I want to turn this morning to look at the passage from 1 Corinthians chapter 1, which places before us the power of the Cross, and as we journey through Lent toward Holy Week it is surely fitting to do so. The Cross is central to our faith as Christians- but I ask, do we always know and appreciate all that it is that God has achieved FOR US
through the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary.
First of all I want to stop and note that the Cross separates. It is because of Christ and him crucified that we find Paul so often dividing the human race in two; not because of race, or age, or skill or earthly power. No! The division is on the basis of a person’s reaction to the Cross. For some, Paul says, the Cross and the preaching of the Cross is
foolishness. .Such people are ’perishing’. That word ’perish’ has the sense of putrefaction. And on the general ground of New Testament teaching that includes the human race in its natural state. That is not my evaluation-it is God’s. But there are those who are ’being saved’- and for them, and I trust it means for all of us sitting in this
Church, the Cross is ’the power of God’.
The world, human society at large functions on self-centredness, just as the first man and woman chose the way of self when they decided to take of the forbidden fruit in the Garden. So the natural human instinct is to "look after No 1". The human race also, having rejected God’s command found they could get on alright without him- or so they thought anyway! "Come", said the people of Babel, "let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens [religion], so that we may make a name for ourselves"
The result is that the whole world has come under the judgment of God Almighty. "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth" (Roman 1:18)- or "every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God" (Rom 3:19)
The Cross is not just foolishness;it is an offence. In recent years it has increasingly stirred up hostility in this ’Christian’ country. Patricia Gearing’s daughter died in Mablethorpe in 1998 and she has a simple cross placed on her grave. Before long the local Authority told her to remove it. Oh. she was given and explanation: "Crosses are discouraged, as excessive use of the supreme Christian symbol is undesirable" Permission was granted to erect a Mickey Mouse in its
place! I fear that against an increasing tide of opposition, the Christian Church is so often loosing its nerve. Jesus and him crucified is so often seen as a Mickey Mouse figure.
I shall want to come back to the power of the Cross. But first, let’s note what Paul says about hostility to the Cross in 1 Corinthians..
Firstly, it is an offense to the Jews.
At that period of time the Jews were waiting for their Messiah. But their Messiah would be a military deliverer; he would free the from the heavy hand of Roman tyranny, and establish God’s rule from Jerusalem. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he was enthusiastically greeted as such a one. "Blessed is he who comes in the Name
of the Lord". But they were quickly disappointed: by the end of the week their ’Messiah’ was dead.
It was worse than that. He hung dead on a Roman Cross. They knew the Old Testament edict, "Cursed is anyone hanging on a tree". How could a delivering Messiahend up as a curse. The Cross offended the Jew.
Secondly, it was folly to the Greeks.
The Greeks were great philosophers and if they wanted to know or find God they would find him by logic and reason. The God of the Greek mind could have no feeling. A crucified God just didn’t come on their mental radar. The cross of Christ was folly.
Quite clearly, not every Jew, not every Greek failed to find the power of God in the Gospel of Christ crucified. So in verse 23 we find Paul saying this:
’We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.’ To those who believed, those whom God called, the Cross was wisdom and strength.
The unspoken question which, by implication, this raises is: DO WE WANT TO BE SAVED? God saves not those who approach him with their good deeds, not those reliant on their human wisdom. We must abandon hope- all hope, in either of these. Do we want to be saved, or do we want to perish? In face of this, it’s worth taking note of some words of C.S.Lewis:
"It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose him as an alternative to hell. Yet even this he accepts.....If God were proud, he would hardly have us on such terms.
But he is not proud. He stoops to conquer. He would have us, even though we show that we would prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is now nothing better to be had "
The reality to the Cross shows that, as we’ve already seen: the world functions on self-centredness. God functions in apparent folly and weakness, but (v25) "The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. And we find that the Cross is the power to deal with our sin, which separates
us from God, and alone can restore us to a right relationship to God. (That is what we mean by ’Justification by Faith’) If we attempt to justify ourselves we rule ourselves out of court. Remember our Lord’s parable in Luke? Two men went up to the Temple to pray. The religious Pharisee said "I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers,
evildoers, adulterers-or even this tax-collector. I fast twice a week and give a tithe of all I get". The tax-collector, we are told, beat his breast and said "God, have mercy on me, a sinner"
I tell you, Jesus said, "this man went home justified before God. In saying ’have mercy’, the tax-collector used the word for propitiation; a word which means he asked God to turn his wrath away. In Romans 3:25, Paul says "God presented Him [Jesus] as a propitiation through faith in his blood" Our NIV sadly cannot stomach propitiation- the turning aside of God’s wrath. We may not like the idea of God’s wrath, but that’s how God tells us it is.
It is God’s fixed attitude against sin. Let’s be thankful God is not laissez-faire about sin.
If you read the story of King David and Bathsheba, it looks like it. David sees the beautiful Bathsheba bathing and desires her and has her, and compounds his guilt by having her husband sent to the front-line of battle-to be killed. But he is confronted by the prophet Nathan who when David repents pronounces that God says "I forgive you"
How can God say that and remain a just God?
The answer is in Jesus and the Cross, that Jesus became a curse. Clearly Jesus had no personal sin. But no! He became cursed and bore his Father’s wrath for your sins and mine.
And at the end Jesus could say "It is finished" This literally meant- ’the price is paid’- tetelestai meant that a debt had been settled in full. And for our forgiveness, FAITH IS THE ONLY GROUND.
In the face of all this: faith alone, unbelievers perishing, God’s wrath, we do well to take on board some words of David Tidball.
"In our materialistic age, when Christians no less than others, seem preoccupied with affairs of the world, we need to refocus on the division that will be revealed in the world
yet to come. In an age of ’user-friendly’ evangelism perhaps we should be more prepared to accept that the Cross will cause offense to some, and that many, even among family and friends will reject its message. Not every one can be won to Christ by affable evangelism and genial friendship."
We’ve covered a lot of ground this morning, but I would ask your indulgence as I turn briefly to verse 30 of 1 Corinthians 1- a verse not in our reading. There we find Paul
saying: "It is because of him [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God- that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption"
I can’t hope to unpack this verse just now, but it has to do with that massively important truth of our place as Christian believers ’in Christ’; that God places into into a union we
can never really understand but is the ground of Christian living, and where everything true about Jesus is true about us (sinlessness and godhead apart!!) But let me gives simply a few headliners to take away with you;
1. Christ becomes wisdom for us, and overcomes our blinding, deadening ignorance
2. In thus union, Christ becomes righteousness for us, and this overcomes our guilt and condemnation
3.Christ becomes our sanctification, and overcomes our corruption and pollution
4. Christ becomes our redemption, and overcomes all the misery, pain and futility, and also sin and death
The power of the Cross, then, is this:
When we believe implicity in Jesus and in his death for salvation; at that moment God places us in Him. And he becomes our righteousness (forgiveness and justification), our sanctification (growth in holiness in the sinless Jesus) and redemption (our rescue from the curse of sin and from death)
