Let us turn to a passage we are all familiar with in Daniel, chapter 12. We will read Daniel 12:8:10:
And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what *shall be* the end of these *things?* And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words *are* closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
In this time since this prophecy has come to pass, it is very evident that the more we discuss these revelations with others insofar as all the things God has revealed at this time of the end, the less we are understood. I am sure I am not the only one that has noticed that.
One of the primary reasons for this always has to do with how we read and interpret the Bible. In order for us to have a proper understanding of (spiritual) things, many things have to come into play. One of those things is that we must use the method God has laid out in the Scriptures to enable us to come to truth. I would like to look at an important question that was asked by Christ regarding understanding. Turn with me to Luke 10:25-26:
And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
We can see that Jesus began to answer the lawyer’s question with a question. Notice that the first thing Jesus did was to direct him back to the Scriptures, which, in turn, instructs us to do the same.
He asked him another important question. He said, “How readest thou?” What did He mean by this? The word “readest” is Strong’s #314, and it is always translated as “readest” or “read,” but what is interesting is that the word “read” is often used in conjunction with “understanding.” So let us look at Matthew 24:15:
When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
So how one reads the Bible ultimately determines how one understands the Bible. That is why it is so important to follow the methods God has laid out in the Scriptures to come to truth. In the case of the unsaved, they have always made the mistake of developing their own methods for how they read and understand the Bible.
A few years before I left my church, I remember having many late-night discussions with my pastor because I was continually drifting away from the doctrines I was raised with. I was drifting further and further away from doctrines like “free will,” and I was drifting closer and closer to the doctrine of “election.” Throughout all the discussions we had, the one thing I finally understood was that we were not looking at the Scriptures the same way. And that is very, very important. I was beginning to look at the spiritual meanings in the Bible, but he was steadfast in his view that he was to look at the Scriptures plainly and at “face value.” To this day, I have never forgotten what he said to me regarding what I was doing. He said it this way: “The more you spiritualize, the more you will tell spiritual lies.” Pretty catchy, is it not? [Laughter] I do not know where he got that phrase, but a phrase like that rolls off the tongue well enough to where it almost sounds like truth. (Well, maybe to the unsaved, but not to the child of God.) As a matter of fact, that phrase can not only be proven to be incorrect by the Scriptures, but the phrase itself is actually an offense to the entire Word of God, which is spiritual.
Those people who cannot see the need to look for spiritual meaning in the Bible are in a condition the Bible refers to as “spiritual blindness.” Let us turn to Matthew 15 and we will read Matthew 15:12-14:
Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
What we have known for a long time now is that a person who is spiritually blind cannot see spiritual things. While they acknowledge that the Bible is a Holy Book inspired by God, they reject the idea that it cannot be understood by everyone that reads it, whether saved or unsaved. They would say, “God would not write a book that only a select few could understand. After all, He wants everyone to be saved, does He not?” I think this is just the way they think, so in order to support one false doctrine, another has to be created, and then another, and so on. All the while they are ignoring the Word of God because they are not able to see what the Bible says about how it is to be understood.
But the Word of God was written to be understood only by the true children of God. With that in mind, I want to turn to 1Corinthians, chapter 2. The whole chapter touches on this particular subject. I will read 1Corinthians 2:1:
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
Paul came declaring the testimony of God, but he said he did not do so with “excellency of speech or of wisdom.” Whose wisdom was he referring to? His own. In other words, God wants us to know that the words Paul spoke here and the words he (or a scribe) wrote down came not from Paul’s own wisdom. As we continue reading the later part of this chapter, God confirms this to us by explaining that the wisdom by which Paul is speaking – the words which were read first by the church in Corinth and now read by us – came from the Spirit of God, and not from Paul’s own intellect or his own knowledge. This is confirmed in the next verse, in 1Corinthians 2:2:
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Paul, we know, was a Pharisee. He was very knowledgeable in the Scriptures and very zealous toward God. We will return to 1Corinthians 2, but let us look at Acts 22 where God gives us a brief description of Paul’s background. It says in Acts 22:1-3:
Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence *which I make* now unto you. (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,) I am verily a man *which am* a Jew, born in Tarsus, *a city* in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, *and* taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.
