Know spiritual truth?

1 Corinthians 2

My devotional book does not have an entry for Leap Year so today I selected an article floating around social media that sounds good. The title is “One minute after a believer dies” and it is followed by six points and Scripture references.

When I read it, I thought the points sounded true, but the references are shaky, taken out of context and most of them do not say what the points claim they say. One response called this article “fake news” and others warned Christians to be careful of what they were reading.

Yet why do these points sound true? Biblically, some knowledge comes by ‘experience’ such as when the disciples witnessed the life of Christ and knew He was a real person. However, some of what Jesus said was a mystery. They needed to understand, but their knowledge came by only ‘revelation’ — which is much more difficult to define. On this topic, Paul wrote to the church at Corinth.

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:6–13, italics mine)

Sometimes I have what is called ‘senior moments’ when the name of a person or a word drops out of my mind. No matter how hard I try, it will not come to me. That is what it is like to be in the dark about spiritual matters. A person might realize there is something to know, or have a vague idea, but the reality of it seems to be blocked. Revelation is something like that ah-ha moment when I remember the name!

Regarding spiritual matters, those realities do not come to mind the same way. The problem is not that they are blocked as much as the ‘receptor’ isn’t working. The human spirit without Christ is what the Bible calls ‘dead’ — not cold and inert dead but separated from the things of God and we cannot ‘get’ our heads around them. We might be aware something is there but at best can only guess what it is. Sin does this. Sin is that determination to do life my way — but that approach messes with understanding or even seeing God’s way. I needed God to reveal it to me.

Paul explains further:

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:14–16)

This explains why revelation is needed and how it happens. The Holy Spirit revealed to me that I was a sinner in need of salvation and gave me His gift of faith and eternal life. This happened because Jesus Christ entered my life — an entrance so powerful that He gave me His mind as well as His life to energize my dead spirit and make it alive.

The result? The ability to think God’s thoughts, which is utterly amazing. Sinful me might try to figure out what the Bible says and means without relying on God to show me. It might lead to stuff like this list of what happens when we die. The Spirit may be revealing that some of this is true, but the sinful flesh tries to find proof-texts rather than simply believing what God has revealed by faith.

I KNOW that I will be with Jesus the moment I die. How do I know? I cannot explain it; I just know. These verses might miss the mark in proving it, but the entire biblical message used by the Spirit assures all God’s people of things that experience cannot reveal, and human knowledge cannot grasp. For that, I need Jesus and the gift of faith.