Christ Crucified; the Power and Wisdom of God

Parkdale Grace Fellowship

Sunday AM, January 27, 2008

1 Corinthians 1:17-25

Up to this point Paul has repeatedly emphasized the person of Jesus Christ, inserting His name 14 times in the first 17 verses of this letter. Repeatedly the Lord is using Paul to draw the attention of the believers in Corinth off of themselves, off of their leaders, off of their gifts and off of their problems and to fix their eyes instead on Jesus only and on all that He graciously accomplished for them at the Cross. Defeat comes when our eyes are on the things of the world or on our selves or the devil, but victory comes when our eyes are fixed on the Lord. The Lord is appealing for the church at Corinth to get their eyes back onto Jesus. And the Lord is appealing to us today to fix our eyes on Jesus.

We will also see in our study today that there is absolutely nothing that we can add to the grace of God. Our wisdom does not enhance the gospel; our intelligence does not make the gospel more intelligible or more effective. From start to finish the work of the gospel is a work of grace; from start to finish it is God’s work. Our efforts to enhance the message, unless prompted by God, will only get in the way of the message.

Vs. 17

Not only was Paul sent by God to preach the gospel but he was to preach it in a certain way. Specifically, he was not to rely on the wisdom of words to get the message across. This is an error that most of us so easily fall into when it comes to communicating the gospel, we are overcome with fear that we will not be able to express it clearly or convincingly enough to persuade others to believe. Whether it is in sharing our testimony, or in explaining the gospel to an unsaved friend or leading a Sunday school class or in preaching a sermon one of our biggest hindrances is the false idea that the effectiveness of the message depends upon my ability to put together a wise sounding presentation. In fact, Paul indicates here in verse 17 that the opposite is true. When our reliance in preaching the gospel is upon the wisdom or the cleverness of our words, then the cross of Christ is made of no effect. You may succeed in convincing people intellectually; you may be persuasive in your argument and win people to your side of thinking, but you may fail to lead them into either a born again experience or a deeper experience of Christ.

There are many people in the world today who are converted to all kinds of religion by being persuaded intellectually that the religion is true. If we rely on the wisdom of words in presenting the gospel we run the great risk of merely converting the listener to a religion that falls short of true spiritual transformation. Look at where the gospel seems to be having the least impact in the world today. It seems to include the developed western nations where we have all kinds of resources, knowledge, technology and visual aids to enhance the message. And yet where is the gospel having its greatest impact today? In the undeveloped and developing countries of the world where they don’t have all the Bible resources we have to learn how to say it just right, they don’t have power point, in fact many of their pastors have never even had a formal seminary education. There is certainly nothing wrong with the resources and the training so long as that is not what we depend upon. I am not opposed to advanced training and taking advantage of technology but we need to be aware of the temptation that goes with this development to place our confidence in our knowledge and our understanding and our technology. This is the error that much of the western church has fallen into. Instead our dependence has to be on the Lord to get the message across or it will not get across.

Salvation is more than knowing and agreeing with facts about Jesus Christ. Our Lord Himself said in John chapter 3 that unless you are born again you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Mere human words, no matter how wisely they are put together, cannot produce spiritual life. Being born again is not an academic experience, it is a spiritual experience. Again in John 3:6 Jesus said “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” To rely on wise words or a convincing argument to produce spiritual life is to rely on the flesh and flesh can only give birth to flesh and never to spirit. Through mere human wisdom you may convert people to your way of thinking but you will never lead them to experience new birth. Only the Spirit of God can do that.

“. . . Lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.” What is the effect of the cross of Christ? It is the instrument of execution, it is the place of death, where the old man, the sinful nature is put to death; it is where our old life of sin is crucified. Therefore if the cross of Christ is made of no effect then there is no death and unless the old life of sin dies there can be no birth of the new life.

What is it about sharing the gospel message with others that puts us under such pressure to make a wise presentation? We have no difficulty telling others about a big news story or talking to them about a great deal we got shopping at the mall, or telling them about the great things you saw and did on your tropical vacation. We rarely feel pressured to express ourselves just right or to use wise words. We just talk freely as thoughts easily come to our mind. So why is it that all of a sudden when the conversation switches to matters of our faith that we suddenly feel pressured to make it sound wise?

Vs. 18

One of the reasons we usually feel pressured to make our gospel witness sound intelligent is because we realize that the message of the cross, which is the heart of the gospel, sounds like foolishness to those in the world. So we try to enhance it to make it sound more wise and acceptable.

Notice that there are only two kinds of people in this world, those who are perishing and those who are being saved. And a common characteristic of those who are perishing is that the message of the cross seems like foolishness to them. But contrary to how foolish it appears, the reality is that it is precisely when, in faith, we embrace the message of the cross, even though we do not fully understand it, that we find the power of God to save us from perishing, and to save us from wasting our lives.

So here is the dilemma. It is the very thing that seems like foolishness to the world that, like it or not, they must hear and must believe in order to be saved from perishing. Therefore, if we downplay or avoid the message of the cross in our effort to make the gospel message seem more wise and convincing, we actually remove the very component of the gospel that is essential for their salvation, the mystery of the cross. Then the cross of Christ is made of no effect in the lives of those you are trying to sound wise to.

