“The Spirit of God”

Sunday, November 26, 2023

For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

(1 Corinthians 2.11)

In our present age of “spiritual but not religious” people, full of weird ideas and New Age-y drivel that hijacks the vocabulary of Jesus and his Apostles, and uses it in an ill-advised attempt to justify debased behavior that in reality appeals only to the flesh and not the spirit, it is understandable that grounded Christians are often uncomfortable with passages like this one.  In fact, even when Paul wrote this, the word, spirit, was doing a lot of heavy lifting, used in a wide variety of distinct ways.  The Greek word behind our English spirit is πνεῦμα-pneuma, and you can easily see that it serves as the core of many other words, like pneumatic, and pneumonia.  This is because it refers, most literally, to wind.  From there you can see the small jump to signify the breath of a living creature, and in turn the jump to mean what we might call the animating life-force of that creature.  In fact, the equivalent word in Latin is anima, which you can see is the basis of animate, as used in the previous sentence, and also of animal—the idea being that an animal is something that breathes. 

But we’re not done; from there, another small leap brings us to a higher level  of abstraction, in which the spirit is more than the nexus of life and breath, but instead refers to the immaterial aspects of a human being.  We know that there is more to a person than a amorphous blob of chemicals shifting around according to random chance and by pure coincidence interfering, at times, with other such blobs of chemicals.  Yet whatever this distinction is, it ends with death.  When the spirit goes out of a body, it does, in fact, become a meaningless blob of chemicals.  Thus, we think of the spirit—and more importantly, God’s word speaks of it—as the seat of our inner life and will, as well as emotion.  Modern science would generally associate these things with the brain, not the breath.  In fact, many of the ancients had a clearer understanding of the brain’s purpose than is usually accredited to them; but more importantly, modern neuroscience still has no idea what to do with the amazing phenomenon we sometimes call consciousness—in other words, the spirit, or at least part of it.

But as Paul wrote, no other human being knows your thoughts, like you know your thoughts.  Your spirit holds them securely, even when your intellect struggles to articulate them sufficiently well for another person to understand the same thoughts.  And what is Paul’s point in bringing this up?  That God is the same.  His Spirit knows his innermost self intimately.  Why does this matter?

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

(1 Corinthians 2.12-13)

God has given us his Spirit!  Many people throughout the ages have professed to understand God, and Paul’s point is that any meaningful understanding of the depths of God is impossible, if it is pursued according to human wisdom.  From where, then, does it come?  From his Spirit, who alone truly knows God.  How are we supposed to get this Spirit?

“And it shall come to pass afterward,

        that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

        your old men shall dream dreams,

        and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female servants

        in those days I will pour out my Spirit.”

(Joel 2.28-29)

This was, of course, fulfilled on the day of Pentecost that followed Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, as the Apostle Peter pointed out to his audience that day (Ac 2.16ff).  Paul received the Spirit later, and passed on this gift to the new Christians in Corinth.  This is his point in the letter we’ve been examining: his audience has access to the Spirit of God, and yet they have been foolishly pursuing the obviously defective human wisdom that never yielded any substantial spiritual benefit before!

Surely we would never do such a thing today, right?  How is it any different, when a professed Christian explains away disfavored portions of God’s word?  Who knows God better—his own Spirit, or today’s supposedly enlightened western mind?  Why is it that most of the prominent, public voices presuming to speak for God, are content to reject what God’s own book says about topics like sexual mores, marriage, racial grievance, basic justice in society and in war, and a host of other topics?  Why is it that they so often agree instead with the avowed atheists?  Have they received “the Spirit who is from God,” or “the spirit of the world?”

The Christian must not conform to the world, but rather to Christ.  This does not include making dubious assertions about what Jesus would have said, were he alive today.  The chief reason for this, is that Jesus is alive today!  And he does speak today!  His message is no different from what he said nearly two thousand years ago, for “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (He 13.8).  Much of what animates today’s supposedly Christian discourse in the public sphere is a desire to be accepted by the world.  We all share this desire; but it stands in conflict with the cross.  Jesus told his disciples, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15.20).  Which is better: fellowship with a dying world, or fellowship with the eternal Spirit of God?

Jeremy

Share