Reading:
• Galatians chapter 6 verse 14.
• 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 18
Ill:
• In Hereford, there is a little village called Bredwardine’;
• Like many villages it contains an old Anglican church.
• For many years on the altar of that church stood a cross,
• It was very old and dirty, and no one ever took much notice of it.
• Then one day one of the villagers died,
• And in her will she left a sum of money to the Church.
• Along with the money was some clear instructions;
• That the money be used for the purpose of cleaning the cross,
• So with the money banked;
• The vicar of the church sent the cross away to the local jewellers,
• A few weeks later when the dirt and the grime was removed from this very old cross,
• It was discovered that it was made of solid silver,
• And it was studded in the upright and the cross piece with emeralds,
• It was worth a small fortune!
If you visit that Church today:
• You will discover that the cross no longer stands on the altar:
• It is kept in a safe, and is only brought out when a service is about to take place.
• The cross there was: a very beautiful piece of jewellery,
• A beautiful ornament,
Ill:
• In Coventry the city I grew up in;
• One of its many claims to fame are two cathedrals.
• The old one which on the night of 14 November 1940;
• Was bombed, destroyed and left as ruins by the German Luftwaffe.
• And the new one designed by Basil Spence;
• Finished on 25 May 1962, to replace the one that had been destroyed.
• Just as the new cathedral was being finished;
• A cross was lowered by helicopter and placed on top of it.
• It was and still is a symbol for all to see.
• And you can still look out over the city skyline and see the cross.
We live in a world that struggles to understand the cross:
• To lots of people the cross is an ornament, or a piece of beautiful jewellery,
• People who have no interest whatever in Christianity or Christian things will were a cross,
• To many people the cross is a symbol:
• The great symbol of Christianity,
BUT TO THE EARLY CHRISTIANS:
• The cross certainly was not an ornament,
• Nor was it a symbol, of Christianity,
• The fish preceded the cross as a symbol of Christianity
• The cross did not become a symbol of Christianity until about the fourth century.
• To the early Christians the cross was always a message,
• And in the New Testament the cross is a message,
• Not a symbol,
• Not an ornament,
• But a message.
Paul in the letter to the Corinthians chapter 1 verse 18 says,
"The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
But to us who are being saved it is the power of God".
• N.I.V. “The message of the cross”
• Some versions say; “The preaching of the cross”.
• It literally reads the ‘logos’ of the cross;
• The emphasises in the verses is not the act of preaching,
• But rather the meaning, the explanation of that event in history.
• It emphasises the explanation of what happened on the cross.
The apostle Paul then goes on to say; Verse 23:
"We preach Christ crucified:
A stumbling-block to 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".
The cross was a message, that was:
• Preached and taught by the early Christians.
• Not a symbol or an ornament but a message.
Ill:
• We forget in our modern day western setting:
• That crucifixion was a very, very common form of execution,
• We tend to think of the crucifixion as something very unique, special,
• But we forget just how many people were crucified by the Romans.
• It really was a common form of execution.
• On one occasion the Roman commander, Marcus Licinius Crassus once ordered
• 6,000 men to be crucified along the road between Rome and Capua.
• If you’ve seen the film Sparatcus you will know the reason why he did it.
Crucifixion at the time of Jesus was a very common form of execution.
• The Romans did not invent crucifixion; they borrowed the idea from the Persians,
• They did not invent crucifixion but they certainly seemed to perfect it.
• They crucified people all over the Roman empire,
• And in very large numbers
There are some forms of crucifixion that are designed to:
• Take a persons life but still allow that person to retain some dignity,
• Crucifixion took away not only a persons life, but every vestige of dignity.
• It was deliberately designed to do that.
Quote: klause-ner a Jewish historian says:
"Crucifixion is a most terrible and cruel death,
Which man has ever devised for taking vengeance on his fellow country man".
Quote: Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero called it:
"The most cruel and the most horrible torture".
Ill:
• We went back in time and saw one we would be physically sick.
• Ill: Baptist minister “I hope you will be profoundly upset”.
Note: The context for verse 18 is wisdom:
• It is the key word in this paragraph;
• It is used eight times in this section (from chapter 1 vs 17 to chapter 2 vs 16)
• The apostle Paul is teaching these Corinthians that we dare not mix man's wisdom;
• With God's revealed wisdom in Christ.
• The entire section on wisdom (1:17-2:16);
• It contains a number of contrasts between God’s wisdom and the wisdom of men.
• God's wisdom is revealed primarily in the cross of Jesus Christ,
• But not everybody in Corinth could see this.
So the apostle Paul pointed out that there are three different attitudes toward the cross.
(1). Some stumble at the cross (vs 18).
