1 Corinthians 2:9

Seek immortality, He will give life everlasting, joy, peace, rest, and abundance of good things, which neither hath eye seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.

One should not think that God has indiscriminately revealed the mystery to some and allowed the rest to perish in ignorance. Rather one should know and be persuaded that by the foreknowledge of his power God prepared the right thing for each person according to …

These words were expressed somewhat differently by Isaiah, and they are also found in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Elijah. Paul uses them to refer to the incarnation of Christ, which not only goes against human perception but is beyond the understanding of heavenly powers as …

But the righteous will remember only the righteous deeds by which they reached the heavenly kingdom, in which there is neither sleep, nor pain, nor corruption, nor care, nor night, nor day measured by time; nor sun traversing in necessary course the circle of heaven, which marks the limits of seasons, or the points measured out for the life of man so easily read; nor moon waning or waxing, or inducing the changes of seasons, or moistening the earth; no burning sun, no changeful Bear, no Orion coming forth, no numerous wandering of stars, no painfully-trodden earth, no abode of paradise hard to find; no furious roaring of the sea, forbidding one to touch or traverse it; but this too will be readily passable for the righteous, although it lacks no water. There will be no heaven inaccessible to men, nor will the way of its ascent be one impossible to find; and there will be no earth unwrought, or toilsome for men, but one producing fruit spontaneously in beauty and order; nor will there be generation of wild beasts again, nor the bursting substance of other creatures. Neither with man will there be generation again, but the number of the righteous remains indefectible with the righteous angels and spirits. Ye who believe these words, O men, will be partakers with the righteous, and will have part in these future blessings, which "eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." To Him be the glory and the power, for ever and ever. Amen.

From this we may gain an idea of how great the splendor, the beauty and the brightness of a spiritual body is.

Whosoever receiveth not the teaching of Christ and groweth not in virtues, his loss is the kingdom of heaven, and the happiness and delight which are sealed and preserved for the chosen of God, and that which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear …

Do not thou then, O thou who hast denied the things which are seen, ask what kind of riches thou wilt receive in exchange for thy poverty, but be thou in earnest only to forsake thy poverty, and to hasten to possess them. Now what …

If indeed it will be thought that both these passages were pronounced simply of the element earth, how can it be consistent that it should shake and melt at the presence of the Lord, at whose royal dignity it before exulted? So again in Isaiah, "Ye shall eat the good of the land," the expression means the blessings which await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things "which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man." Otherwise, how vain that God should invite men to obedience by the fruits of the field and the elements of this life, when He dispenses these to even irreligious men and blasphemers; on a general condition once for all made to man, "sending rain on the good and on the evil, and making His sun to shine on the just and on the unjust!" Happy, no doubt, is faith, if it is to obtain gifts which the enemies of God and Christ not only use, but even abuse, "worshipping the creature itself in opposition to the Creator!" You will reckon, (I suppose) onions and truffles among earth's bounties, since the Lord declares that "man shall not live on bread alone!" In this way the Jews lose heavenly blessings, by confining their hopes to earthly ones, being ignorant of the promise of heavenly bread, and of the oil of God's unction, and the wine of the Spirit, and of that water of life which has its vigour from the vine of Christ.

For in the last days false prophets shall be multiplied, and such as corrupt the word; and the sheep shall be changed into wolves, and love into hatred: for through the abounding of iniquity the love of many shall wax cold. For men shall hate, and persecute, and betray one another. And then shall appear the deceiver of the world, the enemy of the truth, the prince of lies, [2 Thessalonians 2:3-12] whom the Lord Jesus "shall destroy with the spirit of His mouth, who takes away the wicked with His lips; and many shall be offended at Him. But they that endure to the end, the same shall be saved. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven;" [Isaiah 11:4; Matthew 24:1-51] and afterwards shall be the voice of a trumpet by the archangel; and in that interval shall be the revival of those that were asleep. And then shall the Lord come, and all His saints with Him, with a great concussion above the clouds, with the angels of His power, [Matthew 16:27] in the throne of His kingdom, to condemn the devil, the deceiver of the world, and to render to every one according to his deeds. "Then shall the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous shall go into life eternal," [Matthew 25:46] to inherit those things "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, such things as God has prepared for them that love Him;" [1 Corinthians 2:9] and they shall rejoice in the kingdom of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

And, looking to the grace of Christ, they despised all the torments of this world, redeeming themselves from eternal punishment by [the suffering of] a single hour. For this reason the fire of their savage executioners appeared cool to them. For they kept before their …

Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him.

Let us therefore serve God with a pure heart, and we shall be righteous; but if we do not serve Him, because we believe not the promise of God, we shall be miserable. For the prophetic word also declares, "Wretched are those of a double …

Wherefore I do not think that he is to be reckoned amongst the pious who presumes to inquire into anything beyond these things, not listening to this saying: "Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee, neither search the things that are …

For, having left God, the parent and founder of all things, men began to worship the senseless works of their own hands. And what were the effects of this corruption, or what evils it introduced, the subject itself sufficiently declares. For, turning away from the chief good, which is blessed and everlasting on this account, because it cannot be seen, or touched, or comprehended, and from the virtues which are in agreement with that good, and which are equally immortal, gliding down to these corrupt and frail gods, and devoting themselves to those things by which the body only is adorned, and nourished, and delighted, they sought eternal death for themselves, together with their gods and goods relating to the body, because all bodies are subject to death.

