Sometimes we are puzzled by the requirements of Scripture. For example, why would the apostle Paul have to caution the Corinthians in this way? “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed . . .” (1 Cor. 12:3a). Why would a group of Christians need to be told that cursing Jesus was out of bounds?
The answer is that there are always those who are too clever by half. The church always contains those who want the church to be something else, and to go somewhere else. A good way to bring this about, or so they think, is by being too clever by half.
The Bible does tell us that Jesus became a curse for us on the cross, and so some thought to take it a few extra steps into blasphemy. The Bible does tell us that we are not under the crushing burden of the law, and so some introduced the blemishes of sexual licentiousness into the love feasts. The Bible tells us that God’s ways are not ours, and that there are deeps within God’s counsels, and so Jezebel introduced believers to the deep things of Satan.
Now the Holy Spirit does indeed search the deep things of God, but He does not do it the way carnal minds think it should be done. The deep things of God are depths of holiness. In the submarine service, we used to have a term for the limit past which a submarine cannot go—that depth was called “crush depth.” And when it comes to God’s holiness, since there is no surface, no empty place above that holiness, every depth is crush depth. And the only way to avoid destruction is to be found in Jesus Christ.
Only the Spirit can sound the depths of Christ, and only Christ can protect us in the Spirit. One of the things He protects us from is the sin of being too clever for our own good, being too clever by half. The Spirit works in us as He did the early Christians, creating in them gladness and simplicity of heart.