It All Depends on Where We Stand

(1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

While I was in seminary, I had a friend, named David, visit me from my hometown. We used to play music together in bands, and he was curious about why I had given music up for religious studies.

I often tried to witness to David, much to his dismay. Once we were driving to a job, and I said, “I think Hitler was right in trying to exterminate the Jews.” He said, “What?” And pulled the car over to the side of the highway—to let me out, I think. I was trying to engage him in the moral argument for the existence of God. I knew he thought the holocaust was morally wrong. So, I was challenging him to articulate an objective standard for his moral judgment in the face of someone who alleged a different view. Of course, I believed the holocaust was morally wrong too, but for the sake of argument, I was trying to get him to see that there must be a moral law Giver for there to be an absolute moral law. Otherwise, all we have are opinions.

Well, as we talked in Dallas, TX, I shared the gospel with him—that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for his sins. I then said that if he would trust in Jesus, he could be delivered from the consequences of all his wrongdoings and have a spiritual life in Christ.

There was a long silence . . ., and then he said to me, “David, I wish I could believe that. I really do. But I don’t. I can’t help it. What can I do?” I didn’t have a reply to his honest response.

What is it about the gospel that makes it so hard for us to share it, and so hard for others to receive it? Is there something at its core that causes us to hesitate to speak it or causes unbelievers to step away when they hear it? What is the offense wrapped in the center of the gospel?

Message

It seems to me that the Apostle Paul addresses this issue in our passage this morning, in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, when he states:

18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 

19 For it is written, 

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 

And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” 

20 Where is the wise man? 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 through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 

22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 

23 but we preach ^aChrist crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 

24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 

NASB

The Problem of the Cross

It’s the “cross” that is the heart of the problem. Whether you’re a religious person (Jews in the passage) or not, the death of Christ on a cross is a barrier. Why would I follow someone who died as a criminal?

I know that we wear crosses now as jewelry with deep, religious significance, and decorate our homes and buildings with the symbol of a cross, but in the first century, the cross was an instrument used for capital punishment. It’s like wearing a noose, a rifle, an electric chair, or a syringe today. How would that be anything but offensive to say, “I’m a follower of someone who was executed by the State government?” But that’s exactly how the “cross” was viewed in the first century Roman Empire. So, Paul says in verse 18: “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.”

The Power of God

He then gives the alternative perspective of those being saved; they (we) see the cross as “the power of God!” It was the battlefield where our life was won. It was the marketplace where we were bought at the price of Christ’s own life. It was the cosmic center of human history where our separation from God ended!

Where we stand, in relation to the cross, has an enormous effect on how we view the work of God. He is doing a single work, and we perceive it differently based on our relationship with Him.

We’ve all had an experience that we initially thought was devastating, that then turned out to be life-giving. Maybe you were in love with someone who walked away from the relationship with your heart. Maybe your first career choice fell away due to circumstances beyond your control. Maybe your first choice for school, didn’t accept you. Initially, you may have been crushed, disheartened, even despairing. But then years later, you see that this act was a necessary path to bring you to the life you now have. It was the same lost love, the same lost career, the same lost opportunity, but the outcome, which once felt like death, turned into life. That seems to be what Paul is describing in this passage. God does a single work, and depending on where we stand, we view that work in radically different ways!

The Work of God

In verse 19, Paul quotes a passage from Isaiah 29. It’s told to a people who have an external, visible faith (draw near with their words), but who are far away from Him with their hearts. So, God says he is going to do a “marvelous” / “wonderful” work in their midst. And what is this extraordinary work? The destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon! (Read v. 19)

From the perspective of those living in Jerusalem at the time, this judgment was devastating. . . . But it would become a source of life for them and future generations. The question, of course, is whether God’s work also makes the human way of thinking, or wisdom, foolish today. This seems to be what Paul is addressing as he challenges the Corinthian church. (Read v. 20)

The Path of Natural Wisdom

Paul identifies religious and non-religious leaders of his day—the wise, the scholar, the orator— and rhetorically ask whether God, through the crucifixion, has not made the world’s wisdom foolish.

