The Maturity of the Cross (1 Corinthians 2:6–13)

One of the most cutting barbs uttered among my siblings and I was, “You are so immature!” In the heat of the moment, this was said to cut one down to size, pointing out that he or she was not as clever as imagined. After all, when you are in your teen years, you want to be respected as mature, as having the ability to respond well to the vicissitudes of life. To be called “mature” is meant to be a commendation of conduct and character. It serves as an encouragement of being well-positioned to make progress in the world. To be labelled immature is to say otherwise.

When the apostle Paul addressed the Corinthians, he addressed a church that was behaving immaturely (see 3:1–4). He therefore pointed them to the source of true maturity, the cross of Jesus Christ. By reminding them of the powerful message of the cross, Paul reminded them of who they were and therefore how they should behave and think.

Paul reminds them that, by God’s grace, his Spirit has applied the cross of his Son to make them mature as the children of God. This is the fundamental theme of 1 Corinthians 2:6–13. The goal of the cross is to produce maturity. A glorious maturity was secured by Jesus Christ crucified for every member of God’s family. The Corinthians needed this reminder. I suspect we do as well.

One could be mistaken for assuming that Paul was anti-wisdom in view of what he has been saying. One would be wrong. Though he was anti the wisdom of the world, he was pro the wisdom of God, for it is the power of God for salvation (1:23–24). Here, in 2:6–1,3 Paul exalts God’s wisdom as he exults in the Spirit’s grace in giving this wisdom to those who embrace the message of the cross. Paul designates these as “mature.” In this passage we therefore will observe the mature of the cross under several headings:

1. The Identification of the Mature (vv. 6–8)
2. The Illumination of the Mature (vv. 9–12)
3. The Inclination of the Mature (v. 13)

The Identification of the Mature

First, we must consider the identification of the mature:

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

(1 Corinthians 2:6–8)

Having forcefully made clear the centrality of his message—“Jesus Christ” (who he is) “and him crucified” (what he has done) (v. 2)—Paul now clears up any possible misunderstanding concerning what he has just said. When saying that his message came to them by the medium of the Holy Spirit, and therefore with power, he did not mean that his message in some way bypassed their minds. While denouncing and demoting mere human wisdom, which has no ability to solve mankind’s greatest problem and thus problems, Paul did not mean that those saved by the power of the cross are in some way naïve when it comes to understanding and flourishing in the world. In fact, as he will argue, those who, by the power God’s Spirit, have received the message of the cross are the truly mature and wise in this world. That is, only those who are in on God’s plan can live truly wise and therefore truly well in this world. All others are immature and doomed to failure (v. 6b).

Paul’s use of the word “mature,” however, raises a very important interpretive challenge.

It is first important to understand that Paul could in no way be speaking of a subset of the congregation, who were “mature” over against the immature. Having made such a strong argument against factions and the worldly wisdom of elitism, he would not be so factional! So why did he use this word and to whom was he referring?

It is most likely that the Corinthians were fond of this word, having adopted it from the Corinthian culture. The word can be translated “perfect” (Matthew 5:48), carrying the idea of complete growth in mental and moral character. “Full age” is a good synonym.

In Greek culture and philosophy, “full maturity” was the ultimate goal of life. This was, of course, not a bad goal, but the Greeks taught that it should be achieved by one’s own efforts, cleverness, and self-discipline. It would seem that some in the Corinthian church were following this “worldly wisdom.”

It seems that many in the Corinthian church assumed they had “arrived,” even to the point of outgrowing their need for apostolic instruction and leadership (4:6–13). Paul will use the word “mature” two more times in this epistle (13:10; 14:20). It therefore seems that he uses the word somewhat sarcastically as well as pastorally to highlight what true maturity looks like. And what it looks like is what every true Christian looks like—cruciform. That is, Christians live life shaped by the message of the cross; life that is continually being transformed by the power of the cross; life of keeping near the cross and hence growing in mental and moral character until we reach “full age,” the full image of the manhood of Jesus Christ.