So even though Paul was very knowledgeable in the Law of God, we know that his spiritual blindness did not allow him to understand what the Words of the Law pointed to, spiritually. In other words, while Paul was still “Saul,” he could not see the spiritual meaning behind the plainly written Word he thought he knew so well. That is why the Pharisees who were supposed to be the spiritual leaders were called “blind leaders of the blind,” as the Bible puts it, and they had no true spiritual understanding of the Word they thought they knew so well. It was spiritual blindness that caused Saul of Tarsus to persecute those that believed on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ then revealed Himself to Saul on the road to Damascus and the Light of God blinded Saul. This seems kind of “backward” from the typical way God would save someone, does it not? Saul was physically made blind, only to have his physical sight restored three days later. Why would God do that? The answer is because Christ saves in many different ways, and each method God used teaches us a spiritual truth. In the case of Saul of Tarsus, God is giving us yet another example by taking someone that appeared to have an excellent knowledge of Scriptures and making him blind. In the Bible, what does blindness represent? God uses “blindness” in the Bible to typify someone that is still in his sins or someone that has no spiritual understanding. They do not understand the Word of God. Let us look at John 12:40:
He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with *their* eyes, nor understand with *their* heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
The word “see” is the word “know.” God illustrates Saul’s spiritual blindness by making him physically blind for three days, and then He restored his physical sight as a parable pointing to the fact that Saul had been given “eyes” to see spiritual truth. Saul had become saved.
If we turn back to 1Corinthians 2, now we can see why Paul made the statement about not “knowing” anything. Paul was set as an example of everyone that should after him believe. We can be sure that every one of God’s elect have gone through the same scenario, whether we were in the churches or in the world. No one can have any spiritual understanding of the Word of God until the “scales” fall from our own eyes. For those of us that were in the churches and thought we had a good understanding of the Scriptures by taking them at “face value,” we later had to admit the same thing Paul did – that we did not know anything.
Let us continue in 1Corinthians 2:2-4:
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching *was* not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
The word translated as “enticing” is Strong’s #3981, and it only appears one time. But if we look it up, we can see it comes from a word that is translated as “persuade,” and that is pretty much what man’s wisdom tries to do; it tries to persuade by using enticing words, but not with the truth. Paul is not coming to them with “enticing words,” but with words given to him by the Spirit of God. In other words, God, through Paul, has been emphasizing that it is not only the words but the way the words were spoken that are not Paul’s own. Paul does not get any credit for these words, nor with how the words are put together, because none of it came from Paul, but from the Spirit of God.
Let us look at 1Corinthians 2:5:
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Here, the word “stand” is Strong’s #5600, and it is more commonly translated as “be,” so we could read it this way: “That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the wisdom of God.” So the real question for each individual that believes he is saved is this: “Who is your faith in?” If you believe you are saved, but you are actually unsaved, then your faith is going to be in the wisdom of men, because that is the only wisdom that is going to make any sense to you. But for the true child of God, his faith is in the wisdom of God.
It says in 1Corinthians 2:6:
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
When God speaks through His Word, everyone that picks up the Bible can read the words that God has spoken, but the way or method of understanding what is written falls under the two categories we are speaking about, which is man’s way of understanding the Scriptures or God’s way of understanding the Scriptures.
Here is a question that the self-professed Christian never asks himself: “Is my understanding of the Scriptures based on the wisdom of man, or is it based on the wisdom of God?” This is really not given a “second thought.”
If we skip down to verse 8, we can see that the phrase, “the princes of this world” is a reference to the nation of Israel because at the time they were still recognized by many as the people of God, but it is also a reference to the churches. Let us read 1Corinthians 2:8:
Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known *it*, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Let us quickly look at a reference that shows us that the nation of Israel is, indeed, a representation of the churches. It is found in Acts, chapter 7, in speaking of the nation of Israel after the exodus. It says in Acts 7:38:
This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and *with* our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
There are many more examples in the Bible that teach us that the nation of Israel and the churches typify the same thing. There are many things that we continue to see that teach this.
