1 Corinthians 2 -- What We Never Imagined - Right Here, Right Now

Paul quotes Isaiah 64:4 here – “No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.”  Isaiah wasn’t talking about heaven, according to my commentary, for Paul was talking about God’s wisdom and “the deep secrets of God,” and the fact that God has now shown them to us through the Spirit.  Since we haven’t seen heaven, that seems to say Isaiah wasn’t talking about it.

What we can’t imagine as natural men is God’s plan that began before the world was created to save men from hell.  Paul says that it’s impossible for a person to even conceive of these thoughts without the help of the Holy Spirit.  It’s only when the Spirit opens the mind of Christ within us that those deep truths are revealed to us.

But even that is not enough.  It takes illumination by the Holy Spirit to shine the light of truth on those revealed words, unlocking our spirits to be able to understand them.

I can remember hearing the word “grace” used so often in church and yet I could not comprehend what it meant.  It was one of those “church words”.  It was only after the Holy Spirit’s revelation that I was able to understand that grace was “getting what we don’t deserve from God”.  But the Spirit didn’t stop there.  He illuminated in my life many incredible instances of God’s providing grace to me – not just once, but daily.  It was humbling to discover.

A good illustration would be radio waves.  They are at any moment blasting through the air all around us, yet we are totally unaware of them.  Science could lead us to be able to detect them with a radio wave meter, for instance.  That would be revelation – to become aware that they are there when before we didn’t know.  But then we could utilize AM, FM, satellite, or short-wave radio, say, or even a cell phone to understand the information conveyed through those waves.  Before Marconi, no one had ever imagined what could be sent across the air by radio or even television.

In the same way, before we receive the Holy Spirit, we cannot imagine what God has prepared for us – His great truths that He reveals to us through the Holy Spirit to help us know Him.  To the unbeliever, it is all foolishness.  We’d call someone foolish who refused to believe in radio waves as well!

Father, I remember how foolish I felt when You finally opened my heart to Your truths and I saw all that I had been missing.  Your truths are hidden from the unbelieving world.  Thanks for sharing them with me.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford