Wise in Christ/Fool to the World (part 2)
The Church of Corinth; Struggling to be in the world but not of the world • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 52:47
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1. The Dividing line of the gospel
1. The Dividing line of the gospel
Distinction between the wise and the fool: The message of the cross/ Not just the message of salvation… but all that God has revealed to us. It is offensive and brings division among the unyokedness of the lost and the saved.
2. The Divine Judgment of Human Wisdom (19- 22)
2. The Divine Judgment of Human Wisdom (19- 22)
19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
Paul uses an OT reference from the book of Isaiah to illustrate the way in which the foolishness of man’s wisdom is held in contempt and contrast to the word of God. *note to audience, when reading the NT, any quotation from the OT, demands our traveling back in the Scriptures to understand the context of that OT passage and then discovering how the NT writer is using it for his point.
Isaiah’s use:
Isaiah had been given the difficult task to prophecy during the time of Judah’s defeat by the Assyrians and later the Babylonians. Like most prophets, his job was to declared the word of the Lord to God’s people and with that, His warnings to them regarding their failures of faithfulness. In a more well-know passage of Isa 29, the prophet foretells the judgment of God because of the rejection of God for the cares and gods of this world. The Jews had trusted in human wisdom and strength instead of the wisdom and strength of God. Is 28:7-9 gives a picture of the problem:
7 These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. 8 For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left. 9 “To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?
The leadership of Israel had turned to the consumption of the world and removed themselves from the wisdom of God. Like many churches in our culture today, its spiritual leaders are simply cultural leaders who sprinkle in the Bible as a seasoning to their message, instead of teaching the Bible’s message as food for their churches soul. This type of leadership leads to people trusting in themselves more than trusting in God. Elsewhere in Isaiah, the prophet laments about how the people began trusting in their own strength in wartime than trusting in the Lord,
Isaiah 22:8–11 (ESV)
8 In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, 9 and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool, 10 and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. 11 You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.
What the Lord is saying through the prophet is that Israel was faithless toward God as they sought to depend on their own strength, their own wisdom and their own abilities to accomplish great things in life. It was all about self-dependence instead of divine dependence. As a parent, I want to teach my kids to work hard, to accomplish their dreams but as they do these things, I want them to have a proper perspective as to WHO enables them to accomplish such feats. We need a generation of children who don’t just point to the sky in the endzone after scoring a touchdown but who rely fully on God for all their spiritual and physical needs.
To teach the Israel how they had neglected their trust in God, God had to discipline his children. He sent nations like Assyria to crush the people of Israel, taking them into captivity in order to teach them that they had rejected him. They were striped from their homeland and made to live as captives of foreign kings.
In addition to physical domination by foreign nations, he judged them with spiritual blindness. In other words, God cut off the understanding of his word for a time as a discipline towards his people.
9 Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink! 10 For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers). 11 And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” 12 And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.” 13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
This blinding of God many seem severe, but this was in response to the people of God choosing to turn from the Lord and therefore he judged them with the very disconnection from him that they sought. Alec Motyer reflects on that passage with the statement, “determined spiritual insensitivity becomes judicial spiritual paralysis.”
Let this be a stern warning to the church as we seek worldly accolades instead of kingdom accomplishments. When we turn from trusting in the Lord, resting in his word, seeking his kingdom first and his righteousness, his discipline for us might be a spiritual paralysis, not completely, but temporarily in order to show us that “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” He will not leave us or forsake us but he might give us a perception of such an absence of His presence as a form of discipline so that we might realize the deep need we have for him.
J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 239.
Continuing in Isaiah 29:14-16
14 therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.” 15 Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” 16 You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
We see then the wonderful thing that the Lord will accomplish among them is the destruction of human wisdom by bringing such swift turmoil upon them that all dependence on themselves were abandoned because the reality of their frailty and human ignorance became glaringly obvious. This is how the Lord makes his point known in all human history when, instead of leaving us to our own sin, God’s grace is revealed in his judgment on us. Not eternal judgment, but temporal judgment, showing us how foolish we were living or acting towards our Creator and king. We have labeled this time of life, “hitting rock bottom” because it is truly jarring to our lives.
A few weeks ago, Amy and I took our kids canoeing and I saw a good illustration of this on the river. When in a vessel like a boat or canoe, while your momentum of the boat or the river’s current is carrying you forward, but they you hit an immovable object like a tree, or rock or a beachhead, you are violently jarred out of your seat, forward into danger and great injury. Thankfully, our result was being stuck on a rock or capsizing, but the Lord allows us to hit rock bottom in our lives because we have for too long rested in our own strength and wisdom instead of trusting in Him alone.
Maybe you can identify that time of life where you “hit rock bottom” and you saw how God used that moment to make you keenly aware of your power and strength. It was in those moments that you realize that you are nothing without God’s love and strength. These moments are stepping stones of God’s grace that He uses to humble us and then draw us to himself.
Before we move back to 1 Cor 1 and how Paul is using these verses, look at the end of Isaiah 29 and see how God does not leave his heavy hand of discipline on his people, but instead he gives more grace:
It is a measure of grace that Isaiah prophesies in v 17-24, Is. 29:17-24
Isaiah 29:17–24 (ESV)
17 Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest? 18 In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. 19 The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel. 20 For the ruthless shall come to nothing and the scoffer cease, and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off, 21 who by a word make a man out to be an offender, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right. 22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale. 23 For when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they will sanctify my name; they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. 24 And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction.”
