For our present purpose, it is enough to note that the "perfect" one is one who has

grown in grace, who has got beyond the "first principles", and who can be taught further

and fuller truth. In contrast, therefore, with the basic truth of "Jesus Christ and Him

crucified" the Apostle continues: "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are

perfect" (I Cor. 2: 6). His subject is still "wisdom", though not, as he had already said,

"the wisdom of this age, nor of the princes of this age that come to naught". Nothing has

so far been said about "the mystery"; the Apostle has confined himself to the one subject

of "wisdom", the kind of wisdom of which he spoke, and the kind which he repudiated.

Instead of going to Corinth, and speaking to the unprepared multitude the whole truth

of God at once, the Apostle fed them according to their capacity. To babes he gave the

"milk" of the Word, to adults the "meat". In Gal. 2: he tells us that, when the great

controversy was raging concerning the place of the uncircumcised Gentile in the Church,

he "communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but

privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run in

vain" (Gal. 2: 2).

So the Apostle here tells the Corinthians that he had spoken the wisdom of God in a

mystery. He does not say that he told them "the Mystery", for this would have been

altogether foreign to his thought. The presence of the word "hidden", coming so near the

word "mystery" has led the superficial reader to a false conclusion. It was not the

mystery that was hidden, but the wisdom, and it was this of which Paul spoke to those

who were perfect--and so "in a secret". He clinches his argument with a quotation from

the Prophets, a proof that "the Mystery" of Ephesians was not in mind:

The Apostle's intention here is made very clear by his own expansion of the argument.

He proceeds, in verse 12, to place in contrast the "spirit of the world" and the "spirit

which is of God"--an evident parallel with the contrasted "wisdom of the world" and

"wisdom of God" in the earlier part of the chapter. In verse 12 we read that this "spirit

which is of God" is given to us of God, which things we speak" (I Cor. 2: 12, 13). Here

we are back again to the subject of verses 6 and 7, which deal with what the Apostle said,

and how he said it. In verse 13, he repeats the statement that he did not speak "in the

words that man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, explaining

spiritual things to spiritual persons".  Then follows in verses 14 to 16 the contrast

between the natural man and the spiritual man, and then in chapter 3: the subject of

chapter 1: is resumed. A careful examination of the context shows that "wisdom", either

human or divine, is the subject, and that being so, there is no necessity to question the

Apostle's statement that he did not go beyond that which "the Prophets and Moses did

say should come".

We must now pass on to the second "mystery" of Corinthians, which is found in

chapter 15:, and has to do with resurrection: