1 Corinthians 2:15,16

“But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man; 16. for who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of the Lord.”

1Co 2:6 supposed in a preacher the faculty of discerning in each case whether he had to do with a psychical or a spiritual man. This is the faculty which the apostle affirms, 1 Corinthians 2:15, and the possession and free exercise of which he claims for himself, 1 Corinthians 2:16. The link between 1 Corinthians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 2:14 is in the term and idea ἀνακρίνειν, to judge. In virtue of the sway exercised by the πνεῦμα, the Spirit, over the psychical faculties of the regenerated man, he is endowed with a superior tact which gives him the power of estimating men and things with certainty. As Edwards says, “If the profane man cannot understand holiness, the holy man can understand the depths of evil.” From the higher stage one can look into the lower, but not inversely.

The μέν, which T. R. reads with some Mjj., seems to me to throw rather too much emphasis on the antitheses of the two propositions. I am inclined to suppress it. Instead of πάντα, some Mjj. read τὰ πάντα, which would here designate the totality of things, absolutely speaking. It is more natural to read πάντα without the article: “All things, each as it presents itself.” Several commentators make this πάντα a masculine: each man. This sense would be perfectly justified, first by the context, according to which Paul claims for the spiritual man the faculty of discerning in each case with what kind of hearer he has to do, next by the οὐδενός, none, which follows, and which is evidently a masculine. But it is nevertheless true that the neuter sense is that which presents itself most naturally to the reader, and it is wide enough to include the other: all things, that is to say, every circumstance, every situation, and consequently, also, every person with whom one meets. St. Paul therefore had the right to estimate the spiritual state of the Corinthians, and to judge what suited or did not suit their state.

But, on the other hand, this spiritual man is subject to the scrutiny and sentences of none. The masculine sense of the pronoun οὐδενός is evident, since it is only intelligent beings who are capable of judging. From this principle flowed the application which Paul proposed to make to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:1-4); he can judge them, but they are not in a position to judge him.