Last week, we looked at Pentecost, a time we remember as when the early church received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the promised gift Jesus mentioned before his death (John 14:15-31). This gift is not just something we apathetically accept, only to stick on a dusty shelf and move on with our lives. The Holy Spirit is needed, active, and working in and through us in various ways as believers.
The church at Corinth was established by Paul on one of his missionary journeys. By the time 1 Corinthians was written roughly 20 years following Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Corinthians’ focus is completely broken—the entire culture there, but even Corinthian believers within the church, had succumbed to focusing on their own power, eloquence, appetites and glory. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul offers the church at Corinth a perspective shift. Prior to writing Corinth, Paul had been imprisoned in Philippi and run out of Thessalonica, among other attacks—he very well could have been feeling empty of physical and emotional strength.
And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2
Paul knows his need for the Holy Spirit to work in and through him. He knows his weakness; it is in his weakness the Spirit will have the leeway to work most powerfully, and God will get the glory, not himself (v 4-5). The Holy Spirit is our interpreter, revealing God’s truth to us as he is God in us (v.10, 12; 2 Peter 1:21). He searches our hearts, he teaches us that we may understand spiritual truths (v 13).
He is also our helper. As we come to understand the brokenness inside of us and come in contact with the brokenness in this world around us, we are bound to meet moments where our heart feels heavy in our chest and our mind cannot grasp the words we need to even form a prayer. In these moments, the work of the Spirit is intercession before the throne of grace on our behalf. There is a peace and comfort in knowing the Spirit is taking up the task on our behalf. Since he both lives in us and is God, who better to connect our hearts to the Lord?
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. Romans 8:26-27
The Spirit helps us through the sanctification process.
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:16-18
In some translations, v. 18 use of contemplate is translated as looking in the mirror at. Mirrors in this time were not the glass reflective pieces we know now but were polished metal. In order to see one’s reflection, the mirror had to be held closely, and even then, the reflection was far from perfect. Even as we hold close to the Lord, we can never have a perfect representation of God this side of eternity; however, the Holy Spirit’s sanctification work in us transforms us ever closer.
The Holy Spirit, given to those who call on Jesus Christ as their Savior, cleanses us.
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7
The Holy Spirit dwells in those who recognize their need for Jesus Christ as their Savior. Just as we recognize we could never do enough to earn our salvation, may we remember it is not by our own power that we are sanctified. Thanks be to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit who works in and through us for his glory!
(Further Reading: Romans 5:2-5; 15:16, 1 Corinthians 6:11, 2 Corinthians 3:3-9, Galatians 2:22, Ephesians 3:4-5; 14-19, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:10-12, 2 Peter 1:21, 1 John 5:6-8)