The Open Secret of the Universe
Introduction: Two Wisdoms at War
The world we live in is not a neutral debating society where various philosophies politely discuss their differences over tea. It is a war zone. And the central conflict is not between political parties, or economic systems, or different cultures. The central conflict is between two fundamentally opposed kinds of wisdom. There is the wisdom of this age, and there is the wisdom of God. There is no third way. There is no demilitarized zone. You are operating according to the script of one or the other.
The wisdom of this age is loud, proud, and confident. It runs our universities, our statehouses, our media conglomerates, and our tech companies. It has a PhD, a corner office, and a microphone. It insists on its own brilliance, its own expertise, and its own autonomy. It defines reality for itself, creates its own morality, and then demands that everyone bow down to its latest set of freshly minted idols. And Paul tells us that this entire enterprise, with all its pomp and circumstance, is being abolished. It is coming to nothing. It has an expiration date stamped on its forehead, and that date is fast approaching.
Then there is the wisdom of God. In contrast to the world's bluster, this wisdom was once a mystery, a secret hidden in the counsels of God before the foundation of the world. It does not commend itself with flashy rhetoric or worldly power. In fact, its central symbol is an instrument of grotesque public torture, a Roman cross. To the world, this is the very definition of foolishness and weakness. But to those who are being saved, it is the very power and wisdom of God. In this passage, Paul pulls back the curtain to show us the nature of this hidden wisdom, why the world cannot receive it, and the glorious destiny it secures for us.
The Text
Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are being abolished. But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages to our glory, which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But just as it is written, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”
(1 Corinthians 2:6-9 LSB)
Wisdom for the Mature (v. 6)
Paul begins by drawing a sharp distinction. He does speak wisdom, but it's for a specific audience.
"Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are being abolished." (1 Corinthians 2:6)
The wisdom of the gospel is not esoteric knowledge for some secret, gnostic elite. The word for "mature" here is teleios, which means complete or full-grown. He is talking about Christians who have moved past the basic milk of the gospel and are ready for the solid food of God's deep counsel. These are believers who understand that the cross is not just a get-out-of-hell-free card, but the organizing principle of the entire cosmos.
But this wisdom is emphatically "not of this age." It does not originate here. It is not the product of human reason, philosophy, or political maneuvering. It is an alien wisdom, an invasive species from another world. And it is not the wisdom of "the rulers of this age." Who are these rulers? This certainly includes the political and religious leaders who conspired to kill Jesus, men like Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas. But it is broader than that. It refers to the entire spiritual and intellectual architecture of fallen humanity, the demonic powers and the human systems that do their bidding. These are the principalities and powers that sit in the high places and run the show.
And what is their status? They "are being abolished." The verb is in the present tense. This is not a future hope; it is a present reality. Ever since the resurrection, the kingdoms of this world have been on a long, slow, inexorable march to the ash heap of history. They are being dismantled, piece by piece. Their power is being nullified. This is the engine of our postmillennial confidence. We are not fighting a desperate, losing battle. We are on the winning side of a war that has already been decided, and we are simply engaged in the mopping-up operations.
The Hidden Plan (v. 7)
In contrast to the world's fading wisdom, Paul describes the nature of God's wisdom.
"But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages to our glory." (1 Corinthians 2:7)
In the Bible, a "mystery" is not an unsolvable riddle. It is a truth that was once concealed but has now been revealed in Christ. For ages, the plan of God to save a people for Himself through the death of His own Son was hidden. The Old Testament is filled with shadows, types, and prophecies that hinted at it, but the full picture was not made clear until Christ came. We now live in the age of revelation, the time of the open secret.
And this was no Plan B. This wisdom was "predestined before the ages." Before there was a star, before there was a planet, before there was time itself, God in His sovereign counsel determined to accomplish our salvation in this precise way. This demolishes any notion of God as a frustrated deity, reacting to human sin. The fall of man and the cross of Christ were not surprises to Him. They were woven into the fabric of His eternal decree. Predestination is not some grim, fatalistic doctrine; it is the bedrock of our assurance that God is in complete control of history from beginning to end.
And what was the goal of this predestined plan? "To our glory." Think about that. The ultimate purpose of God's eternal plan was not just His own glory, but our participation in it. He predestined this grand, cosmic drama for the express purpose of taking redeemed sinners, sons of Adam, and elevating them to a position of unimaginable glory as co-heirs with Christ. This is the high destiny for which you were created.
The Ultimate Folly (v. 8)
Here we see the great irony of the cross. The rulers of this age, in their supposed wisdom, became the unwitting instruments of their own destruction.
"which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1 Corinthians 2:8)
The worldly wise, the politically powerful, the religiously astute, they all looked at Jesus of Nazareth and saw a threat to be eliminated. They saw a peasant blasphemer, a political nuisance. They completely missed who He was. Their spiritual blindness was total. Paul says that if they had any inkling of the true nature of God's plan, they never would have gone through with it. If they had known they were crucifying the very "Lord of glory," the one from whom all glory in the universe emanates, they would have fled in terror.
But they did not know. And so, in their envy and their pride, they did the very thing that God had predestined to be the means of their own undoing. This is the supreme judo move of God in history. He uses the very malice of His enemies to accomplish His glorious purposes. They thought they were putting an end to the Jesus movement. In reality, they were launching the kingdom of God like a rocket into the heart of the world. They thought they were killing a man; they were actually killing death itself. This is the ultimate demonstration that our God works all things, even the most wicked acts of men, according to the counsel of His will.
The Unimaginable Revelation (v. 9)
Paul concludes this section with a quotation that is often misunderstood and misapplied.
"But just as it is written, 'THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.'" (1 Corinthians 2:9)
Many people rip this verse out of its context and use it to speculate about the glories of heaven. They say, "We can't even imagine how wonderful heaven will be, because eye has not seen and ear has not heard." While it is certainly true that heaven will be wonderful beyond our comprehension, that is not what Paul is talking about here. We have to read the very next verse to understand this one. Verse 10 begins, "But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit."
Paul's point is not that these things are unknowable. His point is that they are unknowable by natural means. No one could have discovered the gospel by empirical observation (eye has not seen). No one could have learned it through oral tradition (ear has not heard). No one could have reasoned their way to it through intuition or philosophy (has not entered the heart of man). The plan of salvation through a crucified Messiah is so utterly alien to fallen human logic that no one could have ever invented it.
The "things which God has prepared" is not primarily a reference to the mansions of heaven. It is a reference to the hidden wisdom of God, now unveiled in the gospel. It is the cross. It is the resurrection. It is justification by faith alone. It is adoption into the family of God. These are the things that no man could have ever dreamed up. But the glorious punchline is that this secret is now out. What was hidden from the rulers of this age has now been revealed to us, the mature, by the Spirit of God. We are the ones who have been let in on the open secret of the universe.
Conclusion: Living in the Open Secret
So what does this mean for us? It means we must have a radical confidence in the wisdom of the gospel. We are not peddling one more religious opinion in the marketplace of ideas. We are proclaiming the hidden, eternal, predestined wisdom of God, before which every other wisdom is collapsing into ruin.
Therefore, we must not be ashamed of the cross. We must not try to pretty it up or make it more palatable to the rulers of our age. Their approval is irrelevant, because they are being abolished. Their wisdom is a dead end. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
We have been brought into the inner counsels of the triune God. He has revealed to us by His Spirit the very plan that was devised before the foundation of the world for our glory. This is not a secret to be hoarded, but a secret to be proclaimed from the housetops. This is the wisdom that turns the world upside down, and it is the only wisdom that can save it.