Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God…

1 Corinthians 2:12

Contextually, Paul is talking about “the thoughts of God” known only by “the Spirit of God” (2:11).   He had just described God’s thoughts as “the depths of God” (2:10), the “secret and hidden wisdom of God” (2:7), “what no eye has seen, nor ear, heard, nor the heart of man imagined” (2:9; cf. Is. 64:4), and what “God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (2:10).  Thus, “the things freely given us by God” (2:12b) refer to the thoughts of God revealed to him and his fellow apostles through inspiration of the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph. 3:3-5; John 16:12-15; 2 Pet. 1:19-21).  So when Paul writes, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God” (2:12a), he is referring to the apostles being inspired by the Holy Spirit.  The gospel they preached came directly from God and is therefore far superior to any worldly message which would originate from human wisdom.  He states this outright in verse 13a: “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit…”

Unfortunately, many interpret “Now we have received…the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (2:12) to mean that Christians in general require the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible.  This is almost certainly why the English Standard Version, with regards to the “words not taught in human wisdom but taught by the Spirit” (2:13a), translates verse 13b to say, “…interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”  The ESV translators clearly thought that the Holy Spirit interprets Scripture to spiritual people.  Yet the ESV also offers alternate wordings in a footnote which says, “Or interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language, or comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”  This is because verse 13b’s wording in the literal Greek (sygkrino pneumatikos pneumatikos, literally “combining spiritual spiritual”) makes interpretation for the purposes of translation into English somewhat ambiguous.  Clearly the ESV translators were influenced by the mistaken theology that the Holy Spirit interprets Scripture to spiritual people; thus they gave precedence to that view in their translation of verse 13b.  However, to their credit, they also gave these other possibilities in the footnote.  My study of what the totality of Scripture says about biblical inspiration leads me to conclude that the first footnote option, “interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language,” is the ESV’s best interpretation of verse 13b.  The message of the apostles and prophets was basically “interpreting” (a better translation of sygrkino might be “combining”) the “spiritual language” of Holy Spirit inspiration with the “spiritual truths” of God’s Word (cf. John 17:17) imparted through that divine inspiration.

Verses 14-16 are also misunderstood to mean that only those to whom the Holy Spirit interprets Scripture will be able to understand the Bible.  However, consider that if “the spiritual person” of verse 15 is someone to whom the Holy Spirit interprets Scripture (as is commonly thought today), then he would also necessarily “judge all things, but is himself to be judged by no one” (2:15b).  In other words, anyone to whom the Spirit interpreted Scripture so they could understand it would be infallible and incapable of being correctly admonished or rebuked, a trait applying to only Christ himself (1 Pet. 2:22).

This passage is actually part of Paul’s explanation to Corinth that his message was given to him via Spirit inspiration and thus originated not in his mind but in God’s.  Thus, the “natural person” (2:14a) refers to someone who is not a Spirit-inspired apostle or prophet.  The reason they “do not accept the things of the Spirit of God,” consider the gospel “folly,” and are “not able to understand them” (2:14b) is because they are not divinely inspired and the message IS divinely inspired, i.e.,  “spiritually discerned” (2:14c).  However, “the spiritual person” (2:15a) refers to the Spirit-inspired apostle or prophet who preached and wrote the New Testament (Eph. 2:20; 3:3-5).  Their teachings and writings therefore correctly “judge all things,” and no one could legitimately judge them to be incorrect (2:15b) because their message is not theirs but God’s (cf. 1 Thess. 2:13), who knows all and thus cannot be corrected (2:16a).  They “have the mind of Christ” (2:16b), thus showing that verse 16’s citation of Isaiah’s prophetic question “For who has understood the mind of the Lord…?” applies to themselves (2:16a; cf. Is. 40:13; Eph. 3:3-5).

– Jon