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1 Cor 2:6-8
In 1 Cor. 2:6-8 Paul asserted that God's wisdom is secret and hidden from people and only conveyed through a spirit. Understanding, we are led to believe, is limited to believers like Paul and his disciples. “None of the rulers of the age understood it.” Paul was the only one given to such understanding and it was his supposed role to teach the whole of the world.
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that this is the very core of Gnosticism and that Paul blends Gnosticism, Mystery Religions, and Judaism in constructing "his gospel" in the New Testament?
Answer for yourself: And to what "hidden wisdom" is Paul referring?
If you have the previous articles then I am sure that you already know; namely, justification before God apart from the Law by believing in Paul's Jesus and the theology Paul had crafted around him. Again Paul is telling his non-Jewish readers that the "wisdom" or "message" he is relating to them has come from God. He expected them to understand that although his message of "justification apart from the Law" is a total contradiction from what the religion of Jesus held sacred, his message was really the "hidden message" that God really wanted them to know. Such is the mystery preached by Paul to those who were unfamiliar with the Torah and what Moses, the Prophets, David, and Yeshua really said on the matter. Because such a message of "mystery" was totally foreign to Moses and the Prophets the Jews would have none of it but for the non-Jews that was a totally different story as plenty of "mystery" was involved both in their Gnosticism and Mystery Religions. Paul literally gives them what they already had only "reshaped" a little in his transformation of the Jewish Messiah into another of their dying/rising saviors.
Answer for yourself: Were you aware that Paul is quoting Isaiah in the I Cor. passages?
Answer for yourself: By now you have seen repeatedly that Paul misquotes and misapplies the Jewish Scriptures routinely. Now, do you think he has done it again here as well?
A gross mistranslation of Isaiah 64:4 became a proof text for Paul's contention. He misquoted the Isaiah passage as follows in I Cor. 2:9:
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, What God has prepared for those who love him (for Paul this means that the love for God is seen in accepting Paul's Jesus and having faith in Paul's gospel).
Now let us examine if that was the original intent of Isaiah as taken from the Jewish Scriptures. The original verse that Paul quotes in Isaiah 64:4 says:
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him.
Isaiah is calling to the people to return to their God in obedience to His Word for never has the ear heard or eye seen a God beside Yahweh. This God is unfathomable, for man has no idea of the love and blessings God desired to give man. I find it funny that Paul quotes from this passage to prove his point, because Paul stops on verse short.
If the reader were to compare Paul's quote in I Cor. 2:6-8 with the original from Isaiah 64:4 and read the very next verse…then this is what you would read.
Verse 5 of Isaiah 64:
Thou (God) meetest him (the man of faith and works) that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou are wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
Answer for yourself: And how does one "worketh righteousness"? Simply, by obeying the very commandments of God as the demonstration of your faith in Him. As you can see for yourself this is a case "for" justification by keeping the Law and not one against it as Paul would have us believe.
But not only that, notice that if one is to "continue" in a life of obeying the commandments of God then Isaiah tell us that "he shall be saved".
Answer for yourself: Do you see how Paul had completely misused and twisted the Jewish Scriptures in order to promote his "unique" Gospel; a Gospel that does not have Prophetic authority so he misapplies the texts and the non-Jews knew no better since being not familiar with the Jewish Bible. The same can be said for the Christian Church today who has a "corrupted" Old Testament and not an accurate Jewish text!
Answer for yourself: Has your church taught you the salvation message of Isaiah or have they taught you the salvation message of Paul which is a direct contradiction of what God told the Prophets?
There you have it. A complete repudiation of Pauline theology by the very Isaiah Paul quotes to try to prove otherwise. Isaiah expressly states that God meets and "joins" Himself with the man who "worketh righteousness" and who "remember God's ways." Such a man is "saved" by God!
Quite different from Paul's claim is Isaiah's message. Implicit in the latter, as in all prophetic teaching, is that wisdom is not a mystery conveyed by an esoteric spirit as Paul would have you believe. Such is Gnosticism and Paul is very Gnostic. His "Gospel" is not the good news of Moses, the Prophets, or of Jesus. That is the tragic irony of the whole matter. Because we as followers of Jesus have corrupted and fraudulent Old Testaments which are only quoted in error again in the New Testament we are in a "Catch 22" where we are guaranteed never to find the truth. Only your persistent study will one day guarantee you will cover the material necessary to alert you to this tragic error to which millions have fallen. The very sad and ironic state is that we never learn we were wrong until we die!
Rather, knowledge of how to behave has been given to mankind through God's laws and prophetic messages. Moreover, Israel has seen and heard what God has done for it. There history as a nation is replete with examples of God's voice and benevolence through His Prophets. Isaiah's verse tell us that Israel never saw or heard of the works of any other being beside God who has done so much for the nation. Paul literally stood Isaiah's verse on its head. So what else is new?