In short, those who have experienced the Spirit’s power through the message of the cross—that is, every Christian—are therefore considered “mature.” Stated another way, those in this world who are mature are those who properly respond to the message of the cross. Conversely, those who reject the message of the cross are immature. They are far from finished and full but are rather living incomplete lives, which will come to nothing and are doomed to pass away (v. 6b). Those who reject the message of the cross—that is, the message of one damned for sinners—are themselves doomed to be damned. How unwise! How foolish! How immature!

We are learning that the message of the cross divides humanity between those who receive it and those who reject it. Those who receive it are deemed mature, while those who reject it are deemed immature. They are clueless, underdeveloped, failing to live as they were created to live. However, “the mature … are those whose grasp of ‘Christ as the wisdom of God’ (1:30) has enabled them to resist the lure of ‘the wisdom of the world’ (1:20) and who refuse to participate in petty factionalism” (Rosner). Please note with great sobriety: This is true of every Christian for, as Carson says, “the ‘mature’ in this context really must refer to all Christians, who cherish the message of the cross, over against the world that rejects the message of the cross.”

So, let me ask, are you “mature”? That is, do you live a life shaped by the message and the power of the cross? Is your life cruciform? Are you a Christian?

How can you know? Paul helps us to accurately answer these questions by pointing to at least two marks of the Christian; that is, the “mature” person, who lives as God intends.

The Mature Have Experienced the Spirit of God

This is the main theme of this passage. The Spirit of God is mentioned seven times in chapter 2. The chapter emphasises the ministry of the Spirit of God making the otherwise foolish, natural, and immature into those who are wise, spiritual, and mature.

What Paul said in v. 5 is further developed here and through the rest of the chapter. The Spirit of God takes the message of the cross and powerfully uses it to change fools into wise, the immature into the mature, and the natural into the spiritual. So, I must ask, have you experienced the power of the Holy Spirit bringing the message of the cross irrevocably to your heart?

Further, does the cross of Jesus Christ inform your attitudes and your actions? Does the cross of Jesus Christ enter into your decisions (e.g. how and where you spend your time?). Does the cross of Christ affect how you treat your wife, your husband, your parents, or your children? Put another way, does the testimony of God affect your testimony? Does his character and conduct shape yours?

We saw previously that the cross of Christ is God’s testimony. It is the irrefutable evidence concerning the nature and character of God. In the person and work of Jesus Christ—especially on the cross—we see, among other attributes, God’s love, holiness, justice, and grace. A proper view therefore of Jesus Christ and him crucified will produce a proper fear of God. And with that fear comes wisdom (Job 28:28; Proverbs 9:10; etc.).

The goal of the book of Proverbs is that the sons of a king will grow in mental and moral maturity, grounded in spiritual maturity—that is, their relationship with God. The king aims to have sons who are mature, who can discern right from wrong, good from bad, wicked from evil, flourishing from folly. The key is the fear of the Lord. Nothing has changed for you and me. Though that human king (Solomon) failed, our sovereign, divine King desires his sons (and daughters) to be mature. He desires us to turn away from the folly of the world and to embrace his wisdom. As with Solomon’s sons, God’s sons likewise need the fear of the Lord.

I suppose it is true that all failures in the Christian life are both faith and fear failures. Because of our lack of fear of God, we fail to believe him and fail to behave as he instructs us.

Sadly, sometimes Christians—those who are the mature in the world—live without fear of God and thus we live like the lost world. We live immature lives. We need a proper fear of God. Yes, this means reverential reverence that stirs our affections for a great God but also a trembling before his holiness as seen in his wrath poured out on his Son in our place. When we see this, and when the message of the cross humbles us and horrifies us concerning the horror of our sin, we will live wisely. We will grow in maturity.

In meditating on Psalm 36 recently, I was struck by my need for a proper fear of the Lord and how this would change my, and our church’s, life. As we gaze at Jesus Christ crucified, fear will grow, resulting in a fruitful outcome. In other words, if we have a biblical “dread” (CSB) of God, we will humble ourselves and repent of our suspicions, lusts, jealousies, rebellions, gossip, backbiting, grumbling, unforgiveness, bitterness, and arrogance of being a know it all. We will repent of our fear of man and will look for and even make opportunities to speak of Jesus Christ and him crucified. We will love and cherish our wives and love and honour our husbands. We will honour and obey our parents and we will patiently shepherd the hearts of our children. Our churches will be packed, and not only on Sunday mornings. Our prayer meetings will multiply. Our harmony as a congregation would be remarkably holy. We will be genuinely concerned for those who are under God’s wrath. We will be joyfully confident about the day in which God puts all things right.