So what God is telling us is that any worldly wisdom used to understand the Word of God, whether inside or outside the churches, is of no benefit when it comes to spiritual understanding.
When the Bible says, “we speak wisdom among them that are perfect,” He is referring to His elect. In other words, the Word of God is heard by all, but it is understood only by His elect, and this is what the Bible refers to as “God’s wisdom.” We are given a similar picture of this when Christ would speak in parables, but He would only explain them to His disciples when they were alone. And that is an example of the entire Bible – the Bible “speaks,” but only those that have the Spirit of God can see the (spiritual) explanation of what is being read. Let us look at Mark 4:34:
But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.
Of course, this explains what we were talking about earlier. Christ (the Word of God) speaks in parables. Christ (the Word of God) explains the parables.
Let us continue back in 1Corinthians 2:7:
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, *even* the hidden *wisdom,* which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
God’s people understand that the wisdom of God is concealed within the written Word. It is a hidden wisdom. God designed the Bible this way in order to allow only His children to understand the hidden wisdom of God. We learn that in Proverbs 25:2:
*It is* the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings *is* to search out a matter.
A “thing” is the Word and a “matter” is the Word. Here, the kings are a reference to the children of God. But the natural man says, “No – the Bible is there for all to understand.” They also believe that God would not hide truth from anyone, but we do not have to look far in the Scriptures to see that those kind of statements are proven to be very incorrect according to the Scriptures.
To understand what 1Corinthians 2:7 is talking about, we want to look up the word “mystery” to see what it is referring to, because that is a key word to understanding the way the Bible was written. The word translated as “mystery” is Strong’s #3466, and it is always translated as “mystery.” To get our definition of this word, we want to look at how else God uses this word throughout the Scriptures. Let us look at Matthew 13:10-11:
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
So if Christ wanted everyone to understand His Word, what would be the purpose of parables? It is because they were not all meant to understand – that is why He spoke in parables. Here, we can see that the mysteries are directly tied into God’s purpose for speaking in parables. In other words, He spoke in parables to conceal the mysteries of God from the unsaved, but not from the saved. Let us look at another example in Mark 4:10-12:
And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all *these* things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and *their* sins should be forgiven them.
Here, again, God reiterates that the purpose of parables is to conceal the mystery of the kingdom of God from the unsaved. The nation of Israel physically saw the miracles, but they could not perceive what the miracles pointed to. Also, they physically heard Christ speak, but they could not understand what He meant. And because the nation of Israel and the churches of the world are a representation of the same thing, the same truth applies to them (the churches). They have the Word of God and they take it at “face value,” as the nation of Israel mistakenly did. Although they can hear God’s Word as they read it, they have no spiritual understanding of the things that are spoken. As a result, the churches can only glean “moral truths” from the Word of God.
Let us look at one more passage that uses the word “mystery.” It is in Ephesians 3. Let us read Ephesians 3:1-5:
For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
According to Ephesians 3, that which is a “mystery” requires revelation in order for it to known. Who is this revelation given to? Is it given to the whole world? No – it is not given to those that are “without,” but only to those that have the Spirit of God. And there were time periods when virtually no one was granted understanding of the written Word until the “fulness of time” had come for the words to be understood, and that is because understanding is completely dependent upon God’s timing for revelation.
If we go back to 1Corinthians 2:7, we can see that the wisdom of God that was spoken is what became the written Word, and it was spoken or written in a mystery. It was wisdom that was (and still is) hidden from the eyes and the ears of the unsaved. That is what we can understand from verse 7, so I want to read, again, 1Corinthians 2:7:
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, *even* the hidden *wisdom,* which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
Another interesting thing we can know is that the words that were written by the prophets of the Old and New Testaments have never changed. The words were always there for everyone to examine and read and, yet, no one without the Spirit of God and the (proper) timing of His revelation could know the true meaning of the words they thought they understood. It did not matter how careful they were in their Bible studies.