"But as it is written, Things which eye saw not and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love Him." Where are these words written? Why, it is said to have been "written," then also, when it is set down, not in words, but in actual events, as in the historical books; or when the same meaning is expressed, but not in the very same words, as in this place: for the words, "They to whom it was not told about Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand," are the same with "the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." Either then this is his meaning, or probably it was actually written in some books, and the copies have perished. For indeed many books were destroyed, and few were preserved entire even in the first captivity. And this is plain, in those which remain to us. For the Apostle saith "From Samuel and the Prophets which follow after they have all spoken concerning Him:" and these their words are not entirely extant. Paul, however, as being learned in the law and speaking by the Spirit, would of course know all with accuracy. And why speak I of the captivity? Even before the captivity many books had disappeared; the Jews having rushed headlong to the last degree of impiety: and this is plain from the end of the fourth book of Kings, for the book of Deuteronomy could hardly be found, having been buried somewhere in a dunghill. And besides, there are in many places double prophecies, easy to be apprehended by the wiser sort; from which we may find out many of the things which are obscure. What then, hath "eye not seen what God prepared?" No. For who among men saw the things which were about to be dispensed? Neither then hath "the ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man." How is this? […]

John, therefore, did distinctly foresee the first "resurrection of the just," [Luke 14:14] and the inheritance in the kingdom of the earth; and what the prophets have prophesied concerning it harmonize [with his vision]. For the Lord also taught these things, when He promised that He would have the mixed cup new with His disciples in the kingdom.

The words "and so it happened" are missing. The Apostle in many places employs the figure of omission. What then has God prepared for those who love Him? The knowledge of Christ and salvation through the incarnation. This no human eye has seen, nor human …

Rouse yourself now, O my soul, and lift up your whole understanding and think, as much as you can, of what kind and how great that good is. For if individual goods are delightful, think intently how delightful is that good which contains the joyfulness …

The fourth face of wisdom is the most difficult, for it is without form. Thus would it seem to destroy the preceding faces, and yet it does not. The Apostle speaks of it: "Wisdom, however, we speak among those who are mature, yet not a …

When it says "which eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard" and the rest, Scripture has declared to us that the good things to come are incomprehensible and have no similarity to any thing here.

But come into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; enjoy for ever and ever that which is given you by my Father in heaven, and the holy and quickening Spirit. And what mouth then will be able to tell out …

Then when he says, But as it is written, he proves by Scripture that the rulers of this world did not know God's wisdom as to what it prepared for the glory of believers, saying: what no eye has seen or ear heard or the …

But this ignorance of theirs fulfils what is written concerning the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom. No natural man hath either seen, heard, or known, the things which God hath prepared, saith the prophet, for them that love him.

But as it is written,....

In Isa 64:4 it is "Prepared (literally, 'will do') for him that waiteth for Him"; here, "for them that love Him." For Isaiah spake to them who waited for Messiah's appearance as future; Paul, to them who love Him as having actually appeared (1Jo 4:19); compare 1Co 2:12, "the things that are freely given to us of God"

HOW very frequently verses of Scripture are misquoted! Instead of turning to the Bible, to see how it is written, and saying, “How readest thou?” we quote from one another; and thus a passage of Scripture is handed down misquoted, by a king of tradition, from father to son, and passes as current among a great number of Christian persons. How very frequently at our prayer meetings do we hear our brethren describing heaven as a place of which we cannot conceive! They say, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him;” and there they stop, not seeing that the very marrow of the whole passage lies in this—“But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.” So that the joys of heaven (if this passage alludes to heaven, which, I take it, is not quite so clear as some would suppose), are, after all, not things of which we cannot conceive; for “God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.” I have hinted that this passage is most commonly applied to heaven, and I shall myself also so apply it in some measure, this morning. But any one who reads the connexion will discover that the apostle is not talking about heaven at all. He is only speaking of this—that the wisdom of this world is not able to discover the things of God—that the merely carnal mind is not able to know the deep spiritual things of our most holy religion. He says, “We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

HOW very frequently verses of Scripture are misquoted! Instead of turning to the Bible, to see how it is written, and saying, “How readest thou?” we quote from one another; and thus a passage of Scripture is handed down misquoted, by a king of tradition, from father to son, and passes as current among a great number of Christian persons. How very frequently at our prayer meetings do we hear our brethren describing heaven as a place of which we cannot conceive!

But, as it is written - The quotation is taken from Isa 64:4. The sense is continued here from verse seven, and λαλουμεν, we speak, is understood - We do not speak or preach the wisdom of this world; but that mysterious wisdom of God, of which the prophet said: Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. These words have been applied to the state of glory in a future world; but they certainly belong to the present state, and express merely the wondrous light, life, and liberty which the Gospel communicates to them that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in that way which the Gospel itself requires. To this the prophet himself refers; and it is evident, from the following verse, that the apostle also refers to the same thing. Such a scheme of salvation, in which God’s glory and man’s felicity should be equally secured, had never been seen, never heard of, nor could any mind but that of God have conceived the idea of so vast a project; nor could any power but his own have brought it to effect.