Paul is not saying that all, natural wisdom is foolish. It was the natural wisdom of engineering and aerodynamics that brought me across the Atlantic Ocean, over England, France, Italy, and northern Africa to Sodo in less than 24 hours! You have to marvel at that technology! Modern medical knowledge and surgical skill are a wonder. The years people have invested in study and refining their skill brings tremendous, life-giving health to so many souls every day. Paul is not disparaging this kind of wisdom.

What Paul is concerned about is those who think their great wisdom will ultimately lead them to God. (Read v. 21a). As good, wonderful, and meaningful as those skills are, they will not lead us to God. In fact, natural wisdom tends to lead in the opposite direction as the mind turns what is good back to itself. Paul discusses what people do with their examination of God’s general revelation about Himself in creation this way in Romans 1:21-23:

21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 

23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 

NASB

God has revealed Himself in creation, but the irony is that as we look intently at that creation, we begin to worship ourselves (the creature) rather than the Creator. Our wisdom does not lead us to God, but away from Him to ourselves.

There are those who want to colonize Mars to save the human race from itself. While that is fascinating, and the artificial intelligence that is being developed to create robots who will work the surface of Mars, is amazing, that project will not be able to save the human race from itself. It will just bring the human race to a new location. How did Jon Kabat Zinn say it? “Wherever you go, there you are!”

So, what is our hope? Our wonderful wisdom leads us away from God to the dead end of ourselves. Only God can save humanity from itself. He has performed that work through the cross and is the source of our ability to see what He has done by calling us!

The Path of God’s Wisdom

21 God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 

22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 

23 but we preach ^aChrist crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 

24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser

1 Cor. 1:21b-25 NASB

It is through the “foolishness” of proclaiming God’s work on the cross that people are saved. Do you remember when the message of the gospel first broke through to you?

During my first year of college, I read a copy of the New Testament that a friend gave me with the inscription: “I think the things you admire in me, you’ll find in here.” During summer break, I attended a Sunday morning study in a park. Christians in my high school had voted me “least-likely to be saved,” so they thought a bible study in the park was more inviting than somewhere else. I came with this thought: “I believe that Jesus was God and did the miracles described in this book, but I can’t figure out why he had to die.” As we were studying Ephesians 2:8-9 (“for by grace are you saved through faith”), I suddenly stopped the discussion and asked: “Are you saying that Jesus died because of my sin? Are you saying, I was the reason he had to die?” It was like a veil was lifted from my eyes, and I suddenly understood. Before that moment, it didn’t make any sense. Paul talks about that sovereign work of God in this passage as a “call.” (Read v. 24). He not only provided for our sin, but he then reaches into each of our lives to call us unto Himself—like lifting a veil from our eyes to understand what He has done. Such amazing love!

If you were like me before you became a Christian, you may have said to God: “If you’ll just appear at the foot of my bed, I’ll believe. Like the Jews in the passage, I wanted a sign. But when the veil was lifted, we suddenly understood the work of God on the cross, and it changed the direction of our lives, with the result that we are here at WES today studying the Scriptures together.

Conclusion

It’s the human dilemma to get lost on the journey—to see but not see. As Dante said in the Infirno, “I suddenly awoke in the middle of a deep wood having completely lost my way.” But God has worked on the cross in space and time. It’s where we stand in relation to that work that makes it appear either foolish or wise. And God has to open our eyes so that we can see and move from one way of thinking to another. If it were not for Him, we’d just be lost in our own thoughts.

When my friend, David, told me that he didn’t believe but wished he could, I should have thought: “Well, of course. God hasn’t unveiled his eyes yet.” Years later, I learned that my friend, David, became a believer. It was a long, arduous journey for him through considerable personal loss. But the veil was lifted, and he saw the power of God in the crucifixion for him. If all of this still sounds like foolishness to you, I pray that God would lift the veil from your eyes today. Of course, that suffering work of Christ on the cross was not just for Jesus to bare. It is also for us as His followers. Didn’t Jesus say, “Whoever wants to follow me, let him take up his cross and follow me.”? At times we think, “This life is crazy.” But as missionary, Jim Elliot, once said: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” The cross, whether it’s His or ours, is foolishness to the world . . . but the power and wisdom of God to those of us who are being saved. It all depends on where we stand.