Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 2:5
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
That your faith – That is, that your belief of the divine origin of the Christian religion.
Should not stand – Greek, should not be; that is, should not rest upon this; or be sustained by this. God intended to furnish you a firm and solid demonstration that the religion which you embraced was from Him; and this could not be if its preaching had been attended with the graces of eloquence, or the abstractions of refined metaphysical reasoning. It would then appear to rest upon human wisdom.
In the power of God – In the evidence of divine power accompanying the preaching of the gospel. The power of God would attend the exhibition of truth everywhere; and would be a demonstration that would be irresistible that the religion was not originated by man, but was from heaven. That power was seen in changing the heart; in overcoming the strong propensities of our nature to sin; in subduing the soul; and making the sinner a new creature in Christ Jesus. Every Christian has thus, in his own experience, furnished demonstration that the religion which he loves is from God, and not from man. man could not subdue these sins; and man could not so entirely transform the soul. And although the unlearned Christian may not be able to investigate all the evidences of religion; although he cannot meet all the objections of cunning and subtle infidels, although he may be greatly perplexed and embarrassed by them, yet he may have the fullest proof that he loves God, that he is different from what he once was; and that all this has been accomplished by the religion of the cross.
The blind man that was made to see by the Saviour John 10, might have been wholly unable to tell how his eyes were opened, and unable to meet all the cavils of those who might doubt it, or all the subtle and cunning objections of physiologists, but of one thing he certainly could not doubt, that whereas he was blind, he then saw; Joh 10:25. A man may have no doubt that the sun shines, that the wind blows, that the tides rise, that the blood flows in his veins, that the flowers bloom, and that this could not be except it was from God, while he may have no power to explain these facts; and no power to meet the objections and cavils of those who might choose to embarrass him. So people may know that their hearts are changed; and it is on this ground that no small part of the Christian world, as in everything else, depend for the most satisfactory evidence of their religion. On this ground humble and unlearned Christians have been often willing to go to the stake as martyrs – just as a humble and unlearned patriot is willing to die for his country. He loves it; and he is willing to die for it. A Christian loves his God and Saviour; and is willing to die for his sake.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. That your faith should not stand] That the illumination of your souls and your conversion to God might appear to have nothing human in it: your belief, therefore, of the truths which have been proposed to you is founded, not in human wisdom, but in Divine power: human wisdom was not employed; and human power, if it had been employed, could not have produced the change.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Faith properly signifieth our assent to a thing that is told us, and because it is told us. If the revelation be from man, it is no more than a human faith. If it be from God, and we believe the thing because God hath revealed it to us, this is a Divine faith. So as indeed it is impossible that a Divine faith should rest in the wisdom of men. If we could make gospel propositions evident to the outward senses, or evident to such principles of reason as are connatural to us, or upon such conclusions as we make upon such principles, yet no assent of this nature could be faith, which is an assent given to a Divine revelation purely because of such revelation. An assent other ways given may be sensible demonstration, or rational demonstration, or knowledge, or opinion; but Divine faith it cannot be, that must be bottomed in the power of God. Nor ought any thing more to be the care of the ministers of the gospel than this, as to call men to believe, so to endeavour that their faith may
not stand in the wisdom of men: nothing but a human faith can do so. This will show every conscientious minister the vanity of not proving what he saith from holy writ: all other preaching is but either dictating, as if men were to believe what the preacher saith upon his authority; or philosophizing, acting the part of a philosoplter or orator at Athens, not the part of a minister of the gospel.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. stand in . . . wisdom of menreston it, owe its origin and continuance to it.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
That your faith should not stand,…. “Or be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God”. The Spirit of God directed him, and he under his influence chose, and by his assistance pursued this way of preaching, with this view, and for this reason, that faith in Christ, and in the doctrines of his Gospel, which comes by hearing, might not be attributed to the force of human eloquence and oratory; or stand upon so sandy a foundation, as that which might, if that was the case, be puffed away by a superior flow and force of words; but that it might be ascribed, as it ought to be, to almighty power, stand in it, be supported by it, and at last be finished and fulfilled with it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
That your faith should not stand ( ). Purpose of God, but is “not be” merely. The only secure place for faith to find a rest is in God’s power, not in the wisdom of men. One has only to instance the changing theories of men about science, philosophy, religion, politics to see this. A sure word from God can be depended on.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “That your faith.” (Greek hina he pistis humon) “In order that, (purpose clause) the faith of you” (all) – Paul did not deliver academic, “Rabbi-like addresses” in presenting Jesus Christ, lest their faith should be in him – the preacher, instead of Jesus Christ.
2) “Should not stand in the wisdom of men.” This he did in order that they should not take their stand (Greek en sophia anthropon). “in the wisdom of (Generic) men”, humanity, in depravity.
3) “But in the power of God.” (Greek alla en dunamei theou) “but in dynamic power of God”. The Holy Spirit is that dynamic power:
a) The Holy Spirit convicts Joh 16:10-11.
b) The Holy Spirit quickens Joh 6:63.
c) The Holy Spirit gives life 2Co 3:6.
d) The Holy Spirit leads Rom 8:14.
e) The Holy Spirit helps our infirmities Rom 8:26.
f) The Holy Spirit makes the Resurrection real Rom 8:11.
