THE KING’S BUSINESS
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Saturday, Sept. 29 . ' 1 Cor. 2 : 12 - 16 .
High worldly position is no guarantee of true wisdom. Those who look to those in high position for spiritual guidance are likely to be misled to their own eternal ruin (cf. John 7 :48). The conclusive proof that the rulers of this world did not know the wisdom of God, was that they “cruci fied the Lord of Glory.” What a crime! This title “Lord of Glory” which is here used of the Lord Jesus is one of the many that are applied to Jesus in the Bible that clearly indicate his absolute Deity. In the Old Testament, Jehovah is the King of glory (Ps. 24:8 A. V.), but here, Jesus, is the “Lord of Glory.” God’s revealing to His own, the wisdom to which even the great of this world cannot attain, is all according to Old Testament prophecy: “Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not,1and which entered not into the heart of man” (cf. Isa. 64:4) these are the things which God hath prepared “for them that love him.” It evidently pays to love God. Neither the prophet Isaiah nor Paul who here quotes him are referring to heaven in the words “the things which God has pre pared for them that love him.” They are both referring to all the glories prepared for “them who love God” in the present as well as hereafter. What the believer has even now in Christ Jesus is beyond the power of the'natural understanding to com prehend. But the question arises, if eye hath not seen them, nor ear heard them, and they Have not entered into the heart of man, how then shall we know them ? Paul answers the question: “Unto us, God revealed them through his Spirit.” There is nothing hidden from the Holy Spirit; he “searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” and what he discovers, he reveals to us (John 16:13, 14; 1 John 2 :20, 27). No man by his research and philosophy, can know the things of God (Job 11:7) ; no one knows “the deep things of God” save the “Spirit of God,” but what the Spirit of God knows about God, he reveals to those who believe in Jesus Christ and love God.
There are two spirits, the “spirit of the world” or “the spirit of antichrist” (1 John 4:3), and “the Spirit that is from God.” The Christian receives this latter spirit, God’s own spirit (John 14:16, 17; Acts 19:2). The purpose for which the Spirit of God is given unto us is “that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God.” Only through the Spirit’s teaching can we know them (John 16:12- 14). Paul taught these things, and the very words in which Paul taught them, were given to him by the Spirit. There are many today, who scoff at the idea of verbal inspiration, but Paul is very plain in his declaration that he was as inspired in the choice of the words with which he deliv ered the thoughts given to him, as he was in the thoughts' themselves. He says, “which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth but which the Spirit teacheth." He goes even farther and says, “combining spiritual things with spiritual words," (v. 13 A. R.). But the “natural man” that is, the man who has not been born again and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, “receiveth not thé things of the Spirit of God.” No amount of edu cation will enable a man to understand and appreciate spiritual truth ; spiritual truth must be spiritually discerned, and the most highly educated, scholarly man, may be truly unspiritual, and therefore, utterly without spiritual discernment. This makes it very clear that it is Utter folly to accept any man’s theory in spiritual things, simply because he is a great scholar. The most important thing is not that he is a great scholar, but that he is spiritual. The Spirit taught man or woman, who has no education, is a far better authority in things spiritual, than the greatest Greek or Hebrew or scientific philosopher or theo logical scholar who is not Spirit taught. The most fundamental question regarding any theological professor or preacher is not how much Greek or Hebrew or Arabic or Assyrian or philosophy or literature or
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