frame of mind. Paul uses the word to distinguish something supernatural from something merely natural, a disposition of mind that is God-given and God-driven from a disposition that denies God.
Paul places these two spirits or attitudes in radical opposition to one another, as he has done previously in his discussion of Godly wisdom and worldly folly. There are some areas that these two perspectives have in common, but that is not Paul's concern here. Here his purpose is to differentiate the two, to indicate that they are very different though they may at times look quite similar.
Paul is, and has been, in the process of differentiating two kinds or groups of people. We know them as the lost and the saved, or the elect and the nonelect, the church as the body of Christ and everyone else. There is a difference between the world and the church and that difference is critical or foundational. That difference not only determines whether one goes to heaven or to hell, but it determines how people live their daily lives. The difference it makes is a matter of attitude, temper, disposition, inclination, impulse, tendency, perspective and habit.
Faithfulness is habitual. It is in part a matter of practice and repetition. It is, of course, more than a habit, but it is also, in fact, a habit. It is more than a habit because faithfulness is the result of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit operating in one's life. It is life lived on the basis of — or on the reality of — the Holy Spirit. It is a matter of discarding one's own personal preferences and desires, and submitting to the preferences and desires of God's Holy Spirit. It is a matter of not doing what you want for yourself, but of doing what God wants for you. It is a matter of abandoning worldly preferences and submitting to Godly preferences.
And yet, faithfulness is more than a habit because mere practice cannot produce it. If faithfulness could be acquired by practice, it would be a matter of works-righteousness. But, as we know, it is not a matter of works-righteousness and cannot be acquired by practice. And yet, it is a habit.
How can this be? While faith cannot be acquired through practice, it can be increased through practice. And conversely, it can be decreased (though not entirely lost) through a lack of practice. This, of course, begs the question, if it can't be acquired through practice, how can it be acquired?
Paul tells us that it is not acquired at all, but rather received as a free gift from God. It needs be noted here that our willful reception of the gift of grace is not the trigger that activates it. We cannot say that it is our personal (willing) reception of God's gift that makes the gift real or even that it makes it effective. Whether or not we willingly receive or acknowledge God's gift of grace does not change the fact that God has given it prior to any reception or acknowledgment of it on our part. Our reception of God's grace is always a response to His gift.
God wants us to understand or know the things that he has freely given to us. That knowledge is not mere head knowledge or historical knowledge, but is also heart knowledge, experiential knowledge. There are two ways to know a thing. We can know about it and we can know it directly, experientially.
For instance, I can know about China. I can read about it and see movies about it. And that is a legitimate form of knowledge. But it is always second hand knowledge. It is knowledge that comes through someone else — the author of the book or the director of the movie, etc. This kind of knowledge is broad and multiperspectival. It comes through the perspectives of other people.
I can also know China by going there myself. The experience of being there gives me a different kind of knowledge. It is a more direct kind of knowing because it is not mitigated through someone else. Visiting China provides personal experience, which is deeper and more focused than the other. Both kinds of knowledge have their limitations. One is broad, but shallow. The other is deep, but narrow.
Knowledge about China gathered from reading or movie watching lacks the element of personal experience. On the other hand, knowledge gained through personal experience will lack the breadth of perspective that can be gained by reading and watching movies. Reading and movie watching provide insight into perspectives other than our own.
God wants us to engage both kinds of knowledge. This means that wisdom and understanding are an integral part of our salvation. Salvation is not just a matter of personal experience, it is also a matter of knowledge — both the breadth of historical knowledge and the depth of personal experience.
Yet, there is a third element that is essential for salvation to be genuine. The Westminster Confession calls it "the inward work of the Holy Spirit" (I, V). John said that "unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Peter said, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). Later in the same chapter Peter further clarifies, "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for 'All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.' And this word is the good news that was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:23-25).
Peter tells us that being born again in Christ is a necessary part — even the foundation — of the gospel or good news of the New Testament. Regeneration is not optional. It is a fact. All Christians are born again, and if someone is not born again he is not a Christian. God has sent His Holy Spirit through the ministry of Jesus Christ — his birth, death and atonement for sin. And there is no salvation apart from the invasion of the Holy Spirit into the life of the believer. Just as God invaded human history through the birth of Jesus Christ, so the Holy Spirit invades our personal lives through the regeneration of individual believers.
The sending of the Holy Spirit is the initial or essential gift of God's grace, for the Holy Spirit carries the message of salvation and redemption to God's people. The Holy Spirit brings the message of salvation to each person individually. Through the Holy Spirit the message of salvation is internalized — made real in a personal way — because the Holy Spirit resides within the hearts and minds of Christians.
Paul wants to "impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit" (v. 13). Most versions of the Bible use the word speak rather than impart. The Greek (laleo) literally means to utter speech. It is important to note that the gospel is shared through words spoken from one person to another. This impartation of the Holy Spirit is not magical, but is a function of ordinary speaking. No candles in a darkened room, no special charismatic languages, no mumbo jumbo. Just talk. Paul's letters provide the example of how to do it.