Vs. 19

Here Paul quotes from the Old Testament, Isaiah 29:14. The wisdom of the wise that God promises to destroy is a worldly wisdom. It is a so called wisdom that leaves God out of the picture and is man-centered. The Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom. So where there is no fear of God there is no true wisdom but only foolishness. Where does the wisdom of the world lead us? It certainly does not lead us to God. The evolutionary theory is a classic example of so called wisdom or understanding of the worldly wise that leaves God out of the picture. Communism is another example of worldly wisdom devoid of any fear of God. So too is much of the so called wisdom being offered as a solution to global warming, many of the unjust decisions made in our courts in the name of human rights, the way our world attempts to deal with the AIDS crisis through promoting safe sex, our educational system’s approach to promoting tolerance by embracing all lifestyles as equally satisfying and beneficial. God promises in verse 19 to ultimately expose all this so-called wisdom of the world for the absolute foolishness that it is and to bring to nothing all of mankind’s attempts to create a happy and successful world without God. This world is full of self-centered people making foolish decisions every day under the illusion of acting wisely.

Vs. 20

Another translation puts it this way, “So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.”( NLT)

The world constantly has to rewrite and update their paleontology textbooks, their medical textbooks, their psychology textbooks, and their sociology textbooks as conventional wisdom is always changing. But God’s word never changes. It is just as relevant and effective and true today as it was the day God first spoke His word. His word stands forever unshakeable and true. So whose wisdom will we trust, the wisdom of this world or the wisdom of God?

Vs. 21

Luke 10:21 “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.” Those who lean on their own wisdom and understanding do not understand or accept the things of God and yet a child can know God. Knowing God is not dependent upon understanding Him or upon being able to make sense of the mystery of the Gospel.

God cannot be known by starting with an earth based approach of reaching out to God. We cannot start with man and find God. We can never rely on our own intellect and our own understanding to lead us to God, no matter how intelligent or well educated we are. Therefore if we rely on skillfully appealing to the intellect of man as the means of leading them to Christ they have no hope of ever experiencing spiritual rebirth. 1 Corinthians 2:14 “. . . The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” As 1 Corinthians 1:21 says, “The world through wisdom did not know God.” For they cannot know God through human wisdom. We can never persuasively talk anyone into the kingdom of God. Nor can we ever persuasively talk a Christian into a deeper walk with the Lord.

Because of our fallen, corrupted nature if left to our own resources we would all remain hopelessly and helplessly lost and doomed to everlasting separation from God. What then is the answer? What is the hope of anyone coming to know God? It requires intervention from God. The Bible begins not with man seeking God, but with God taking the initiative and reaching down to a rebellious human race. The good news of the gospel is that God so loved the world that He took the initiative and sent His only begotten Son to reach out to mankind. God is not discovered by applying man’s wisdom but by God’s self-revelation.

Look again at Luke 10, this time notice both verses 21 and 22. Luke 10:21-22 “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes . . . And no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” See also John 6:44 Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

So how does God reveal Himself to mankind if not through words of human wisdom? Look at the last half of verse 21. God has chosen to reveal Himself through the foolishness of the message preached. Be careful, this is not saying through foolish preaching, but through the foolishness (in the eyes of the world) of the message being preached. This requires humility on our part to declare a message that does not sound very wise or convincing, but this is the method God has chosen.

Vs. 22-23

We do not cater to what they are seeking to hear but rather we preach the very thing that is a scandalous stumbling block and foolishly offensive to them. This is one of the great weaknesses of the seeker friendly approach to evangelism. In trying to avoid being offensive we rob them of that which is the power of God unto salvation.

Death on a cross was widely regarded in the Roman Empire as brutal, disgusting, and abhorrent. It was a horrendous punishment reserved for convicted slaves and convicted terrorists, and crucifixion could never be imposed upon a Roman citizen or “respectable” criminals. It was so offensive to good taste that crucifixion was never openly talked about in polite society. (Thiselton, p. 44) Therefore, to the Jews who were looking for a powerful, royal King the idea of a crucified Savior, their Messiah on a cross was an offensive outrage and a serious stumbling block to their intellect. And likewise to the non-Jews throughout the empire the idea of a God who would allow Himself to be hung in humiliation upon a cross was anti-rational; it was a vulgar and socially unacceptable idea.

How tempting it was for the Corinthian believers back then, and for us today, to avoid preaching the cross of Jesus Christ, especially when part of the message of the cross includes the call of Jesus to all who would be followers of Him to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him; to identify themselves as having been crucified with Christ. But this must be our message; we cannot avoid the cross or we deny the foundation of our very identity as Christians and we deny those who are perishing of the only way of true salvation. Consider the watered down, seeker friendly so called gospel message that so many churches have been proclaiming for so many years now in this land. I can’t help but wonder how very many professing Christians there must be in our land who have intellectually embraced an appealing message but have never embraced the cross, they have never consented to the death of their own life, and therefore have never received new life from Christ. All they have is a mere form of religion which they call Christianity.

Vs. 24-25

Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross is seen by the world as weakness and foolishness. But the weakness and foolishness of that act of the Son of God accomplished what all the efforts of mankind throughout history have failed to accomplish. That which the world considers to be the weakness and foolishness of God has succeeded in setting us free from sin; it sets us free from death; it set us free from addiction and delivers us from all the ugliness and meanness and selfishness of a weak character; it has the power to radically change our lives and to make us the kind of people we long to be. God’s weakness and foolishness gave us eternal life; it made us children of God; it provides us with all of the riches of God, it makes available to us all of the power of God, it fills our lives with purpose and meaning, it makes available to us abundant life filled with joy and pleasures that will last forever, it provides us with treasures that will never rust or rot, that cannot be lost or stolen and that are ours to enjoy for eternity.