The Revelation of the Mind of Christ

By Robb Brunansky

Published November 13, 2025

What does the eternal, hidden, and glorious mind of Christ mean for fallen humanity? It means the truth of the saving gospel is inaccessible to men and women left to ourselves.

Yet, the mind of Christ has not been withheld from all mankind since God has graciously revealed it to those who believe in His Son. So, how do Christians get the mind of Christ, and how do we know it? Paul answers these questions by introducing the concept of the revelation of the mind of Christ in 1 Corinthians 2:10-11.

The key word in these two verses is the word “revealed” (verse 10), indicating that Paul and the apostles did not arrive at the mind of Christ through some normal process of investigation or learning. The only way we can access the mind of Christ is through God choosing to reveal it in His grace and love by the Spirit.

Paul means himself and the apostles when he uses the word “us” (verse 10). Here, he speaks of God revealing the mind of Christ to humanity through the Spirit, who shared the wisdom of God to the apostles, who in turn spoke and wrote God’s words, passing on this wisdom in Scripture.

Our understanding of the correct order of divine revelation is critical because it inevitably shapes how we view God’s Word. If the Word of God is divine revelation given by the Spirit, then it is authoritative, without error, and totally sufficient for life and godliness. It stands alone. Nothing else should be placed alongside God’s Word, because everything else is from the minds of men.

The previous verses confirm this understanding of divine revelation. We can only know the mind of God if the Spirit revealed it. The Bible cannot merely be a human book and tell us anything about God, because anything that is merely human cannot access His mind. We are utterly dependent, then, on the Spirit’s revelation of God’s wisdom to know the mind of Christ.

Paul explains this concept further, describing the Spirit’s knowledge in verses 10-11.

First, the Spirit’s knowledge is expansive (verse 10). When Paul says the Spirit searches all things, he wants us to understand how expansive this knowledge is. The Spirit of God knows all subjects.

Now, why does the Spirit have to search all things to know all things? Doesn’t He just know them because He is God?

This phrase is an anthropomorphism, which describes a divine attribute or activity in human terms. The biblical writers often employ this literary device when they tell something about God that we cannot understand without some analogy understandable at a human level.

For example, we might think of the phrase the hand of God. God is Spirit, so He does not have physical hands. The phrase the hand of God is an analogy to help us understand God’s power and protection over His people.

The word translated “search” means to investigate something thoroughly or to make a careful search to learn something. The emphasis falls not on the search itself, but on the outcome of the inquiry. When someone spends years studying a given subject, we might say they are an expert on that subject. People come to know things by searching.

However, this strategy is not how God comes to know things. God does not come to know things; He knows everything all the time. By describing the Spirit as searching, Paul likens the Spirit to an expert researcher, the expert par excellence, who has incomparable and infinite knowledge. The Spirit of God is the divine expert on every topic, subject, and branch of knowledge; He knows everything with infinite thoroughness.

Second, the Spirit’s knowledge is also exhaustive in that it knows no limits (verse 10). The proof of the Spirit’s infinite knowledge is He searches all things, even the depths or deep things of God, which are the greatest mysteries and pieces of information, knowledge, and wisdom. God’s knowledge and wisdom are unsearchable and surpass all comprehension (Romans 11:33). The Spirit, however, can fathom what is unfathomable to the minds of all God’s creatures.

Of course, if the Spirit knows the deep things of God, He knows the deep things of everything else, because the rest of the known and unknown universe is elementary compared to the depths of the Divine. The Spirit’s knowledge is exhaustive, even of the deep things of God; nothing is outside His understanding.

Finally, the Spirit’s knowledge is exclusive (verse 11).

No one knows our thoughts, except God, unless we decide to reveal them. This truth is even greater with God. No one knows God’s thoughts unless He chooses to reveal those by the Spirit. God’s thoughts are exclusive to Himself.

Our great mistake is to assume we know what God is like apart from divine revelation by the Spirit in the Word. We think we know what God is thinking, but often it’s just our thoughts.

I remember sitting in a restaurant with extended family, and all the sudden my grandma said, “Well, I think grandpa wants to head home.” Grandpa hadn’t said anything, and in fact was probably engaged in another enjoyable conversation, drinking his iced tea. But grandma wanted to go; and so, she either assumed grandpa did, too, or just decided to stamp his name on her desire.

We do that to God, don’t we? “God told me to do this” or “I think God would want me to…” Yet if what we ascribe to God is not in Scripture, we must be very careful about attributing it to the mind of God, because we do not know what God’s mind is unless the Spirit reveals it. The Spirit has exclusive knowledge of the mind of God – which is revealed in Scripture – that we cannot have apart from divine revelation.

The good news is the Spirit has revealed the mind of God to us, and He has done so in His Word through the message of the cross.

This is the great scandal of the mind of God, that it is revealed in the Bible, whose central message is a crucified Messiah who forgives sinners. When we think about the depths of God, we often go to some great mystery God has not revealed in Scripture. However, the depths of God’s wisdom come to us in the simple message of the gospel of Jesus crucified for our sins, and of faith in Him for salvation. The mind of Christ is actually so simple and unexpected that it doesn’t require a sage to understand. As believers, we need to acknowledge that this simple gospel is the mind of Christ and rejoice in God’s wisdom as this truth shapes us.

The simplicity of the mind of Christ is also why the world calls the Spirit’s revelation foolishness. When the unbeliever hears the simple message of the gospel and discovers it is God’s wisdom, how often does he respond in a rage, rejecting the cross as folly because it is straightforward? There we are able to see that the truth is closed off to the unbeliever, and so he responds to the gospel in anger.

Believers understand, though, that the eternal, hidden, glorious mind of Christ has indeed been revealed by the Spirit in the gospel. And Christians must call unbelievers to repentance, to put aside their preconceived ideas of God that lead to death, and to believe in Christ for salvation.