Let us look at 1Corinthians 2:8:
Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known *it*, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
As we looked at earlier, we know the princes of this world is referring to national Israel. God purposed that He would keep them from seeing the truth in order that His Word be carried out regarding the death of Christ on the cross. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us that if they had known the hidden wisdom, they would not have crucified Christ, because it would have meant their eyes were open to the truth and that they were saved. But this is not what happened, is it? No – God blinded them for a purpose.
Let us continue with 1Corinthians 2:9:
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Any time the Bible says, “as it is written,” we know it is quoting from somewhere else in the Bible. If you want the reference for where this was taken from, it is Isaiah 64:4. What verse 9 is telling us is that no man, past or present, could have ever understood the things (the hidden wisdom) which God has placed in the Scriptures for them that love him, which are the elect.
Let us look at 1Corinthians 2:10:
But God hath revealed *them* unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
What has God revealed unto His children? Here, it says it is the things He has prepared for His people, the deep things of God. He has prepared for our understanding of the hidden wisdom of God, and God has revealed understanding to His children by His Spirit. This is the only way that true understanding can come to any human being, because it is the Spirit of God within a person (and not the person himself) that searches and brings to light the deep things of God.
Let us look at 1Corinthians 2:11:
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
In other words, the things that come from the minds of men are known and understood by men, but the things that come from God (His Word and His wisdom) no man can understand. This is why no man can put together a method of Bible study to try to understand a book like the Bible that is so far above his limited understanding and, yet, it is clear that this is exactly what the world tries to do. Of course, it is also clear that they have failed.
But God has provided a way for His children to properly understand the Scriptures. God’s people are to follow the methods laid out within the Scriptures alone to come to truth. We do not rely on our own wisdom or our own logic for truth and, ultimately, everything we come to know from the Scriptures is because of the Spirit of God within us.
Let us look at 1Corinthians 2:12:
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Again, God is making a clear distinction between two types of people – those who have the Spirit of God (the saved) and those who have the spirit of the world (the unsaved). What we have to understand is that the key to understanding the Word of God ultimately lies in the Spirit of God within His children. It is only because God’s children have the Spirit of God within them that enables them to know the deep things of God that He has concealed from those that do not have the Spirit. This is the way God has enabled the elect to have spiritual understanding of His Word.
It says in 1Corinthians 2:13:
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Here in verse 13, we can see that the hidden wisdom is also spoken. That means that these words that were spoken are the very words of God. Paul is assuring us that these are not his own words because he is not speaking in the words which man’s wisdom teaches. God’s words came through the power of the Holy Spirit and, yet, the churches continue to give Paul all the credit for his words and his style of writing. They do this because they have not received the Spirit of wisdom; they have not received the Spirit that comes from God.
Here in verse 13, God is instructing us that the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches the children of God. How does He teach us? It is by leading His children to rightly divide the Word of truth, and we do this by comparing spiritual things in the Word of God with spiritual.
So this verse also leads us to ask an important question: If the method used by the Holy Spirit is to compare spiritual things with spiritual (or we could say, spiritual words with spiritual in the Word of God), then what method does the wisdom of man use to try to understand the Scriptures and come to truth? Having been raised in the churches, they do it in one of two ways: 1) read it like any other book, and do what it says; 2) if the plain meaning of the text makes sense to you, then seek no other meaning. I think the latter is the more popular method now. Again, we can see the foolishness in that because, ultimately, it puts man in the “driver’s seat” to decide what makes sense and what does not make sense. So to the natural man, that makes a lot of sense, but for those of us that have the Spirit of God, their methods are offensive because they ignore the methods God has laid out in the Scriptures and they go contrary to it.