Paul was converted (born again) on the road to Damascus. He was taught about Jesus Christ by the Spirit, not by men (Galatians 1:1). Paul's conversion changed his heart and mind, and he spent the rest of his life talking about Jesus. His talk consisted of preaching and individual counseling or conversations.
Paul tells us that his recommended method of teaching is to compare spiritual things to spiritual. In other words, worldly things are inadequate to explain spiritual things. Another way to say it is that Scripture is self-evident to the born again. Or Scripture teaches Scripture. Or analogous things in the world always fall short of biblical truth.
Would you go to a natural man to learn spiritual truth? Of course not. Would you go to a non-Christian to learn about Christianity? Of course not. And why not? As Paul said, "the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (v. 14). Show me someone who thinks that Christianity is foolish, and I'll show you a worldly person. The reason that they think Christianity is foolish is that they cannot perceive the reality of God.
And why can't they perceive the reality of God? Because they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18). God's truth is available to them, as it is available to every creature. They can't suppress it if they don't already have it. It is in their possession, but they hold it down. They keep it below their conscious awareness. They don't want to see it. They don't want to acknowledge it. And so they ignore it or deny it.
Avoidance is a well-known psychological phenomenon. What are they avoiding? When Paul says that they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, he means that their commitment to unrighteousness will not allow them to admit the possibility of righteousness. There are several ways they rationalize the denial of righteousness.
Sometimes the acknowledgment of the reality and extent of sin keeps people from righteousness by suggesting that human sinfulness excludes the possibility of human righteousness. They (correctly) acknowledge that sin is our natural condition, and that its extent is all-encompassing, but fail to acknowledge the reality and power of Jesus Christ to overcome it. These people deny the power of God to overcome sin, and believe that the best we can do is to learn to live with our sinfulness.
Sometimes people deny that we (people) have access to any objective knowledge, that all knowledge is necessarily subjective and completely determined by personal perspective and preferences. They think that all human knowledge and experience is necessarily subjective. And they are right, except for the fact that God's knowledge and experience are objective, or at least a lot more objective than human knowledge and experience. In denying the reality of God, or the possibility of God communicating with or through people, they deny the possibility of ever having anything other than subjective human knowledge. These people deny the power of the Holy Spirit, and His ability to transform lives.
Sometimes people deny the authenticity and/or veracity of Scripture. They believe that all religious stories are essentially equal. And since they contradict each other at various points, they dismiss them as being no more than historical embellishments intended to explain the unexplainable or otherwise help people cope with life's difficulties. They consider all religious stories to be essentially fictitious.
It is easy for us to misunderstand verse 15, "The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one." Judgmentalism is a hot topic in today's politically correct world, but that is not what Paul is talking about.
The spiritual person is a born again — saved by the blood of Christ and into the fellowship of believers person — who has submitted to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in his life. He is a person who does not live on the basis of his own desires or preferences. Rather, he lives on the basis of God's desires and preferences for him. This is exactly what Paul means: the spiritual person considers or evaluates everything on the basis of Scripture. The spirituality of such a person effects everything they think, say and do. He applies the categories of Scripture to everything, and, first and foremost, the wisdom of Scripture is applied to his own life.
The second phrase of verse 15 is another way of saying the same thing. Because the categories of Scripture (or the realm of the Spirit) subsume the categories of the world. This means that the things of the world can be explained by the Spirit, but the things of the Spirit cannot be explained by the things of the world. Spirituality cannot be explained or properly evaluated by worldliness. If you think this sounds like I'm saying that spirituality is somehow superior to worldliness, you're right. It is. But I'm not saying it (I'm just clarifying it), Paul is saying it. And he is saying it because Jesus teaches it.
However, we must remember that God's values are the inversion of human values. For instance, "Jesus called them to him and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many'" (Matthew 20:25-28). In the kingdom of God the servant is superior to the master. All Christians are servants to the one Master, who was Himself a servant to all.
Thus, Christians are called to rule through service. The spiritual person is to be judged by no one because he will be judged by Jesus Christ. And first and foremost, he will apply the judgment of Jesus Christ to himself by submitting to God's desires according to Scripture.
The final verse of this chapter includes a quote from Isaiah 40:13, "Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel?" Paul translates it, "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" Though the language is different, the meaning is the same, and it applies to the subject of this section of First Corinthians. Paul is saying that the unsaved are not able to understand spiritual things. Nor do they understand spiritual people. So, they are not in any position to evaluate anything spiritual.
However, Paul concludes this chapter by saying that "we (the born again) have the mind of Christ." He is not saying that Christians are above judgment or above the Law, but that because Christians have the mind of Christ they are able to judge themselves and one another. He is saying that Christians are subject to the mind of the body of Christ — the church, which is subject to the Word of God.
Paul will return to this concern in chapter five where he said, "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?" The Bible does not teach Christians to suspend judgment. It teaches them to judge according to Scripture and not according to our own desires and preferences. Judging according to our own human desires and preferences Paul calls folly and worldly wisdom. But judging according to Scripture Paul calls spiritual wisdom.
