1 Corinthians 2:7

“But we speak the wisdom of God, which is a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God preordained before the ages, unto our glory;”

This verse is the antithesis of the foregoing one (ἀλλά, but). The term λαλοῦμεν, we speak, is repeated because of the remoteness of this verb in 1 Corinthians 2:6.

The gen. θεοῦ, of God, is that of origin and possession. The workshop whence this plan has proceeded, where it remains shut up till its revelation, is the mind of God Himself. The ἐν μυστηρίῳ, in mystery, or in the form of mystery, is naturally joined with the principal term σοφία, wisdom, which the apostle aims to distinguish positively, in opposition to the negative definitions of the former verse. The word mystery has taken in theological language a meaning which it has not in the New Testament, to wit, a truth which human reason cannot fathom. In Paul's writings it simply signifies a truth or a fact which the human understanding cannot of itself discover, but which it apprehends as soon as God gives the revelation of it. Thus Jesus says, Luke 8:10: “It is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom,” and Paul applies the word mystery to things which we perfectly comprehend; for example, Romans 16:25, to the general plan of salvation; Ephesians 3:4, to the calling of the Gentiles; Romans 11:25, to the restoration of the Jews; in our Epistle, 1 Corinthians 15:51, to the transformation of the faithful at the moment of the Parousia. The term is here contrasted with a system having the spirit of man for its author (1 Corinthians 2:6), and which consequently does not need to be revealed. Many commentators, Erasmus, Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Meyer, Hofmann, Edwards, Beet, make the adjunct ἐν μυστηρίῳ depend on the verb λαλοῦμεν : “We speak of this wisdom in the form of a mystery;” or, as Beet says, “in words containing a secret of infinite value, and which only they understand to whom God reveals it, the τέλειοι.” But this idea of a speaking on the part of the apostle taking place mysteriously, and, as it were, in secret, is foreign to all we know of his procedure. The sense equally contradicts the use of the term μυστήριον by Paul; for the word refers, not to the relation of one man to another, but to that of God to man. Meyer attempts to meet this last objection; he translates: “We speak this wisdom as being a Divine mystery;” but the phrase λαλεῖν ἐν cannot have this meaning. Other commentators, such as Theodoret and Thomas Aquinas, connect ἐν μυστηρίῳ with τὴν ἀποκεκρυμμένην : “the wisdom hidden in the form of a mystery.” But what would this adjunct add to the idea of the participle? And besides, the article τήν would have its natural place before the adjunct. The simplest connection is that which we have followed in beginning; it is that which the position of the words itself indicates. The absence of the article τήν before ἐν μυστηρίῳ has been objected; but when the adjunct is closely united in one and the same idea with the substantive on which it depends, the omission of the article is legitimate; comp. the phrase ἡ δωρεὰ ἐν χάριτι (Romans 5:15).

The epithet τὴν ἀποκεκρυμμένην, the hidden, that is to say, which has remained hidden (perfect participle), is not a repetition. It adds to the idea of the mode, contained in ἐν μυστηρίῳ, the notion of time. This plan, while a secret conceived by God and known to Him alone, might have been revealed much earlier, from the beginning of the existence of humanity; but it pleased Him to keep silence about it for long ages (μυστηρίου χρόνοις αἰωνίοις σεσιγημένου, Romans 16:25; “which was not revealed to other generations as it is now,” Ephesians 3:5). It might even be thought that by the article τήν, the, this long-concealed wisdom is contrasted with another which God had unveiled long before, that of which Paul has spoken, 1 Corinthians 1:21, which was displayed from the creation of the world in the works of nature (Romans 1:20).

To these two features which distinguish the wisdom revealed in the gospel from all the products of the human understanding, its higher origin and its non-revelation up to that hour, the apostle adds a third: its saving end in behalf of man, the eternal object of Divine concern.

Some have thought that the term ὁρίζειν, to mark out by limit, to decree, did not suit the idea of wisdom, and have thought we should understand an infinitive like γνωρίζειν, to make known: “which God had determined...to make known.” If this wisdom were only a system or a theory, the verb ὁρίζειν might really be applied to it without difficulty. But it should be remembered that the subject in question is a plan to be realized in history, and to which consequently the term decree is perfectly suitable. The preposition πρό, added to the verb, is afterwards developed in the words, before the ages. It is therefore an eternal decree. No doubt eternity is not a prius in relation to time; to hold this would be to bring it into time. The πρό, before, therefore expresses in the inadequate form of temporal priority a superiority of dignity, in relation to the decree of creation. The universe exists with a view to man, and man exists with a view to glory. This object, δόξα, was the logical prius of all that is, of the existence of man himself. These words, for our glory, find their explanation in other sayings of the apostle, particularly Romans 8:29: “He hath predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren;” Romans 8:17: “Heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ;” 1 Corinthians 15:28: “That God may be all in all.” A society of intelligent and free beings, of men perfectly holy, made capable of reflecting God's glory, and of serving as instruments for His holy action, in filial communion with the Father and in fraternal union with the Son: such was the end which God set before Him in creating the human race. All His particular plans are subordinate to this end. To understand all things from this viewpoint, is the wisdom of which Paul speaks; it is this Divine wisdom which, long kept hidden, is at length unveiled to mankind by the gospel of the cross.

In the two following verses St. Paul demonstrates the superhuman and consequently mysterious nature of this wisdom, such as he has just described it negatively and positively in 1 Corinthians 2:6-7. He gives two proofs of it: first, a known fact, 1 Corinthians 2:8; next, a prophetic saying, 1 Corinthians 2:9.