God’s Word for You
1 Corinthians 2:9-11 The depths of God
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, November 15, 2022
9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no human mind has conceived—that is what God has prepared for those who love him.”
Paul is quoting Isaiah 64:4, which says: “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.” But Paul wants to add something that is equally as true, that besides the eye and the ear not perceiving what God does, so also the mind has not even conceived it. So he also takes up a line from Isaiah 65:17, “the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” He is not adding to Scripture or subtracting from it, but combining truths from more than one place to illustrate a doctrine. He is showing that God’s plan was unknown to man and is unknowable apart from the holy Scriptures.
10 But God revealed it to us through his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except God’s Spirit.
Depths frighten us because they are dark, unknown, and lethal. “I sink in the miry depths” is not a cry of triumph, but of terror (Psalm 69:2). Such depths are hiding places (Amos 9:3), places of sin (Micah 7:19), places of no return (Jonah 2:3). But in God there is no terror, no sin. The depths of God are his innermost will, his everlasting love, his limitless compassion, and his brilliant glory. Considering the depths of God also plunges us thoroughly and deeply (simply to consider the Scripture’s term and without any desire for either pun or paronomasia) into the doctrine of the Trinity. Since verse 11 takes us into that same teaching, saying that the Spirit knows what the Father knows, we might remind ourselves of the basics:
I, In God are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is one divine essence subsisting in three persons. A very full explanation of this is of course the Athanasian Creed. But while there are three Persons of the Trinity (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14), it is also true and correct that God is One (Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29; Revelation 11:17).
II, The internal marks of the Trinity are these:
A, The Father works with the Son by begetting (Psalm 2:7; Acts 13:33) and with the Spirit by breathing. We might want to cite John 14:16 and 26 here, but Jesus is talking there about the order of salvation, and so we must be careful about applying those verses. Yet the very names of the Spirit, Hebrew ruach (Genesis 1:2), Greek pneuma (Mark 1:12), describe a being who is breathed out or blown.
B, The Son, like the Father, breathes the Spirit. The Spirit is also called “the Spirit of Christ” or “of the Son” (Romans 8:9; Galatians 4:6). The Son sends the Spirit just as the Father does (John 16:7, 15:26; Luke 24:49).
C, The Spirit, unlike the Father or Son, simply proceeds from the Father and the Son (John 15:26).
III, The external marks of the Trinity are the usual roles that Scripture assigns to each Person: (1) For the Father, creation and preservation, (2) for the Son, redemption, (3) for the Spirit, sanctification.
IV, Finally there is a third part to our description of the Trinity, and that is permeation. This is, in many ways, incomprehensible. But it means that now and from eternity, one person of the Trinity is always in the other. It has been called a constant interpenetration. These are big words, I realize, to explain precisely what is meant by Paul’s words in our verse: “no one knows the thoughts of God except God’s Spirit.” God, or the Godhead, is therefore an undivided unity. A question that comes up right away is the relationship between the incarnate Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit. The whole divinity was and is incarnate in Christ, which is to say, God is Christ and Christ is God, but only the nature of the Son; for neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit became human.
This is an excellent point to stop this search into the nature of the Trinity, before we become overwhelmed or befuddled. But we have here the truth in a few excellent pieces:
1, God is one, yet three persons, which is to say, Triune.
2, The three Persons are each God, but each one interacts with the others in different ways: The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. The difference is not one of time, or of modes, but of existence.
3, The Father is the creator and preserver, the Son is the Redeemer, and the Spirit is the Sanctifier, the one who creates and preserves faith and who inspired the Scriptures to be written and transmitted.
4, Each Person of the Trinity permeates, exists within and fills, the others, but only the Son is Christ, who is nevertheless also truly and fully God. He is not a fourth Person in the Godhead, but the Son incarnate in human flesh.
These are some of the depths of God, but only some of the more obvious landmarks as we consider who God is and what he has done for us. He is our Maker and our Preserver, our Savior. Praise him for who he is and for his mercy in rescuing us. “Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand” (Psalm 95:6-7). We give him glory, honor, and thanks, for his mercy endures forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.