We see the grace of God promises to God’s people in spite of their own rejection. The judgment of God that comes in the form of Assyria and Babylon will dominate them, take them captive and allow them to live in humility for a time. But a “refreshing of joy from the Lord” will come to God’s people when they see the work of God’s hand bring forth abundance from the depths of their destruction. God will bless them and continue a remnant after their exile and that remnant leads to a seed from among them, the promised Messiah who will be the one to come forth, showing God’s faithfulness in spite of human faithlessness.
Paul’s use
Paul understands this great promise of the Messiah and he therefore quotes this great judgment of God upon the wisdom of men as finding it greatest completion in Jesus. The message of the cross brings about greatest destruction of human wisdom, not only of sin and death, but of the foolishness of man who arrogantly thinks that can make a great name for himself in this world or who can find their way to God without God’s work in them first.
v 21- 1 Cor 1:21
21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
So Paul asks then of the wise men in Corinth (v 20) the scribe, the debater, if they had found their way to God in their own wisdom? Does human wisdom reveal the path to God?
God is declaring to the Corinthian church that the wisdom of God which is made clear in the message of the cross is the way unto salvation. It is not ONE of the ways to God along side the wisdom of human scribes and Greek philosophers. When Paul mentions scribes, he is not condemning the OT, but instead, his condemnation is to the scribe who deviated from the law into human tradition about the law. In v 22, we read that the Jews sought signs from God and they did so because the revealed word of God had been devalued and therefore something else was needed to authenticate God’s desire. They constantly wanted Jesus to prove himself while ignoring how the Messianic promises from God’s word already had proven that he was the promised one. Likewise, the valued wisdom and it became idolatrous to them. Their conception of God could only be attain within the confines of reason and the message of the cross, of a Savior dying, being crucified like a criminal was unreasonable.
Therefore, in God’s wisdom, he so planned to confound the human mind with the message of the gospel, where they deemed it unreasonable and foolish in their own thinking and he later explains why,
14 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.
They do not comprehend for two reasons that I will now summarize:
They are under judgment of God because of their unbelief
They are incapable of understanding because God has not first transformed them from the natural man to the spiritual man.
The Divine Clarity of the Called Ones (23-25)
The Divine Clarity of the Called Ones (23-25)
21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
The preaching to those who are called
Paul makes two references to the distribution of the message of the gospel to the world. It goes forth in the preaching of the gospel. It is not transmitted telepathically to every human mind. It is not written in the stars and their formations. A person stands in different settings and proclaims the truth of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who came into this world to live a perfect life, and die a substitutionary death and be raised to a new victorious life. Paul’s point is clear: that message is absurd to some and the preacher should know that. But to others, those whom God is working in their hearts, drawing them to himself, the preacher knows that the words of Scripture, the message of the good news of Jesus Christ, will have its effect.
This reality sets apart wise preachers and foolish preachers today. Wise preachers desire to know God’s word and teach it without trying to rope you in with entertainment, elaborate humor stories, magic tricks, video montages, etc. Wise preachers know that God’s word will go forth with great power and it will have transformative effect on those God is working on internally, spiritually. Foolish preachers get stuck in a cycle of providing the next opiod of entertainment to their audience.
Therefore, this church and healthy churches all across the world make preaching of God’s word central because a healthy dose of preaching across the years of a churches existence will bring about fruit and results that can only be attributed to God’s power at work in the lives of His people. You may not be a preacher vocationally, but you should rest in that same confidence in the power of God of God’s word to transform lives as you share the message of hope to a hopeless world.
The Power and Wisdom to those who are called
(24)You understood the message of the gospel and believed because as verse 24 states, you experienced the power of God in his calling upon your life. Remember with me that calling is both external (the preaching of the gospel) and internal( inward change that leads a person to visible faith and trust in Christ). At one time the gospel was foolishness to you, then it was wise. The only explanation is that God calling on your life empowered you to believe in His name. Your blindness was changed to spiritual clarity.
The promise of the Messiah to come who bring this spiritual sight to those blind:
6 “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. 8 I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.
That power of God in a person brings about new life in them. This is not a remodel but a tearing down of the old and a creating of something new. The preaching of Jesus made clear that the power of God would literally cause the dead to hear and go from death to life.
25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
This is speaking of a spiritual resurrection that comes from the power of God when he grants new life, and the deadness of our hearts are awakened to new life. That new life produces new desires, new commitments to GOd’s glory, new practices in life toward holiness, turning from worldliness. All of this displays the power of God in the world today, brining transformation and displaying God’s power.
The Lord to those who are called (25)
25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Paul concludes about the character of the Lord. We see the Lord differently because we have been changed. Paul is not implying that foolishness dwells with God or that he displays any weakness. Instead, he is stating that if God was foolish, or if He had weakness, His power is so great above mankind that his foolishness would surpass man’s wisdom and man’s power. This conclusion of this section reminds the Corinthians and us today just how week and feeble man is in comparison to the one who created all things, who rules all things and who saves those whom He calls to himself. Rejection of God is foolishness and will lead to his judgment but believing will lead to wisdom and salvation from your sins.