With trust in God and dependence on the Holy Spirit to furnish changing power in the lives of men, Paul pursued his witnessing ministry until death, Gal 5:25.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
5. That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men. To be is used here as meaning to consist His meaning, then, is, that the Corinthians derived this advantage from his having preached Christ among them without dependence on human wisdom, and relying solely on the Spirit’s influence, that their faith was founded not on men but on God. If the Apostle’s preaching had rested exclusively on the power of eloquence, it might have been overthrown by superior eloquence, and besides, no one would pronounce that to be solid truth which rests on mere elegance of speech. It may indeed be helped by it, but it ought not to rest upon it On the other hand, that must have been most powerful which could stand of itself without any foreign aid. Hence it forms a choice commendation of Paul’s preaching, that heavenly influence shone forth in it so clearly, that it surmounted so many hindrances, while deriving no assistance from the world. It follows, therefore, that they must not allow themselves to be moved away from his doctrine, which they acknowledge to rest on the authority of God. Paul, however, speaks here of the faith of the Corinthians in such a way as to bring forward this, as a general statement. Let it then be known by us that it is the property of faith to rest upon God alone, without depending on men; for it requires to have so much certainty to go upon, that it will not fail, even when assailed by all the machinations of hell, but will perseveringly endure and sustain every assault. This cannot be accomplished unless we are fully persuaded that God has spoken to us, and that what we have believed is no mere contrivance of men. While faith ought properly to be founded on the word of God alone, there is at the same time no impropriety in adding this second prop, — that believers recognize the word which they hear as having come forth from God, from the effect of its influence.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
5. Wisdom of men The philosophy of the Grecian schools.
Power The powerful influence of the Spirit of God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Co 2:5. That your faith should not stand, &c. Their faith being built wholly on divine revelation and miracles, whereby all human abilitieswere shut out, there could be no reason for any of them to boast themselves of their teachers, or value themselves upon their being followers of this or that preacher; which St. Paul here obviates. See Locke.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Co 2:5 . Aim of the divine leading, the organ of which the apostle knew himself to be, in what is set forth in 1Co 2:4 : in order that your faith (in Christ) may be based , have its causal ground (comp Bernhardy, p. 210), not on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power (which has brought conviction to you through my speech and preaching). That introduces not his own (Hofmann), but the divine purpose, is clear from . . [346] , in which Paul has stated how God had wrought through him. Comp in 1Co 1:31 .
[346] . . . .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Ver. 5. That your faith, &c. ] A human testimony can breed but a human faith. Aaron’s bells were of pure gold; our whole preaching must be Scripture-proof, or it will burn, and none be the better for it. Ut drachmam auri sine imagine principis, sic verba hortantis sine authoritate Dei contemnunt homines, saith Lipsius.
In the power of God ] In the gospel that lodgeth a certainty in the soul.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
5. ] , may be grounded on , owe its origin and stability to. “The Spirit is the original Creator of Faith, which cannot be begotten of human caprice, though man has the capability of hindering its production: and it depends for its continuance on the same mighty Spirit, who is almost without intermission begetting it anew.” Olshausen.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 2:5 . The Apostle’s purpose in discarding the orator’s and the sophist’s arts was this: “that your faith might not rest in wisdom of men, but in (the) power of God”. The of 1Co 2:1 dominates the paragraph; P. lives over again the experience of his early days in Cor [323] ; this purpose then filled his breast: so Hf [324] , Gd [325] , with the older interpreters; most moderns read into the the Divine purpose suggested by 1Co 1:27-31 . Paul was God’s mouthpiece in declaring the Gospel; he therefore sought the very end of God Himself, viz. , that God alone should be glorified in the faith of his hearers (1Co 1:31 ; cf. 1Co 1:15 ). Had he persuaded the Cor [326] by clever reasonings and grounded Christianity upon their Greek philosophy, his work would have perished with the wisdom of the age (see 6, also 1Co 1:19 , 1Co 3:19 f.).
[323] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[324] J. C. K. von Hofmann’s Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht , ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).
[325] F. Godet’s Commentaire sur la prem. p. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).
[326] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
The disowned is the . . of 1Co 1:10 (see note) in its moral character, a . (2Co 1:12 ) “wisdom of men” as opposed to that of God, , 1Co 2:13 . Yet not God’s wisdom , but primarily His power (see notes on 1Co 1:18 ; 1Co 1:24 ; 1Co 1:30 ) supplied the ground on which P. planted his hearers’ faith. All through, he opposes the practical to the speculative, the reality of God’s work to the speciousness of men’s talk. The last clause of this long passage corresponds to the first, . (1Co 1:17 ). should be construed with ( consistat in , Bz [327] ) rather than , pointing not to the object of faith but to its substratum: for this predicative “should be (a faith) in,” etc. cf. 1Co 4:20 , Eph 5:18 , Act 4:12 .
[327] Beza’s Nov. Testamentum: Interpretatio et Annotationes (Cantab., 1642).
