1 Corinthians 2:6. Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect. This is a favourite Pauline word, having one well-defined sense, with only varying shades according to the subject treated of. With reference to Christ's work, it denotes its ‘completion' by His death (Hebrews 2:10; Hebrews 5:10); with regard to the believer's standing before God in virtue of that completed work, it expresses his ‘perfect' acceptance (Hebrews 10:14, compared with 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 1 Corinthians 10:1); and in relation to his stage of advancement in the Christian life, it means his ‘full' apprehension of gospel truth that of full-grown ‘men' as contrasted with the immaturity of the ‘babes in Christ' (chap. 1 Corinthians 3:1-2; Hebrews 5:12-14). This last is clearly the sense here. For only when this stage is reached when the gospel scheme can be grasped as a whole, and be surveyed all round can the ‘wisdom' there is in it be fully discovered.

Yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, the rulers of its thought even more than of its power, Greek and Jew alike, that are coming to nought, through the silently but surely undermining power of the Gospel.

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Old Testament