1 Corinthians 2:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Then, showing the greatness of this knowledge, he says that if the Spirit, who knows the mysteries of God, had not revealed it to us, we would not have known it. For God was pleased to keep this matter in mystery.

Therefore we needed such a teacher, one who knew it clearly. "For the Spirit," he says, "searches all things, even the depths of God. For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God" (1 Cor 2:10-12).

Here the word "searches" does not mean ignorance, but exact knowledge. He uses the same expression concerning God when he says, "He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is" (Rom 8:27).

Having spoken of the Spirit's perfect knowledge, he showed that it is equal to the knowledge of God, as a man's knowledge is equal to itself. Having proved that we have learned all things from Him, and only from Him, he continues: "These things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Cor 2:13).

And now, concerning the making of peace, it is said that peace was made through Him. This does not refer to the essence of the Spirit, who knows the things of God as a man's spirit knows what is in him.

This accords with Paul's words: no one knows, "For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him?"

Therefore, if my spirit is alien to my nature, then the Spirit of God is also alien to the divine nature. For the Apostle says, "The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God."

But the heretic hears "searches" and understands its meaning badly. If the Spirit knew what is in God, he says, He would not search. This searching bears witness to His ignorance.

Therefore, if the Holy Spirit's searching of the depths of God leads you to accuse Him of ignorance, then when you see that God searches men's hearts, will you accuse Him of ignorance?

Hear what Paul says. As he said of the Spirit, "The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God," so also, speaking wisely about God, he says, "He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is" (Rom 8:27).

Consequently, if God searches because He does not know, then the Spirit also searches because He does not know. But so that you may know that searching belongs not to one ignorant, but to one who knows, he added: "So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God."

Thus he ascribes knowledge to the Spirit, not a reception from nature, but knowledge from nature.

This includes how He died for us, how He made us children of God, and how in Himself He also seated us at the right hand of the Father. Therefore those who do not have the Spirit do not know these mysteries.

This is the wisdom "which none of the rulers of this age knew. For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ... God has revealed it to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." He does this as easily as the human spirit knows its own inward actions and states (1 Cor 2:11).

All this, the Apostle adds, is what has been "given to us by God," and we proclaim it with unshaken hope of success. We speak "not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual."

In all this one hears the Apostle's reproving thought. Perhaps the Corinthians still chase after outward signs of verbal wisdom, and are disturbed over their various teachers and preachers, because they themselves are still far from the Christian way of receiving the Gospel preaching. They cannot stand among those perfect ones among whom Christian wisdom is successfully preached by comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The Apostle's saying about "comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Cor 2:13) needs particular explanation. St. Chrysostom offers it in this sense: the Apostles took the subjects needed on various occasions to explain their speech from the same spiritual and sacred-biblical realm, for example, from types and prophecies, and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

"For example," the holy Father reasons in the person of the Apostle Paul, "I say that Christ rose, and that He was born of a Virgin. For explanation I bring testimonies and types: Jonah's stay inside the whale and his subsequent deliverance from it, the childbirth of barren women, Sarah, Rebecca, and others, and the growth of trees in Paradise, when seeds had not yet been sown, rain had not fallen, and furrows had not been drawn. Future events were inscribed and prefigured, as in shadow, by earlier ones, so that people would believe them when they came to pass. Thus I explain spiritual things by spiritual things, and nowhere have recourse to external wisdom."

According to St. John Chrysostom, here "the Apostle Paul honors us, showing that we have not merely learned, and learned together with the angels, but have learned from the Spirit Himself. At the same time he shows the importance of this knowledge. He makes clear that if the Spirit, Who knows the mysteries of God, had not revealed it to us, we also would not have known it. ... God was pleased to keep this work in mystery. Therefore we needed such a Teacher, Who would know this work clearly. Such is the Spirit of God.

'The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.' Here the word 'searches' means not ignorance, but exact knowledge. He uses the same expression concerning God when he says, 'He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit' (Rom 8:27)."

"Having spoken of the Spirit's perfect knowledge, he showed that it is equal to the knowledge of God, just as human knowledge is equal to itself. Having proved that we have known everything from Him, the Apostle continues: 'which things we speak'..."

He shows that "we are as much wiser than the pagans as Plato the philosopher is distant from the Holy Spirit. They have rhetoricians as their teachers, but we have the Holy Spirit."

It is known that God gives His Spirit to everyone who is disposed to receive Him. But men, for the most part, enslave and darken themselves by the spirit of the world.

"But we" have rejected the dominion of this dark spirit. With our spirit we have received the light-bearing influences of the Spirit who proceeds from God.

Thus there was opened within us an active knowledge and perception of the gifts appointed for us by God. "But we have received, not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God."

Therefore believe not us, the weak ministers of the word. Believe the chosen instruments, messengers, and evangelists of the Spirit of God.

Believe that, despite man's certain independent being and freedom, he not only can be, but commonly is, under the rule of one of two principles. He is ruled either by "the spirit of this world" or by "the Spirit who is from God."

