Human wisdom does not explain the way of salvation – 1:18; whom God calls to Himself – 1:27; nor whom God uses to make known the gospel – 2:4-5. When Timothy McVeigh was executed on 11 June 2001 as the Oklahoma City bomber who took 168 lives, he quoted W. E. Henley’s words: ‘I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.’ Psalm 36:9.
- The Spirit knows God fully.
- 2:10-11. In the complete and absolute sense, only the Son and the Spirit can know God – Matt.11:27. Only an infinite being (God) can fully know God – Isa.40:13-14. Pascal: ‘God alone can speak truth about God.’
Charles Wesley in his hymn to the Holy Spirit:
God through Himself we then shall know,
If Thou within us shine
And sound with all Thy saints below
The depths of love divine. - The Spirit reveals God to His people.
- 2:6-7, 12-13; Col.1:26; John 15:26; 16:14; 1 Cor.12:3. Without the Spirit, we will view Jesus Christ as a man or as an angel but not as Lord.
- The world cannot know God.
- 2:6-9. Verse 9 may be alluding to Dan.2:19-23; Isa.64:4; Chrysostom says it is from some unknown source). It is not referring so much to the wonders of heaven, but the wonders of revelation.
- 2:14-16. Voltaire: ‘Every sensible man, every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.’ A deaf man cannot listen to Handel’s Messiah.
- identical twins might hear the same gospel. One receives it as God’s truth, the other is nearly asleep. Note Luke 24:45.