Part 2 - INTUITION and FELLOWSHIP

Just as man has fellowship with the physical world through his body, he has fellowship with the spiritual world through his spirit.

This fellowship with the spiritual realm is NOT through the mind or emotion BUT through the spirit.

It is through the intuition of the spirit.

The HEART of MAN

1 CORINTHIANS 2:9 NKJV

But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen,

nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

• The THINGS which GOD has PREPARED for those who love Him.”

This verse talks about GOD and the THINGS of GOD.

ALL of His acts are THINGS which man's OUTER BODY (the eye and the ear) has NEITHER SEEN nor HEARD.

They are THINGS which have never come up in man's heart. "Man's heart" is man's understanding, mind, or intellect.

Man's THOUGHT can NEVER fathom God's acts.

God's acts are FAR BEYOND man's thought.

Those who want to know God and have fellowship with Him can NEVER REACH God by simply USING THEIR MIND.

The HOLY SPIRIT

1 CORINTHIANS 2:10 NKJV

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.

For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

The Spirit searches all things.

The Spirit DOES NOT HAVE to USE the MIND to figure out all things.

The Spirit knows even the deepest things of God.

The things which man does not know, He knows.

He searches all things by His intuition.

Therefore, through Him God can reveal to us things which have not come up in our heart.

This is "revelation."

It is not the understanding which comes after an exercise of our mind.

Since it is something that has not come up in our hearts, it is even more unlikely that it would come up in our thoughts.

This is a "revelation" or an unveiling.

There is NO NEED for help from our MIND.

God DOES NOT REVEAL ANYTHING to us THROUGH our EARS, EYES, or MIND.

How does revelation come?

The next two verses answer this question.

The SPIRIT of MAN

I Corinthians 2:11-12 continue, "For who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him?

In the same way, the things of God also no one has known except the Spirit of God.

But we have received not the spirit of the world but the SPIRIT which is FROM GOD, that we may KNOW the things which have been graciously given to us by God."

Only the spirit of man knows (not understands or apprehends) the things of man.

Similarly, only the Holy Spirit knows the things of God.

Both the spirit of man and the Holy Spirit know things DIRECTLY,

• NOT by deduction or investigation.

Therefore, they both know through the intuition, not through the mind.

Since only the Holy Spirit knows the things of God, we can only know the things of God when we receive the Holy Spirit.

The spirit of the world is a spirit which DOES NOT have any fellowship with God.

Even though it is still a spirit, it is dead.

Hence, it cannot bring us fellowship with God.

The Holy Spirit of God knows the things of God.

Therefore, when we receive in our spirit what the Holy Spirit already knows in the intuition, we also know the things of God.

This is why it says, "we have received...the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things...given to us by God."

But how do we know?

Verse 11 says that we know through our spirit.

This makes the matter very clear.

The Holy Spirit reveals to our spirit all that He knows in His intuition, causing our spirit's intuition to also know what He knows.

Through the intuition we know the things revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, whenever the Holy Spirit reveals the things of God, He reveals them in our spirit.

In God's eyes, other than man's spirit, there is NO OTHER organ in man which can know the things of man.

Hence, the Holy Spirit does not reveal the things of God to our mind because He knows that OUR MIND is INCAPABLE of KNOWING the things of GOD.

The mind is not an organ for knowing things pertaining to God and man.

Although the mind can think and even design many things, it cannot say that it knows these things because ONLY the spirit of man can know the things of man.

Here we see how highly God esteems the regenerated spirit of man.

If a man is not regenerated, his spirit is still dead; thus, God has no way to reveal to him the things pertaining to God.

Although he may be very intelligent, he still cannot comprehend the things of God.

God's fellowship with man and man's worship of God require the REGENERATED SPIRIT as the unique uniting ground.

Without a regenerated spirit, there will always be a separation between God and man;

• He cannot come to our side,

• neither can we go to His side,

because man's intuition, apart from his mind, emotion, and will is still DEAD and UNABLE to know the intention of the Holy Spirit.

Consequently, man is unable to know the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

The enlivening of the spirit is the first step towards fellowship between God and man.

Man has a free will.

He has the full right to decide his own things.

Therefore, even after a sinner has been regenerated and has become a believer, he still has many temptations.

Due to ignorance or prejudice, many believers do not give a proper place to their spirit or to the intuition of the spirit.

God regards the spirit as the unique place where He can have fellowship with man and as the ONLY location where man can worship Him and communicate with Him.

However, many believers only walk according to their mind or emotion.

Many times they almost ignore the voice of their intuition.

The principle of their conduct is to do things according to what they regard as reasonable, appealing, pleasing, and interesting.

Even when they have a heart to carry out God's will, they mainly take the instant thoughts of their heart or some LOGICAL IDEAS as God's will and follow those.

Even when they are willing to listen to their intuition, they do not maintain their emotions in a calm position;

they FLUCTUATE up and down according to their EMOTION and CONFUSE the voice of their intuition.

Consequently, walking according to the spirit becomes an OCCASIONAL event in the believers' life

and not their LASTING, DAILY, LIFE-LONG EXPERIENCE.

Since this is our situation even in the initial step of knowing the will of God, it is no wonder that we do not have any deeper revelation.