This depends on whose operation he freely receives upon himself. If you do not seem to experience this in yourselves, it only means that "you do not know what manner of spirit you are of."

So far as possible, let us bring these hidden relations of the human spirit to the Spirit of God near to common understanding. Let it be permitted to use a parable and a riddle.

Divine truth itself has often clothed itself in such forms, in order to appear before the eyes of men who are, to some degree, bound to the senses.

An infant in the womb has its own soul and life. Yet its life is immersed in the mother's life, penetrated by it and nourished by it.

Compared with the full life of man, it can scarcely be counted life at all. This is an image of the state in which the natural man finds himself in the world.

His spirit has its own life and freedom. Yet, being in the flesh, it is encompassed and imperceptibly ruled by the power of the world.

He thinks, but according to the elements of the world. He desires, but as the all-dominating lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life impel him.

He acts, but within the narrow and low sphere of the sensible. He lives, but according to the spirit of the world, "alienated from the life of God" (Eph 4:18).

Yet the confinement of the infant in the womb is not nature's final intention. It is only the means and path by which he is led to full being.

He must come forth into the light, behold the beauty of the world, taste of its blessings, and know its Creator.

Such also is the higher calling of the human spirit, enclosed by the flesh and shut up in the world. "You must be born from above" (Jn 3:7).

"You must," because according to God's intention this is not merely the accidental lot of some. It is the established law and predestination of all mankind.

All natural life serves only as a preparation and transition toward it. The prisoner of the world must be "brought out of his prison" in order to "give thanks to the name of the Lord" (Ps 141:7).

He must be enlightened by the light of Christ. He must "taste the heavenly gift and the powers of the age to come" (Heb 6:4-5) while still in the present age.

He must receive, in the very world, "the Spirit who is from God." He must begin on earth to breathe the air of heaven.

When an infant is born and is released from the mother's life, he does not labor to seek his new life. He bears within himself the source of an activity that continually unfolds and is perfected.

All around himself he finds the air needed for his breathing. So also man, drawn by grace from the world and called to birth from above, is nearer to the realm of new life than he thinks.

For we alone can be far from the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God cannot be far from us.

According to the words of the Wise Man, this Spirit "passes through all spirits" (Wis 7:23). He remains unapproachable in His holiness and omnipresent in His goodness.

He pours Himself out upon every power and capacity surrendered to His operation. In the very heart of the old man He opens the fountain of new life.

"He who believes in Me," said the Giver of the Spirit, "out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The beloved disciple adds, explaining the words of the heavenly Teacher: "This He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in His name were to receive" (Jn 7:38-39).

Finally, there is an important difference between natural and spiritual birth. The first is attained and accomplished by the necessary course of nature. The second is attained by the free movement of faith in Christ toward God.

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Why whole rivers from a single belly, when one drop from the fullness of grace is enough to quicken hosts of spirits?

It is so, as Scripture says, in order to reveal the surpassing wealth of goodness. By this goodness the Holy Spirit not only fills, but overfills the measure of our readiness to receive Him.

So to speak, He grants us more than we receive.

In any case, the spirit of the world here is not an idea, nor the way of thinking and acting of the sons of the world. It is not the hopes they feed on, the aims they pursue, or the customs and morals that govern everything among them. Rather, it is the spirit that rules over all this, sets it all in motion, and whirls world-loving people around by it.

The contrast with the Spirit of God compels this understanding. We have not received this spirit, but "the Spirit Who is from God." "From God," ek Theou, means from God, that is, the Spirit proceeding from God the Father.

The Apostles received Him on the day of Pentecost. From them all believers afterward received Him through the laying on of hands, that is, chrismation. Thus it began, and thus it remains to this day. In communities where this Mystery is absent, the Spirit of God is absent too.

If without the Spirit of God there is no true knowledge of Christianity, the conclusion is obvious. One may speak, but not as those taught by the Spirit.

"That we might know the things freely given to us by God." "The Spirit Himself, proceeding from the Father, taught us the hidden mysteries," says Theodoret.

"The Spirit of God is light, and we have received this light so that, illumined by it, we may see what had been hidden until now. What exactly? The things given to us by God, given according to the economy of Christ. That is, how He died for us, how He made us sons of God, and how in Himself He seated us in the heavens at the right hand of the Father. Therefore those who do not have the Spirit do not know this," says Oecumenius.

This divine knowledge truly shone upon the earth from the time of the descent of the Holy Spirit. To this day it is preserved by Him in the Church of God and communicated by Him to the worthy. The Apostle speaks not only of himself and his own time, but of Christians in every age.

This is written in the books of the New Testament. Anyone can read it, and all this is handed on to catechumens preparing for baptism. Yet true knowledge of it all is always communicated by the Holy Spirit. Strong faith and sincere devotion to God make the soul a parchment on which the Spirit of God inscribes the mysteries of God.