‘Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.’ (1 Corinthians 2:6–10)
What does Paul mean when he says “the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God”? When we use the word search, we usually are referring to the act of trying to find something that we want to locate or discover.
If I am on a quest for knowledge, a search for knowledge, I am trying to learn something I do not presently know. So, when Paul says the Spirit searches the depths of God, he seems to be implying that the third person of the Trinity is pursuing some knowledge that He lacks.
But if we conclude that there are certain things the Holy Spirit does not know and needs to learn, our doctrine of the Trinity is destroyed. Such a lack of knowledge in the Spirit would deny His deity as a member of the Godhead.
So, we must come at the question from the other direction, accepting what the rest of Scripture teaches about the Spirit—that He is a part of the Godhead and therefore omniscient. Thus, He does not search the depths of God to increase His own knowledge.
On the contrary, Paul is telling us here that the Holy Spirit searches the depths of God for us. The Spirit acts as a searchlight and shines on the text of Scripture when we read it, giving us the capacity to understand the meaning of it.
When this happens, we see the truth of God intensely and sharply. Every one of us who is a Christian has had this experience sometime in his or her life.
We are reading from the Scriptures, and suddenly a particular truth seems to jump off the page and pierce our souls. That is the work of the Holy Spirit in illumination.
We may be persuaded that Christ is divine and still not grasp the sweetness of that idea. There may not yet be affection for Him in our hearts or souls. The Spirit awakens in us a sensibility to the excellence of the things of God.
But He does not operate against the Word of God. The Spirit works in the Word, with the Word, and through the Word.
In other words, He takes us to the revelation of God and shows it to us in such a way that He overcomes our natural hostility or bias against the truth of God and shows us the loveliness of it.
Just as Ezekiel swallowed the scroll with its bitter words and found them suddenly sweet as honey in his mouth (Ezekiel 3:3), so the words of God become sweet to all who view them under the searchlight of the Spirit.”
–R.C. Sproul, Who Is the Holy Spirit?, vol. 13, The Crucial Questions Series (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2012), 68-72.
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