Let us look a 1Corinthians 2:14-15:
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know *them,* because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
These two verses continue to make a contrast between the natural man and the spiritual man. Of course, the natural man is the one who does not have the Spirit of God, as opposed to the spiritual man who does have the Spirit. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. He does not receive understanding of the things of God because it is only revealed to those that have the Spirit. And because the natural man has not received the things of the Spirit of God, the Word of God becomes foolishness to them.
Does everyone really see it this way? The churches of the world do not see it this way. As a matter of fact, they think the Bible is a wonderful book that teaches wonderful truths, but not “spiritual” truths. I have never heard anyone in the churches say that the Bible teaches spiritual truths. In other words, their “sight” and their understanding is limited to the plain words on the surface, so they cannot understand what is spiritual, the deep things of God, and that is what becomes foolishness unto them.
The Bible tells us that God’s Word is spiritually discerned. This word “discerned” is Strong’s #350, and it is also translated as “examine,” as “judge” and as “search,” all of which have to do with methods God has laid out for Bible study. The word “discern” is also used in verse 15, where it says, “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things.” The “all things” that are being judged are a reference to the Word of God, so we could read verse 15 this way: “But he that is spiritual discerns the Word of God;” or, “But he that is spiritual examines the Word of God;” or, “But he that is spiritual searches the Word of God.” He that is spiritual does all these things.
It is important to know that verse 15 is not primarily speaking of a saved individual, but it is primarily speaking of Christ, the Word of God. I want to read this the way we find it written in the interlinear, just to get a better understanding: “But the spiritual one discerns all things, but He is discerned by no one.” In other words, it is the Word of God that searches all things, examines all things and discerns all things, but the Word of God can be discerned by no one unless they have the “mind of Christ.” And this is what we read in the closing verse, in 1Corinthians 2:16:
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
The answer is that no man has known the mind of the Lord unless that individual has become saved and received the Holy Spirit and the “mind of Christ.” Only then can a natural man become a spiritual man and understand spiritual things that come from the mind of Christ, which is the Word of God.
So this chapter clearly teaches against the church’s view of the “simplicity” of Biblical text for anyone (in and of himself) to understand.
The other thing we need to notice regarding 1Corinthians, chapter 2 is that it is not talking about the moral truths found in the Bible. It is talking about the deep spiritual truths. The moral truths are derived by taking the plain meaning of the text and making a literal application. By the way, this is exactly what the nation of Israel did as they were blinded to the deep things of God. We know the nation of Israel identified as the people of God, and then they were replaced by the New Testament church as the stewards of the Gospel, which likewise were identified with the people of God. The churches today not only have access to the Scriptures, but they can search the Scriptures as often as they want. But, with all this, they are not able to “hear” the Word of God. They can read it. They can examine it. They can study it, but they cannot understand it.
So we must ask why. And that is what 1Corinthians 2 explains to us. God has blinded them, and they do not even realize it. Speaking of being blinded, I once heard someone say, “The difference between someone who is physically blind and someone who is spiritually blind is that the physically blind person knows he is blind.” The people in the churches have no idea they are (spiritually) blind.
What happens when someone who is spiritually blind (but believes they are saved) reads the Scriptures? What method is he going to use to understand a spiritual book? Well, whatever method he uses, it is not going to incorporate all the methods laid out in the Bible. Even if they try to use all the (proper) methods to study the Bible, the Bible says they are not going to understand it.
So now we can better understand why the world and the churches cannot understand the doctrines of spiritual judgment, of atonement at the foundation of the world, of annihilation instead of eternal torment, or of the end of salvation. These doctrines are spiritual in nature. These doctrines are doctrines we would never have seen, except for God opening up our understanding, and that understanding was spoken about in Daniel 12.
So not only has God’s method of understanding the Scriptures been kept a mystery from the unsaved, but also the information that has been revealed (in our day). So when Christ asked the question, “How readest thou?”, we know what He is really asking is this: “How do you understand what is written?” And that question requires a great deal of self-examination.
I want to close with John 6:63-69:
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, *they* are spirit, and *they* are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. From that *time* many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
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