If all wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, how do we learn from Him? He continued to use prophets as inspired spokesmen. He called them apostles (Mark 3:14). He also lived and worked with them, fully qualifying them to be His witnesses (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8). Because He was God as flesh, dwelling with them, they saw “His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” He revealed God the Father to them and lived His “grace and truth” before them (John 1:14, 18). He passed the Father’s message to them, as He said in His prayer.
I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world…. For I have given them the words that You gave Me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from You; and they have believed that You sent Me. (John 17:6, 8)
These men would remember His words by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even after His return to heaven, the Spirit would continue to reveal to them “all the truth.” This was His promise to the apostles:
These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:25-26)
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12-15)
The Father speaks by the Son and gives Him “all authority” (Matthew 28:19; Hebrews 1:2). The Son speaks by the Holy Spirit who speaks by the apostles and their helpers. The apostolic writings carry the Lord’s authority. Even the words are “taught by the Spirit.” As the apostle Paul says,
We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God…. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:7, 10-16)
If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 14:37 cf. 2 Peter 3:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15)