SUMMARY. Thus the Apostle’s first ministry at Cor [328] , in respect of his bearing (1Co 2:1 ), theme (2), temper (3), method (4), governing aim (5), illustrated and accorded with the Gospel, as that is a message from God through which His power works to the confounding of human wisdom by the seeming impotence of a crucified Messiah (1Co 1:17-311Co 1:17-311Co 1:17-31 ).
[328] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
That = In order that. Greek. hina.
faith App-150.
stand = be.
men. App-123.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
5.] , may be grounded on,-owe its origin and stability to. The Spirit is the original Creator of Faith, which cannot be begotten of human caprice, though man has the capability of hindering its production: and it depends for its continuance on the same mighty Spirit, who is almost without intermission begetting it anew. Olshausen.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 2:5. , in the wisdom) and power.-, in the power) and wisdom.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 2:5
1Co 2:5
that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.-These testimonies that God gave to the word spoken by Paul were relied on that their faith might not rest on the reasonings of man, but on the power of God, manifested by his Spirit.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
stand: Gr. be
but: 1Co 1:17, 1Co 3:6, Act 16:14, 2Co 4:7, 2Co 6:7
Reciprocal: Jdg 7:2 – too many Zec 4:6 – Not Mar 16:20 – the Lord Luk 4:32 – General Joh 4:41 – because 2Co 1:12 – not 2Co 10:4 – mighty Col 4:4 – as 1Th 1:5 – but 1Th 2:4 – not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 2:5. Whatever means that would be used to enlist men in the service of the Lord, would need to be relied on as a motive for remaining faithful. The wisdom of man is changeable, and if this faith was based on such a foundation, it would fall as soon as the wisdom of man was exposed.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Vv. 5. , in order that, indicates the apostle’s object in the course he has followed. He was not ignorant that a faith, founded on logical arguments, could be shaken by other arguments of the same nature. To be solid, it must be the work of the power of God, and in order to be that, proceed from a conviction of sin and a personal appropriation of salvation, which the Spirit of God alone can produce in the human soul. The preacher’s task in this work lies, not in wishing to act in the place and stead of the Spirit with the resources of his own eloquence and genius, but in opening up the way for Him by simple testimony rendered to Christ.
By these last words, we are brought back to the point of departure of the whole passage, 1Co 1:18 : the gospel is not a wisdom, but a power; not a philosophy, but a salvation. If the Corinthians were divided into parties, it was because they had failed to know this truth. By making the gospel a system, they had changed the Church into a school, and its ministers into teachers and rhetoricians. Hence it is that St. Paul begins by re-establishing in the mind of the Corinthians the true notion of the gospel. But some of his expressions might lead us to suppose that wisdom was banished from the domain of the gospel. Now this was not what the apostle had meant; and it is this possible misunderstanding which he sets aside in the following passage, where he shows that if the gospel is not essentially wisdom, it nevertheless contains a wisdom, and that the true wisdom, superior to all that the human understanding could have discovered.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
that your faith should not stand in [should not be based upon] the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
5. In order that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the dynamite of God. Popular evangelism, with its superficial artistic methods, is prominent amid the withering curses which blight the fallen churches at the present day, gathering in vast multitudes of unconverted people to hang a dead weight on the ecclesiastical wheel, not only stopping the machinery, but reversing the power and running it down to Hell. This arises from the fact that they are converted to the evangelist, and not to God. So when the preacher goes away their religion is gone, and their last state worse than the first, because their faith stood not in the power of God, but in the wisdom of the magnetic speaker who conducted the so- called revival. There is no danger of these unhappy results if, like Paul, we will give up all human machinery and machination, eloquence, claptrap and manipulation, look the people squarely in the face, take Mt. Sinai for our pulpit, ask God Almighty to furnish thunder-bolts and earthquakes, and be courageous to hurl and heave them fearlessly at men and devils, sparing sin neither in pulpit nor pew, among the churchly bon-tons nor social upper- tens, thus fighting sin and devils like a dog in a yellow-jackets nest fighting for his life. In that case, you will render yourself so odious to fallen humanity, repellent to carnality, abominable to pseudo-Christianity, and antagonistical to the devil and all his coadjutors, that you may rest assured that nobody is going to put faith in you. If anybody, in that case, is converted under your ministry, it will be God that does it, for they will all feel like hanging you instead of becoming your disciple. Remember, the true gospel is irreconcilably obnoxious and intolerably repellent to carnality in all its forms and phases, slaying human pride, even though it be church pride (which is of the devil), without distinction or mercy. Hence a popular gospel is always diabolical.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
2:5 {3} That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
(3) And he tells the Corinthians that he did it for their great profit, because they might by this know manifestly that the Gospel was from heaven. Therefore he privately rebukes them, because in vainly seeking to be noticed, they willingly deprived themselves of the greatest help of their faith.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Paul’s reason for this approach was so his converts would recognize that their faith rested on a supernatural rather than a natural foundation, namely, the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit (cf. Mat 16:15-17).
The apostle’s conviction concerning the importance of the superior power of the gospel message was clear in his own preaching.