📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 2:10
What does 1 Corinthians 2:10 mean?
"But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God."
— 1 Corinthians 2:10 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory,
which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”
But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.
But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
Explanation
1 Corinthians 2:10 comes in the middle of Paul's discussion of true wisdom versus the wisdom of the world. In plain language, the verse says that God has made known to believers things that would otherwise remain hidden, and he has done this through the Holy Spirit. Paul adds that the Spirit is capable of this task because the Spirit searches, or fully knows, everything—even the deepest realities of God himself.
To understand the context, remember that Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, a congregation enamored with Greek philosophical rhetoric and impressed by clever, persuasive speech. In the verses just before this one (1 Corinthians 2:6-9), Paul contrasts human wisdom with "God's wisdom in a mystery," things "eye has not seen, nor ear heard," which God prepared for those who love him. Verse 10 is Paul's answer to the question, "then how can anyone know these hidden things?" His answer is that God himself revealed them, not through human intellect or eloquence, but through his own Spirit given to believers.
Theologically, this verse teaches something important about revelation and about the nature of the Holy Spirit. First, it affirms that spiritual truth is not something humans discover on their own through reasoning or philosophy—it must be revealed by God. Second, it presents the Spirit as fully divine and intimately united with God, since the Spirit "searches" or knows "the deep things of God" the way one's own spirit knows one's inner thoughts (Paul makes this comparison explicit in verse 11). This
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