• This was the attitude of the Jews,
• We get our word ‘scandle’ from the Greek word translated as ‘stumbling block’;
• Paul says that the cross is an insult, an offence, a scandal, a disgrace, an indignity;
• To the Jews for two reasons.
(1). Cross meant a curse.
• To the Jew it was absurd that anyone who had ended their life upon a cross;
• Could possibly be pleasing or chosen of God.
Ill:
• They pointed to their own law which unmistakably said,
• "He that is hanged is accursed by God." (Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 23).
Ill:
In the Old Testament a criminal found guilty of a capitol offence was stoned to death:
• If the officials wanted to make the judgement even more solemn,
• They could order the body to be hanged on a tree or impaled on a pole.
• A pretty good deterrent to anyone who saw it!
• Ill: We did the same in seventeenth &eighteenth century London.
• The heads of executed criminals were sometimes displayed in public.
• But t in the Old Testament
• The body could only remain on the tree or pole until sundown.
• Since a dead body was unclean,
• It was taken down at sundown, so as to not defile the land.
• Everyone knew that anyone dying in this manner was a guilty criminal;
• And therefore under the curse of God.
So to the Jew:
• The fact that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified;
• Proved to them that he could not possibly be their Messiah..
• The cross meant that the one on it was cursed not chosen!
• The cross meant that person was unable to save themselves never mind anyone else!
(b) The Jew sought for signs.
• Jesus himself made this accusation against them;
• Now if you are looking for miraculous signs;
• Then there is nothing spectacular, or dazzling about the cross.
• It is a picture of shame, of disgrace, of utter weakness!
Ill:
• Jewish history is filled with miraculous events,
• From the Exodus out of Egypt to the days of Elijah and Elisha and so on.
• We have an Old Testament full of miraculous events!
• When God stepped into history and did the unimaginable.
Now when Jesus was ministering on planet earth:
• He performed many miracles:
• Ill: Blind eyes seeing, lame people walking, deaf ears hearing, even the dead raised to life.
• Note: What Jesus would not do is perform signs on demand;
• He would meet peoples needs but he would not perform signs on demand.
• The Jewish leaders repeatedly asked Him to perform a sign from heaven;
• But again and again he refused (“No sign except the sign of Jonah!”).
The Jews were looking for a particular ‘SIGN’ from their Messiah:
• The Messiah they were wanting and expecting would repeat the Exodus,
• Only this time deliver them from their Roman (not Egyptian) oppressors!
• They were waiting for a Lion King who would roar out against Rome.
• They were not expecting or looking for a suffering Lamb.
• The Jewish people wanted salvation from Romans oppression;
• God’s plan was salvation for the whole world.
• Their plan was small, God’s plan was big;
• Salvation not from an earthly ruler, but salvation from sin, death and the devil.
So to the Jewish people a crucified Messiah was a scandalous idea:
• After all,
• Crucifixion was reserved for criminals convicted of murder or rebellion.
• Crucifixion was for slaves, foreigners or other non-persons .
• To suggest that Messiah would die on a cross was scandalous, offensive &unacceptable.
• A crucified Messiah had no place in their understanding of either God or scripture.
• To the Jews the cross was a "stumbling block." It was an offence.
(2). Some laugh at the cross (vs .
QUOTE: Fee says,
• "It is hard for those in the Christianised West,
• Where the cross for almost nineteen centuries has been the primary symbol of the faith,
• To appreciate how utterly mad the message of a God; who got himself crucified;
• By his enemies must have seemed to the first-century Greek or Roman.
• But it is precisely the depth of this scandal and folly;
• That we must appreciate if we are to understand both;
• Why the Corinthians were moving away from it toward wisdom;
• And why it was well over a century;
• Before the cross appears among Christians as a symbol of faith."
Ill:
• Picture the electric chair, or the lethal injection table, or a firing squad,
• Or the gas chamber.
• Now imagine if today in 2008 one of these were to become the very symbol of your faith.
• Imagine the reaction in our country to songs being written about them:
• “So I’ll cherish the old firing squad”
• “There is room in the gas chamber for you”
• “At the firing squad, at the firing squad, where I first saw the light”
• “When I survey the wondrous lethal injection”
• “Jesus, keep me near the electric chair”
• “Beneath the hang man gallows I fain would take my stand”
• Now I am not trying to be silly or facetious in the least;
• Rather, I am trying to help us appreciate and understand;
• How perfectly ridiculous it must have seemed to unbelieving people in Paul’s day;
• To hear the message of the cross that Paul preached.
THERE WERE TWO REASONS THE CROSS WAS FOOLISHNESS.
(1). To the Greeks the body was unimportant:
• To the Greeks the body was unimportant:
• In Greek thinking they separated the body and the soul.
• To a Greek the soul was immortal and important;
• And the body was perishable, mortal and therefore unimportant.
