In the past I have said that we may liken the Bible as a whole to a person’s hand, the New Testament to a ring on the hand, and the book of Romans to a diamond on the ring. How lovable and precious is Paul’s Epistle to the Romans! It certainly is a diamond. Although I may use such an illustration to point out the great value of Romans, I have no way to illustrate the preciousness of 1 Corinthians. In a certain sense, 1 Corinthians is more precious than Romans is.
In 1 Corinthians Paul covers many things that he does not even mention in Romans. For example, in 1:9 Paul tells us that through the faithful God we have been called into the fellowship of the Son of God. Nowhere in Romans does he utter such a word. In 1:24 Paul goes on to say that to us who are called, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom. There is no mention of this in Romans.
The book of Romans reveals that we are in Christ, but in 1 Corinthians 1:30 Paul declares further: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus.” Here we see that it is of God we are in Christ. Romans gives us the fact of being in Christ, but it does not say that it is of God that we are in Christ. Before you were saved, did you ever dream that you would be in Christ? Did you ever imagine that God would put you in Him? We know from 1:30 that it is altogether of God that we are now in Christ. In eternity past, before God created anything, God thought of putting us in Christ. We may even say that God had a dream concerning us, a dream that, according to the desire of His heart, we would be in Christ. Because God desired to have us, He had such a dream concerning us. Thus, it is no accident that we are in Christ. This matter was decided by God in eternity past. Whenever I consider that in eternity past God had a dream about me and decided to put me in Christ, I am beside myself with joy. Oh, it is a matter of tremendous significance that God dreamt about us in eternity! How sweet and endearing this is! How precious is the declaration, “Of Him you are in Christ Jesus”!
In 1 Corinthians Paul also speaks of the depths of God and of drinking of the one Spirit. In Romans 11:33 Paul does say, “O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God!” However, in Romans he does not mention the depths of God. Neither is there any reference in Romans to drinking of the one Spirit. These unique expressions found in 1 Corinthians are not only precious, but delightful to our taste. In Romans there are many precious things, but the precious things in 1 Corinthians are especially good to our taste. In this message we shall consider further many of the precious things found in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2.
When I read 1 Corinthians as a youth, I was puzzled by the expression “the things of man” in 2:11. Have you not been puzzled by this? Why does Paul say that we cannot know the things of man apart from the spirit of man? Why is it so difficult to know the things of man? According to my concept, it was easy to know the things of man, for I thought that Paul was referring to things such as food, clothing, housing, and family life. At that time, I did not know the human spirit. Do you know what your spirit is and where it is located within you? As a young Christian I knew neither the spirit of man nor the things of man which can be known only by the spirit of man. However, I was not troubled by Paul’s word that the things of God no one has known except the Spirit of God. It seemed obvious to me that since I was not God, I could not know the things of God. I readily understood that only the Spirit of God knows the things of God. What was troublesome to me was what Paul said about the things of man and the spirit of man.
What are the things of man to which Paul refers in 2:11? This surely does not refer to the knowledge of outward things related to man—to knowing his age, his birthplace, the names of his wife and children, his occupation, the schools from which he graduated, and the kind of automobile he drives. Knowing about a person in this way has nothing to do with what Paul means by the things of man in 1 Corinthians.
According to John 6:42, the Jews said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” They knew certain outward things about the Lord—that He came from Galilee, that He was a carpenter, and that He had brothers and sisters—but they actually did not know Him at all (Mark 6:3; John 7:41). This indicates that what we may know about a man does not mean anything. We may know man in an outward way without knowing the real things of man. On the one hand, we do know man; on the other hand, we do not know the things of man. We cannot deny the fact that we know about man. Nevertheless, we cannot claim to know the things of man. Do you have the full knowledge concerning yourself? Do you know your source and your destiny? Do you know your real love and your real life? You may know many things about yourself without knowing the things which are deep within you.