The Mystery of God
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2025 · 18 May 2025
Look at 1 Corinthians 1 from 1:18 to 2:5 we have said that in this particular unit there is the contrast between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of men. The wisdom of man is really crowding out the gospel of Christ. There is no place within the church of Jesus Christ for the mixture of human philosophy with divine revelation. Human opinion doesn’t do anything but muddle the waters of God’s revelation.
We’ve seen how human opinion regarding evolution has taken a creative account here and turned it into what is called theistic evolution. Christian counseling does not have any positive or redeeming virtue. Now the book of 1 Corinthians deals with problems. They had many problems; the first of which was the problem of division. The congregation was being fractioned into little groups, over personalities.
The second cause of division was according to philosophical viewpoints. As Corinth was so dominated by varying philosophies like Athens. And when they became Christians, they took their opinions about the various things in the world into the church and created little groups on man’s destiny or man’s life. Everybody claiming to be a believer, but everybody adhering to his and her former philosophy.
So Paul writes to try to destroy this and says to them human philosophy is unnecessary. Where human philosophy is right it matches divine revelation. So human philosophy is either superfluous or dangerous. Only when you have the Word of God you have the solution to the problems that God wants you to solve. God didn’t give us an incomplete revelation. God’s Word is what a mankind needs.
There are five ways in which God’s wisdom is superior to man’s wisdom. Number one, God’s wisdom is superior is because of its permanence. The best of philosophers, and the best of writers haven’t been able to solve any of man’s problems. God’s wisdom lasts. God will destroy human wisdom. Secondly, God’s wisdom is superior because of it is power. It can do that which human wisdom couldn’t do: it can save.
The wisdom of God exhibited in the cross, which to the world looks like foolishness, could do what all of the world’s wisdom couldn’t do; that is it could grant to a man the knowledge of God and it could save a man from hell, from sin and from Satan. To the Jews it was a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles the cross was moronic. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men, the weakness of God is stronger than men.
God’s cross did do that, and even though it was rejected by Jews and rejected by Greeks. There were some who believed, and to them it did become power and it did become wisdom. And that just goes to prove that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Human effort at its best can’t come up to the very base level of God’s power and wisdom.
The third thing: God’s wisdom is superior because of its paradox. God states the superiority of His wisdom to man’s wisdom by redeeming simple humble people. Verse 26, “Consider your calling: Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.” The world looks at three things to determine greatness. Wisdom, education, brains. Power and popularity. And high rank.
But God didn’t choose many of these, verse 27, “Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” Verse 28, “God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something,” Here’s the paradox, here is the apparent contradiction.
Most of God’s people are just simple people. James 2:5 says, “Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?” The reason is they stand collectively as a rebuke against the world. As the Gentiles stand to make Israel jealous, so do the foolish stand to make the wise of this world jealous.
As we saw last time, the simplest person without any education who knows God knows more than the greatest philosopher in the world who doesn’t know God. And what a rebuke that is to human wisdom. And of course, Ephesians 3:10 says that God wants to take the church and put it on display before principalities and powers that they may see His wisdom in the church. There’s no place for human wisdom.
Verse 29, “So that no one may boast in his presence.” Nobody can say, “Well, I’m a Christian. I was smart enough to believe that.” God’s part was choosing. Remember, you’re saved not because you’re smart. You were saved because you were chosen of God in His marvelous grace. Ephesians 2:8-9, “By grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves.” It is a gift of God, not of your works.
Verse 30, “It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” What Paul is simply saying to them is, “Look, the purpose in salvation was that God may be glorified. And so in order for God to get the most glory, He made sure that you had the least to do with your salvation.” Yes, I got saved because of God’s wisdom.”
As soon as you became Christian, the first thing you received was wisdom. The truly wise in this world are those who know God. The truly wise are those who know salvation. We stand as a testimony that God took simple, humble people who didn’t know enough, to transform themselves. He made us the wisest in existence; and His is the glory. Verse 31, “In order that, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
The purpose for which God’s wisdom was granted was that He might receive the glory. Salvation is not an issue of intelligence. It’s not an issue of man’s wisdom, but of His. You know, the moment you became a Christian you really learn something. The Bible even says Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” You receive the truth. “You shall know the truth, the truth shall make you free.”
Now when we say “the glory of God,” what do we mean? All that God is, all of His attributes and all of His nature. When you become a Christian is you know God, you know His nature, you know His essence. God the generator of the universe, the source of all light; that’s a handicap not to know Him. When you become a Christian, He shines, he turns the switch on of the knowledge of the glory of God through Christ.
Ephesians 1:9 says something else you should know, “He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ.” God not only reveals Himself to us, but reveals His will to us. Now this isn’t whether you ought to marry so and so, or whether you ought to work at Lockheed. What it’s talking about is the sweep of God’s plan, and that’s indicated in the next verse.
