1 Corinthians 2:10

“But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”

The δέ is strongly adversative: “This wisdom was hidden, but it has been revealed to us.” The for, which the Vatic. reads here, could only refer to the, we speak, of 1 Corinthians 2:7; but the distance between these two words is too great for this connection to be natural.

The dat. to us heads the proposition, to contrast strongly those denoted by this pronoun with the world and its princes to whom the Divine wisdom is veiled. This pronoun neither refers to Christians in general, nor, as Edwards thinks, to the perfect in particular; for the ἡμεῖς, we, to whom the revelation is granted, are evidently identical with the we, the subject of λαλοῦμεν, we speak, in 1 Corinthians 2:6; 1 Corinthians 2:13. For it is that they may be able to speak that they receive the revelation. Now, in 1 Corinthians 2:16, they are expressly contrasted with the τέλειοι, the perfect, and à fortiori with the members of the Church in general. The we can therefore only designate the apostles collectively, or Paul himself, with his fellow - labourers. But Paul has no reason to speak here of the other apostles; it is his teaching at Corinth which he wishes to justify (1 Corinthians 3:1-4). It is therefore of himself, and no doubt also of Silas and Timothy (comp. 2 Corinthians 1:19), that he is here speaking.

It is natural to place the verb ἀπεκάλυψε, has revealed, immediately after ἡμῖν, as is done by almost all the Mjj., and not after the subject ὁ θεός, God (T. R.); this is the decisive act from which follows that of the λαλεῖν, to speak, 1 Corinthians 2:13. ᾿Αποκαλύπτειν, to remove the veil. The text runs, has revealed to us, without an object; it is not the thing revealed, it is the act of revelation which Paul would emphasize. By the aorist, he goes back to a determinate point of time, which for him can only be that which he describes, Galatians 1:12; Galatians 1:16. There is undoubtedly a revelation also for the simple believer; comp. Ephesians 1:17: “That God may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.” But this revelation is only secondary. It is solely the reproduction of the primordial revelation granted to the first interpreters of the Divine thought, and it takes place only through the intervention of the latter. Between the two there is therefore a difference, not only of degree, but of nature and quality. The former, contained originally in the apostolic declaration, is now found in the writings wherein that declaration is deposited, which are thus the permanent means of which God makes use to effect the latter (John 17:20).

The agent by whom God wrought this unveiling in the mind of the apostle is the Spirit. The pronoun αὐτοῦ, of Him, is probably a gloss. The following proposition serves to explain how the Spirit can fill this revealing function: He searcheth all things. Instead of ἐρευνᾷ, א A B C read ἐραυνᾷ; an Alexandrine form. Was it the apostle who used it, or the Alexandrine copyists who introduced it? We read ραυ John 5:39 in א B; John 7:52 in א B T; Romans 8:27 in א; 1 Corinthians 11:33 in א A B; 1Pe 1:11 in א B, and Rev 2:23 in A C.

There is no reason for restricting the πάντα, all things, to Divine things; on the contrary, the following proposition would in that case be a mere tautology. The Divine Spirit is the luminous principle which possesses and from which proceeds all knowledge; it is in His light alone that everything comes to the light where there are consciousness and intelligence.

The deep things of God designate God's essence, then His attributes, volitions, and plans. The operation of searching, here ascribed to the Spirit, has been applied by De Wette to the believer who has received the Spirit, or, what comes to the same thing, to the Spirit as dwelling in the Church and acting through believers. The sense would thus be, that through possession of the Spirit, man can penetrate all things, even the deepest purposes of God; comp. 1 Corinthians 2:16. But (1) this sense does not accord with the contrast between the verbs reveal and search; the first is in the past and aorist, and consequently indicates a determinate Divine act, wrought once for all; the second, which is in the present, denotes, on the contrary, a permanent act, which, once the act of revelation is effected, would no longer have any reason for its existence if it was really man's. On the contrary, it is clear that this permanent act of searching, applied to the unceasing activity of the Spirit in God, serves to explain (γάρ, for) the revealing function of that Spirit. (2) If Paul meant to speak in 1 Corinthians 2:10 of the working of the Divine Spirit dwelling in man to penetrate the Divine decrees, how would he compare this working in 1 Corinthians 2:11 with that of man's spirit searching what passes within himself? The two compared relations would be incommensurate. Finally (3), in the passage, 1 Corinthians 13:10-12, Paul declares that here below we know only fragmentarily and as in a dim mirror; how could he say here that the Christian's knowledge extends to all things and penetrates even what is deepest in God? Our passage, therefore, certainly relates to the intra-Divine activity of the Holy Spirit.