In this condition, we will never be in our spirit which enables us to know God's plan for this last age, the reality of spiritual warfare, or the deep and profound truths in the Bible.

Furthermore, in the matter of worshipping God, we will follow either what we DEEM to be RIGHT, or we will follow the transient outbursts of our EMOTIONS.

In these circumstances, fellowship with the Lord in our intuition becomes nonexistent.

Therefore, ONLY HE can impart this knowledge to men.

However, the one who receives this knowledge must receive it in the same way.

This means that he also must use his intuition to know what the Holy Spirit knows through His intuition.

The union of these two intuitions will result in man knowing the things of God.

Verse 13 says, "Which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things with spiritual words."

Now we come to the way to speak to others about what we know by our intuition in our spirit.

The things PERTAINING to GOD are already known in our SPIRIT.

Our responsibility is to preach these things.

The apostle said that he would not use "words taught by human wisdom" to speak about the things he knew in his spirit.

Man's wisdom belongs to man's mind; it is the product of man's brain.

The apostle said that he would not use words conjured up in

his mind to speak about the things of God that he knew in his spirit.

The apostle Paul's wisdom was very great.

He was well able to come up with novel expressions.

He KNEW

• HOW to SPEAK,

• WHAT ILLUSTRATIONS he should use,

• and HOW to STRUCTURE his SPEECH.

He could use his natural eloquence very well to make his listeners FULLY UNDERSTAND his MEANING.

However, he said that he WOULD NOT USE WORDS taught by MAN'S WISDOM.

This means that not only is man's mind

• USELESS in KNOWING the things of God, it is also

• USELESS in SPEAKING about spiritual wisdom.

He spoke in words "TAUGHT by the SPIRIT."

This refers to the INSTRUCTION of the HOLY SPIRIT which he RECEIVED in his INTUITION.

NOTHING is of any value in the Christian life except BEING in the SPIRIT.

Even when we speak about spiritual knowledge, we must use spiritual utterances.

Not only does the intuition know the things revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, it also knows the words that the Holy Spirit has instructed us to use to utter what He has revealed.

Many times a believer receives God's revelation, becomes clear about a certain matter, and wants to preach this to others.

For him, this matter is very clear, and he understands it. However, his preaching cannot convey his thought fully because he has NOT RECEIVED the words IN HIS SPIRIT.

Sometimes when a believer is waiting before the Lord, something seems to rise up in his innermost being.

It may be just a few words, but those few words when spoken in a meeting fully convey God's revelation.

Through this experience, he realizes that God has truly used him to testify for Him.

These experiences show us the importance of receiving "utterance" from the Holy Spirit.

There are two kinds of utterance.

The first is our natural utterance, and the other is given to our spirit by the Holy Spirit.

ACTS 2:4 NKJV

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The utterance mentioned in Acts 2:4 is INDISPENSABLE in spiritual works.

No matter how good our natural eloquence is, it CANNOT speak forth the things of God.

Even when we feel that we have expressed everything well, we still may not have conveyed the intention of the Holy Spirit.

ONLY spiritual words —

• those which we receive in our spirit —

• can relate spiritual knowledge.

Sometimes we have the Lord's message in our spirit; it seems to be compelling and burning us, and we feel that there is a spiritual burden pressing on us.

Yet we have no way of discharging it.

At these times we have to wait for the Holy Spirit to grant us the "utterance," so that we can speak forth the message in our spirit and discharge the burden.

If we do not receive the utterance from the Holy Spirit through our intuition, but instead replace it with the words of man's wisdom, all spiritual value will be lost.

All these words only make people feel that our ideas are good.

Sometimes we have many spiritual experiences, but we do not know how to express them.

However, one short remark by another believer often clears away our clouds, enabling us to know the significance of a past experience which was hidden from us because the Lord had not yet instructed us in our spirit with a clear word.

But someone can, with the simplest of words, open up our past experiences.

"Spiritual things" must be explained by "spiritual WORDS."

We must use spiritual means to achieve spiritual goals.

This is what the Lord is diligently teaching us these days.

It is not enough for the goal to be spiritual;

the MEANS and PROCEDURES must also be SPIRITUAL.

Whatever is fleshly, no matter what it is, cannot fulfill what is spiritual.

If we try to use our mind and emotion to fulfill a spiritual goal, it is just like hoping that a bitter fountain will yield sweet water.

1 CORINTHIANS 2:13 TPT

And we articulate these realities with the words imparted to us by the Spirit and not with the words taught by human wisdom.

We join together Spirit-revealed truths with Spirit-revealed words.

There is a small note in the Chinese Union Version Bible, recommending that these last two phrases in verse 13 be translated as,

"COMMUNICATING SPIRITUAL THINGS to SPIRITUAL MEN."

This is very meaningful and relates to the next verse.

◄ 2842. KOINÓNIA  ►

Lexical Summary

koinónia: Fellowship, communion, participation, sharing

Original Word: κοινωνία

Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine

Transliteration: koinónia

Pronunciation: koy-nohn-EE-ah

Phonetic Spelling: (koy-nohn-ee'-ah)

KJV: 

• (to) COMMUNICATE (-ation),

• COMMUNION,

• (CONTRI -) DISTRIBUTION ,

• FELLOWSHIP