When you became a Christian you began to know God, then also you began the knowledge of His will. Now Ephesians 1:17-18 says, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know the hope of His calling, what is the wealth of His glorious inheritance.”
Now both hope and inheritance have a future aspect, right? We are hoping for the fullness of redemption. We are hoping for the inheritance which is reserved for us. When you were saved, you came to know God, God’s plan, and your destiny. A Christian then knows where he came from, what he’s doing, and where he’s going. Now that is the fullness of knowledge that comes at the moment of salvation.
The great thing about all of it is the glory is God’s, because we didn’t do anything. God gave us this wisdom. It was an act of God. You’re in Christ, and Christ has given you wisdom; and wisdom is the key. But in addition to that, Paul can’t resist throwing in some other things. You received righteousness. What is righteousness?” Righteousness means before God you stand sinless as opposed to sinful.
2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “That Christ was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So He took our sin and gave us His righteousness. When God looks down at Christian from heaven, He sees a person with a cloak over him, and it says the righteousness of Christ on it, and it covers the sin; and God declares him righteous. That’s because of Christ.
Philippians 3:9 says, “And be found in Him not having mine own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” It’s wonderful to realize that when you’re saved you not only get wisdom, but you also get absolute and total righteousness before God. Your sin is done away. Because Christ took your sin and bore it on the cross, and paid the penalty.
Another one: sanctification. That means to be set apart or holy. He not only declared you righteous, but He began an inside work of making you holy. You know, the moment you believed in Christ, the principle of the incorruptible seed was planted in you, and as John says, “You cannot continue to commit habitual sin, because God’s holy seed is in you.” When you became a Christian, you began to see holiness.
Then he adds another great word: redemption. To redeem means to purchase. And God by Christ has purchased us from the power of sin. Redeemed. Peter says: “We’re redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of the Lamb without spot and without blemish.” All that is ours in Christ. Look at it: wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.
Verse 31, “in order that, as it is written: Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” All is due to the wisdom of God; you did nothing. The philosophy of man just divides you. And believe me, there are churches that are split all over this country over political issues. Whenever the church gets involved in politics, economics or anything else, it gets into problems, because then you’re dividing on nonessentials.
Now let us go back to 1 Corinthians. Paul says, “You’re divided over different opinions.” God’s wisdom is superior in number one its permanence; it’s secondly, superior in its power; thirdly, its paradox; fourthly, its purpose. And fifthly it is superior by its presentation. 1 Corinthians 2:1 says, “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, announcing the mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom.”
God determined to save men by the gospel. So when Paul came to Corinth, he didn’t come as an orator, or as a philosopher, he came as a witness. He came declaring the witness of God. And that’s the word testimony. He says, “I am here to report to you the testimony of God’s objective facts, I’m here to give you God’s revelation.” You know, that’s all we’re to do. There’s no place in the church for philosophy.
What is the testimony of God? The Testimony of God is Jesus Christ. We come together on the Lord’s Day; and whenever we meet together, and we say: “Let’s open our Bibles. Let’s look at what God says.” We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, but by manifestation of the truth. The only task of the ministry is to manifest the truth of God. We have a clear conscience, and we have a simple task. To manifest God’s truth.
Paul said to Timothy what the priorities were. In 1 Timothy 4:13, he said, “Until I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” Now that’s pretty simple, read, exhort, and doctrine is a synonym for teaching. So number one, read the Bible; number two, explain it, that’s teaching; number three, apply it to your life. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:2, “Preach the Word.” Not your own opinion, but the Word.
Verse 3: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.” People don’t want a sound doctrine. “But after their own lusts, desires, they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears.” Now the itching ears belong to the hearers, not the teachers. They want their ears tickled with beautiful sermons, nice, flowery words “and they’ll turn away their ears from the truth and they’ll be turned unto fables.”
Verse 2, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” My only design was to preach Christ: not as a teacher, not as an example, not as perfect man; but Christ crucified. Now he’s not saying there that he denied the rest of the Scripture. But his emphasis was the cross. In fact, it was so much a dominant message in the early church that people thought that Christians worshiped a dead man.
Verse 3-4, “I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” Here he does not mean physical illness. It’s an anxiety that comes with something that’s very urgent. And he was in this city, after he’d been thrown out of Philippi and Thessalonica. He got to Athens, and he was at the end of his rope.
Verse 5, “so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.” So he says, “I didn’t come to persuade you, to exact the right responses, to draw you over to my opinions. I just came and let the Spirit flow and let His power flow, and He and His power were able to change lives.” And only that can mean there’s a change in a life. Paul was a man with great natural abilities, but he didn’t use them.
Spurgeon said, “The power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning, otherwise it consist in the wisdom of men. We might preach until our tongues rotted, until we would exhaust our lungs and die. But never a soul would be converted unless the Holy Spirit be with the word of God to give it the power to convert the soul.” Let’s pray.