Ponderings on 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 – 4 (14)

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

    nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.  (1 Corinthians 2:6 – 10, ESV).

Consider that the “secret and hidden wisdom” that God “decreed before the ages” was decreed “for our glory”. Do we believe this? Do we believe that our heavenly Father is “bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10)? Do we believe that Jesus Christ has given His brethren His glory so that we may be one as the Trinity is one (John 17:11, 22)? Do we see that our unity in the Trinity, our receiving the glory of the Son, is critical to our witness to the world (John 17:21 – 23)?

Creation knows better than we do (Romans 8:18 – 25); it ought not to be this way but it is. We live in false identities. We think we are sinners. We think we are of Paul or Apollos or Cephas. Some of us even merchandise Christ (1 Cor. 1:12). Then others exalt themselves outside of Christ and draw others along with them in the name of Jesus, creating vast “ministry” empires that fleece the sheep.

The glory of Jesus Christ is the glory of His Cross, the glory of His sufferings, the glory of His offering of Himself. It is the slain Lamb that John sees in the Throne Room (Rev. 5). Paul is clear, “…if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:17). Our reasonable and logical worship is the offering of ourselves (Rom. 12:1 – 2).

On the one hand the enemy of us knowing the glory of Christ and the hidden wisdom ordained for our glory in Him is our repudiation of our identity in Him – we reject our sonship, our sainthood, and insist that we remain sinners. On the other hand the enemy is an insidious self-exaltation that is egocentric; replacing the Christ of the Cross with our needs, our wants, our desires, our pleasures, our “best life now” in all the ways that idea is wickedly communicated and sold to the professing church. Both of these enemies attack our identity in Christ, both attack the fulness of the Atonement, both work to negate the Cross.   

If the enemy cannot stop us from escaping Egypt, he will try to rob us of our identity in the Wilderness. If he cannot stop us from entering the Promised Land, he will distract us once we arrive there by having us mingle with the demons we were to have driven out. Then, rather than possessing the land, the land possesses us.

Paul writes that this secret and hidden wisdom was ordained by God before the ages for our glory and yet we say, “That cannot be” on the one hand; or “It’s all about me” on the other hand.

John writes, “Behold how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are…” (1 John 3:1a). Do we believe that before the ages that God decreed a “secret and hidden wisdom” for our glory? Do we believe that Christ has given us His very own glory? (Let us never forget that all wisdom and glory and knowledge are hidden in Jesus Christ; “Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” – Colossians 2:1 – 3).

To whom much is given, much is required. It is required of us that we take up our cross and deny ourselves and follow Jesus. It is required of us that we be holy as our Father is holy. It is required of us that we abide in the Vine. It is required of us that we do nothing in and of ourselves, but that Christ live in us and through us to the glory of God. It is required of us that we lay down our lives for others. It is required of us that we participate in the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:24 – 29)