• At death they believed the soul was ‘set free’ from the body, and the soul lived on;
• The body was disposed of, it rotted away and was needed no more.
• So when the Greeks heard about salvation through the death of a body on a cross;
• They sneered at any such the idea.
Ill:
• The Latin word for Cross, is 'Crux'.
• The Greeks took this word 'Crux':
• And they integrated it into their own language without translating it into Greek,
• A transliteration ( the same as we have done with the words ‘baptism’ or ‘rendezvous’.
• The Greeks took this Latin word 'Crux':
• And they used it as a swear word.
• It was a four letter word, of the worst kind.
• So to the Greeks the message of the cross was a swear word & therefore foolishness!
• This was the response of the Greeks.
• To them, the cross was foolishness.
(2). The Greeks emphasized wisdom;
The Greeks prided themselves on their philosophical pursuits;
• Even today, we speak of the Greek philosophers;
• People like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates are studied, admired and often quoted.
• To the human mind the cross appeared a failure not a success;
• Humanly speaking there was no wisdom in the cross, it spoke of shame & defeat!
So in verse 19 the apostle Paul quoted Isaiah the prophet (chapter 29 verse 14):
“Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."
Ill:
In Isaiah’s day:
• The Jewish people had religion but they had lost the reality, (ill: Hollow);
• Just as in Corinth, they too had plenty of religion but no reality (out of touch with God)!
• In Isaiah’s day the leaders (the brains) who ruled Judah;
• Decided to use human wisdom to try and handle a very tricky situation.
• They needed to counteract the threat of Assyrian aggression against them
• But instead of trusting in God to deliver them from their enemies;
• They decided to form an alliance with Egypt
• They knew this was a course of action that the Lord would disapprove of.
• And instead of experiencing the wonders of God’s deliverance;
• Their wisdom & insight cause them to experience the wonders of God’s judgement!
As the apostle Paul quotes this verse from Isaiah he is making the very same point:
• Human wisdom alone is bound to fail;
• He cites the undeniable fact that for all its wisdom;
• The world had never found God;
• Following the wisdom, the insight of man is like the blind leading the blind!
Then in verse 20 Paul illustrates this truth from three Greek witnesses:
• The wise man (that is the expert, the specialist, the boffin on theological matters),
• The scholar (that is the skilled writer and critic),
• And the philosopher (that is the academic and debater).
• In other words he appeals to best minds that human tutoring can provide;
• And he asks them a question:
• Question:
• Through their teaching have you come to know God in a real, meaningful way?
• Answer:
• They all (wise man, scholar & philosopher) must answer no!
• All these great minds have brought about is confusion and contradictory ideology;
• People are no nearer to God now than before all these great minds had there say!
(3). Some believe and experience the power and the wisdom of the cross (vs 21b).
“For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him,
God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.”
Ill:
In his book The Attributes of God,
• Arthur W. Pink lists 17 divine attributes or traits belonging to God.
• He deals with such characteristics as:
• The Knowledge of God. He says that God knows everything perfectly.
• The Sovereignty of God. God is the supreme ruler of the universe.
• The Holiness of God.
• He is the sum of all moral excellence in whom there is no imperfection or lack of wholeness.
• The Power of God. He has the ability and strength to bring to pass whatsoever He pleases.
• The Patience of God. He endures great injuries without reacting to avenge Himself.
• The Grace of God. He joyfully gives us what we do not deserve.
• The Mercy of God. He does not give us what we do deserve.
• No where in his list of 17 attributes;
• Does Pink mention the foolishness of God or the weakness of God.
• Somehow, foolishness and weakness;
• Do not seem to be terms that one would associate with the creator of the universe.
Of course:
• It is not God who is foolish or weak, but man.
• ‘Foolishness and weakness’ are a worldly judgement on what God has done in Jesus.
The evidence that God’s way is right is it SAVES:
• It is able to “save those who believe.”
• It is able to “save” both Jew & Gentile.
• It is able to “save” both the wise & the foolish.
• It is able to “save” both the rich & the poor.
• It is able to “save” both the master & the slave.
• It is able to “save” both men & women.
• It is able to “save” both young & old.
• It is able to “save” anyone who BELIEVES!
Verse 30 summaries what God has done for us in Christ:
“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption”.
• (1). Our Wisdom;
• He has revealed to us the way of salvation.
• (2). Our righteousness;
• He has made guilty sinners right with God.
• (3). Our holiness (sanctification);
• We are accepted, we are complete in him.
• (4). Our redemption;
• He has provided our ransom from the curse and condemnation of sin.
No wonder he goes on to say in verse 31:
• Quoting from Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 24:
• Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
• Or as some versions translate it:
• "Let him who glories, glory in the Lord."