So, how do we gain a biblical dread of God? By the Spirit of God portraying before us Jesus Christ (who he is) and him crucified (what he did). This was Paul’s burden, and it is increasingly my burden. From what I am hearing from many in my own congregation, it is corporately our burden.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot have this vision of Jesus Christ crucified and be unmoved. We cannot have this vision and be unchanged. We cannot have this vision and remain immature. No, the power of the cross made real to us by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit makes us mature; it produces the fear of the Lord. It is this fear and wisdom that produce those who are mature, “who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). It is this fear that marks those who have been made wise unto salvation (2 Timothy 3:15).

The Mature Escape the Spirit of this Age

Someone has said, “He who marries the spirit of the age will shortly find himself widowed.” Since the spirit of the age has no solid foundation, since its centre does not hold, and since it is always being tossed about by the latest trend, all it can offer is a life lived on shifting sand. In other words, the wisdom of this age, and the rulers (“influencers”) of this age, like the immature, have no stability. However, those saved by the power of the cross have been provided a wisdom that is as solid as a rock and upon which we can build our lives. This is Paul’s point in vv. 6b–8.

The words Paul uses may have brought to the minds of the Corinthians the various mystery religions that were prevalent in those days. Each had a kind of initiation secured by some special knowledge (“mystery”), a “secret’” handshake that only the specially initiated knew. Regardless, Paul was making the point that those who believe the message of the cross do so not because they are clever, but rather because the Spirit of God has made known to them God’s true wisdom as opposed to the fleeting wisdom of the world. Their maturity is because God has graciously revealed the mystery of the cross to them.

Foreordained Maturity

Paul says that this insight was settled and foreordained by God and, unlike the world’s wisdom, is neither fallen nor fading and therefore it is not faddish.

Chronologically, there was a maturity of the cross in that it took time to come to pass. Though it was decreed before the ages (v. 7), history moved towards Jesus Christ crucified. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Galatians 4:4–5a). The cross finally came to pass. Time had matured until the time was just right. The time was just right “for our glory” (v. 7b). What does this mean?

Full Maturity

In Paul’s epistles, he uses the word “glory” at least fifteen in the context of Christians being eventually glorified to be like Christ. Perhaps most clearly we see this in Romans 8:28–30: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

In other words, God’s goal for his children—including the “all things” of v. 28—is their glorification, their final conformity to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ. Paul says the same thing here in v. 7: “for our glory.” That is, from eternity past, God decreed that his Son would be crucified (v. 8) by those blinded to and beholden to the wisdom of the world. But through his Spirit, he would come to his people, so that they would “receive adoption of sons. And because [we] are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So [we] are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4–7).

In short, everyone born of the Spirit is headed for assured maturity, definite glory, perfect conformity to Jesus Christ. Why then would we be enticed by the fallen and fading and sure to fail wisdom of the world?

The Illumination of the Mature

Verses 9–12 reveal how the mature receive the illumination they require to grow to maturity:

But, as it is written,

 

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

 

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

(1 Corinthians 2:9–12)

Having revealed the identity of the mature, Paul next reveals a great privilege of the mature: They alone, of all people on the planet, receive divine illumination.

With the thought of v. 8 lingering, Paul explains the difference between the foolishness of those who crucified the Lord of glory and those who believe and love the Lord of glory. The difference, of course, is the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing truth to those whom he illumines to receive this truth.

Paul quotes a conflagration of Isaiah 64:4 and 65:17 to highlight that unaided human reason could never figure our God’s redemptive plan of Jesus Christ crucified. Interestingly, this verse is usually made to say the opposite of what it actually says, especially at funerals. Verses 9–10 do not teach that “we don’t know what heaven is like.” On the contrary, it says that those who are believers do know what God has prepared for those who love him: They know the gospel! The greatest insight is to know God’s plan to save sinners and to save the world (2 Corinthians 5:19; John 3:17).

