What Paul calls the testimony here is God the Word incarnate, hidden from all ages with God. Heretics played fast and loose with these things. They preached their wicked doctrine with great eloquence, following the wisdom of the world. They emptied Christ’s cross of its power. They were embarrassed to be ridiculed by the world.

It was the incarnate Word who accomplished the mystery of our salvation. It was he who freed us and redeemed us. We believe in him who is our Savior through the cross and through his resurrection from the dead.

Paul said this because he was speaking to those who were unable to grasp the more sublime teachings of the divinity of Christ.

By preaching Christ in what appeared to be folly to human wisdom, Paul provoked hatred and persecution against himself.

Was Paul really afraid of danger? Yes, he was, for even though he was Paul, he was still a man. This is not to say anything against him but rather about the infirmity of human nature. Indeed it is to the credit of his sense of determination that even when he was afraid of death and beatings, he did nothing wrong because of this fear. Therefore those who claim that Paul was not afraid of being beaten not only do not honor him, they diminish his greatness. For if he was without fear, what endurance or self-control was there in bearing dangers?

If our Scriptures had persuaded people to believe because they had been written with rhetorical art or philosophical skill, there is no doubt that our faith would be said to depend on the art of words and on human wisdom rather than on the power of God.

It does not belittle the gospel to say that it was preached without wisdom. On the contrary, this is the gospel’s great glory, the clearest sign that it is divine and that it comes from heaven. When demonstration is made by the wisdom of human words, the worse argument often overcomes the better one, because the one who argues for it has greater rhetorical skills. But in this case it is not so, because the Spirit does not enter an unclean soul, nor can he ever be overcome, however much clever speech is used to attack him. The demonstration by works and signs is more powerful than mere words.

Human wisdom is temporal. The power of God is eternal.

Human wisdom denied the cross, but faith proclaimed the power of God. Wisdom not only failed to reveal the things which people sought after, but also it encouraged them to boast of their own achievements. But faith not only gave them the truth, it also encouraged them to glorify God.

When Paul talks about the wisdom of the rulers of this world he seems to be talking not about one wisdom common to them all but about different kinds of wisdom which are peculiar to each.

The mature are those who preach the cross as wisdom because of the witness of Christ’s power at work. They know that actions speak louder than words. Their wisdom is not of this age but of the age to come, when the truth of God will be manifested to those who now deny it.

Paul is saying that when he, a man thought to be foolish and a preacher of folly, gets the better of the wise, he overcomes their wisdom, not by foolishness but by a more perfect wisdom. This wisdom is so broad and so great that the other kind appears to be foolishness. True wisdom is the gospel, the means of salvation through the cross of Christ. The perfect are those who believe. They are indeed perfect, because they know that all human things are utterly helpless, and therefore they ignore them, being convinced that they have nothing to gain from them. This is what true believers are like.

Paul testifies that he has been sent to reveal a secret wisdom which the princes of this world do not know and which they therefore label stupid. The wisdom of God is hidden because it is not in words but in power. It is impossible in human terms, but it can be believed by the power of the Spirit. God foresaw the future sins of the world and therefore decreed this in order to confound those who would turn his wisdom into their own stupidity, and also to glorify us, who would believe it.

Paul is keen to point out that God always loved us, even from the very beginning, when we did not yet exist. For if he had not loved us, he would not have foreordained our riches. Look beyond the broken relationship which has come in between, and you will see that God’s love for us is more ancient still.

By wisdom Paul means the cross and the whole dispensation of salvation.

Paul does not mean that he is now communicating in secrets and riddles but that the message he preaches was once hidden.

The rulers of this age are not only those who were great among the Jews and the Romans but also every spiritual power which sets itself up against God. The Jewish rulers cannot be called rulers of this age, because they were subject to the Romans. Nor did the Romans crucify Jesus, because Pilate himself said that he found no fault in him. The rulers who crucified him were the demons. They knew that Jesus was the Messiah but not that he was the Son of God, and so it can be said that they crucified him in ignorance.

Pilate, Caiaphas and the rest were condemned by their ignorance, because they should have known the truth. There are two kinds of heretics who misinterpret this passage. The first are the Apollinarians, and the second are the Arians. The Apollinarians are wrong because they do not accept that Christ’s human nature was perfect. The Arians err because they claim that the Word of God can suffer. Arius did not believe that it was the Lord of glory who took on a human nature, and therefore he thought that the Word, being only human, could suffer.

Could Herod and the priests who wanted to crucify Jesus have been forgiven? Yes. If they repented, they were forgiven. Even Paul, who persecuted the church, was forgiven when he repented, and so they could have been as well. The ignorance of the rulers was not concerning Christ’s person but rather concerning the significance of the event which was taking place on the cross. Jesus prayed that they might be forgiven, not because they did not know him but because they did not understand what they were doing.

But if Christ had not been put to death, death would not have died. The devil was overcome by his own trophy, for the devil rejoiced when, by seducing the first man, he cast him into death. By seducing the first man, he killed him.^[1] By killing the last man, he lost the first from his snare.

God forgave Pilate, Herod, Annas, Caiaphas and the rest for their ignorance at the time of the crucifixion, but after Christ had risen and ascended into heaven, and the Holy Spirit had come, and the apostles had performed many miracles, he handed them over for punishment, because they persisted in their unbelief.

This applies to Herod and Pilate. It does not apply in the same way to the high priests and scribes, because they knew that Jesus was the Christ. They were more like the workers in the vineyard who said: This is the heir. Let us kill him, and the vineyard will be ours.^[1]

When it says which eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard and the rest, Scripture has declared to us that the good things to come are incomprehensible, and have no similarity to any thing here.

From this we may gain an idea of how great the splendor, the beauty and the brightness of a spiritual body is.

These words were expressed somewhat differently by Isaiah,^[1] and they are also found in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Elijah.^[2] Paul uses them to refer to the incarnation of Christ, which not only goes against human perception but is beyond the understanding of heavenly powers as well.

Where are these words written? Either they are a paraphrase of some passage [such as Isaiah 52:15], or they were written in some book which has now disappeared. In fact, many books were destroyed, and very few survived the first^[1] captivity intact, as we know from the documents which have survived. Not all the words of the prophets are extant, but Paul, who was learned in the law and was also speaking by the Spirit, would have known them all accurately.

One should not think that God has indiscriminately revealed the mystery to some and allowed the rest to perish in ignorance. Rather one should know and be persuaded that by the foreknowledge of his power God prepared the right thing for each person according to his deserts, for he foresees what each one will choose even before it happens.

Those who possess the Spirit seek out the deep things of God, that is, the hidden secrets that surround prophecy.

Only the Spirit can search everything. The human soul cannot do this, which is why it needs to be strengthened by the Spirit if it is ever going to penetrate the depths of God.

God revealed these things through his Spirit to believers, because the things of God cannot be understood without the Spirit of God, who is of God and therefore knows everything about him.

If the Spirit, who knows the secret things of God, had not revealed them to us, there is no way that we could ever have known them. The word search does not imply that the Spirit was ignorant but refers rather to accurate, detailed knowledge. It is the same usage as when Paul speaks of God, saying that he searches the human heart.^[1]

Whoever has received the revelation of the Spirit has also received the Spirit’s understanding.

The Spirit of God has taught us what he knows by nature, not what he has been taught himself. Furthermore, he has taught us about the mystery of Christ, because he is not just the Spirit of God but the Spirit of Christ as well.

God and the Holy Spirit are two persons, whereas a man and the spirit in him are not two persons but one man. What Paul means is that just as in the man there is a cohesion in knowing, so the knowledge of the Father and the Spirit is one. What the Spirit searches is therefore already known to him.

The spirit of the world is the one by which different people are possessed. It does not know the truth but can only guess at it, and therefore it both deceives others and is itself deceived by appearances.

I think that by spirit of the world Paul means human wisdom and learning.

Paul shows by saying this that the Holy Spirit is not a creature but has his own divine nature.

Some spiritual truths are unclear and need to be interpreted, but this can be done only by comparing them with other spiritual things. For example, when I say that Christ rose again, I compare this to the deliverance of Jonah from the belly of the whale.^[1] And when I say that he was born of a virgin, I compare this to the miraculous childbearing of barren women like Sarah, Rebekah and so on.^[2]

This does not mean that Paul did not have any human wisdom but that he preached in the wisdom of the Spirit.

God gave us a mind in order that we might learn and receive help from him, not in order that the mind should be self-sufficient. Eyes are beautiful and useful, but if they choose to see without light, their beauty is useless and may even be harmful. Likewise, if my soul chooses to see without the Spirit, it becomes a danger to itself.

The man who can see sees everything which belongs to the blind man, but no blind person can tell what he is doing. Likewise, we who believe can understand both our own affairs and those of unbelievers, but they are helpless when it comes to trying to understand us.

The unspiritual man is one who is happy enough with his own ideas and who neither accepts nor understands the teaching of the Spirit.

The spiritual man is able to judge everything, whether it is Greek or barbarian, wise or foolish. He cannot be judged by anyone because of the depth of his understanding and his responses.

Who can condemn a man who tells the truth? When such a person states that all the enemies of the faith regard falsehoods as true, their accusations are reduced to nothing because they are condemned by the judgment of the truth.

The person who has received the Spirit’s gift is equipped to teach others. Otherwise what he says is of no value at all. COMMENTARY

Paul says this because believers are partakers of the divine wisdom.^[1]

We have the mind of Christ because we have the Holy Spirit.

We know the things which are in the mind of Christ, which he has willed and revealed to us. This does not mean that we know everything which Christ knows but rather that everything which we know comes from him and is spiritual.

Paul demonstrates with sufficient clarity that there is nothing lacking in God’s teaching. It is not simply that it contains the sum of all knowledge, but God also imparts wisdom so that we may understand it properly.

The mind of Christ refers to the Father. Paul is saying that we have the Father of Christ in us.