All week we have been examining 1 Corinthians 2:6-16. Have you discovered the main point that Paul is making? He stresses that the basis of all communication, the basis on which regeneration takes place, and the point at which we have illumination by the Spirit is the Word of God, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
Some six years after receiving that letter, I did a men’s luncheon series on Scripture: what it is, how we received it, how we understand it, and such questions. In one of the sessions I was to give an address on dealing with Bible difficulties. One of the illustrations I prepared for this question about Bible difficulties quoted this man from western Canada. I made the point that it is not really a question of overwhelming difficulties; it is a question of how you approach the Word of God. Will you give it the benefit of the doubt? Will you try to understand it? Or will you come to it first of all with the question, Are there difficulties?
Some years ago, I received a letter from a pastor out in western Canada who was asking a number of questions about what he perceived to be contradictions in the pages of the Word of God. I could not tell from his letter whether this was a genuine question or whether he was one of those people who already have their mind made up and was just giving, in the form of questions, the reason why he would not believe that the Bible is the Word of God. But I took his questions seriously and I answered them at some length.
In 1 Corinthians Paul is talking about how people suppress the knowledge of God in nature. He says the result is what he quotes from the Old Testament: "No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." Is that because there is nothing to be seen? No, it is there to be seen. We just do not see it. Is that because God has not spoken? No, he has spoken, but we do not hear. Is that because the Gospel cannot be understood by the operation of the human mind? No, the Gospel is the great wisdom of God. But although we have minds, we do not put them to task.
"But God because of the great love he has for us has made us alive in Christ." Those are Paul’s words as they are written in the second chapter of Ephesians (v. 4). In this verse, and in many others like it, there is a great contrast highlighted in the words "but God." Those two words also occur in the fifth chapter of Romans. There, Paul says that for the love of a good man, someone might be bold enough to die. Then in the next verse we read, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). On one hand, you have what is possible with man. Then the God of the impossible is brought in.