Those who love the Lord are those who have been loved by the Lord, so much that he sent his Son to live and to die for them. And the Holy Spirit makes this known to them. As Paul put in Romans 5:3–5, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Brothers and sisters, what a privilege to be so loved, and therefore what a joy to be able to love God back. The mature are those who see the love of God in Jesus Christ crucified, and they respond in love. The Holy Spirit illumines us, enabling us to love God.

Paul concludes this thought in vv. 10b–12, reminding the Corinthian church of their immense privilege. No longer are they bound by the wisdom of this world. No longer are they grasping for fulfilment in the dark. Rather, they have the Spirit of God and therefore are able to know all that God has freely given them in Jesus Christ crucified. And that is an awful lot!

The Christian is blessed to really “understand” God and his plan. Christians are to be the most enlightened about what really matters and how to live. And how to love. The greatest insight we can ever receive—our greatest discovery—is that God loves us, and that he does have a wonderful plan for our life. A wonderful plan that is beyond this life. Brothers and sisters those who get the cross are marked by love for God (see 16:22).

Brothers and sisters those regenerated and illumined by the Spirit of God will also have a special love for others who are likewise illumined. The won’t be factional. Christianity is relational and we need one another to grasp more and more of this revelation.

The Inclination of the Mature

While happily acknowledging the Spirit’s gift of illumination to every believer, Paul was also aware that the Spirit of God uses means towards his gracious ends. One of those means is the “we” of v. 13: “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

“We” refers to Paul, Apollos, Cephas, etc. God uses teachers and preachers to instruct his people with his inspired word. If we will mature towards Christlikeness, if we will be shaped increasingly by the cross into a cruciform mind and manner, we need instruction in the Scriptures. And we will have a Spirit-driven inclination for them.

It is a fallacy to think that the Holy Spirit will fill our mind with spiritual truth apart from exposure to his word. The word “interpreting” means “to explain” and the assumption is that something has been communicated, which then needs to be explained. That something communicated in this context is the gospel. Referring back to 2:1–5, Paul is saying that, when he came proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ crucified, it was the Spirit of God that applied the message. Paul faithfully proclaimed the gospel and it was the Spirit of God who produced the results.

Brothers and sisters, if we will grow in maturity, we need constant instruction from those who have something of value to say from God. We need teachers. We need those who know the Scriptures to instruct us in the Scriptures. But we need more than this as well. We need the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds pointing us to Jesus Christ and him crucified. The “mature” are so inclined.

Head knowledge is necessary but insufficient. There are plenty of people in churches with a head full of doctrine and a heart full of self. If we will mature we must gather with the church, open our Bible, and open our hearts and minds to the Spirit pleading for his instruction. This is essential for maturity. We must learn to appreciate the incredible privilege we have to be wiser than our teachers (see Psalm 119:99). That is, by the Spirit of God we are provided more insight than the most intelligent unbeliever.

Conclusion

We can conclude this point, and this study, by pointing out that Paul’s ultimate definition of those who are mature is found in the last word of v. 13: “spiritual.”

This word is sorely abused in our world. Hindus are said to be spiritual; Buddhists are said to be spiritual; New Age weirdness is said to be spiritual; witches are said to be spiritual; and even atheists are sometimes said to be spiritual! That is, all of these claim some ethereal or esoteric interest, or they are said to “feel deeply.” But the word “spiritual” as Paul uses it, means “to be of God’s Spirit.” That is, to belong to the Spirit of God. These alone are mature. Only those with the Spirit of God are headed for glory, for perfection, for fullness. So the question remains: Is that you? Are you mature? Are you saved by and therefore controlled by the power of the cross work of Jesus Christ? Can your life be described as cruciform? If so, then thank God and pray that the Holy Spirit will take more of you.

If you are not born again by the Spirit of God, then plead with God to make it so today. Plead for mercy and grace as you turn to Jesus Christ crucified. Come and partake of the maturity offered at the cross.

AMEN