Opening illustration: When Harvard University was founded, its motto was Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae —“Truth for Christ and the Church.” Its crest showed three books, one face down to symbolize the limitation of human knowledge. But in recent decades that book has been turned face up to represent the unlimited capacity of the human mind. And the motto has been changed to Veritas—“Truth.”
The pursuit of knowledge is praiseworthy, yet learning can quickly lead to pride and a refusal to acknowledge any limits on our mental abilities. When that happens, biblical truth is ignored.
What, then, is the truth about truth? A wise king wrote centuries ago, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1: 7). We must recognize the relationship between God and truth. Without the help of God’s Spirit and the instruction of God’s Word, man will be ever “learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3: 7). When we acknowledge and obey His truth, however, we will be set free from spiritual ignorance and error (John 8: 32; 17: 17). That’s why we must be diligent in studying the Bible (2 Timothy 2: 15). It is the only book that tells us the truth about truth. (Illustration by Vernon Grounds, Our Daily Bread)
Introduction: Paul writes this letter to the Corinthians and begins the letter with a reminder to them about the limits of human wisdom. You’re not going to figure it all out. Faith is a great mystery. Can you imagine that Paul had to remind them nearly 2,000 years ago that they didn’t know everything, didn’t understand everything, and weren’t going to have it all figured out? Look at how much more we know today than they did then! Look at the advances in our technology and understanding. Galileo was imprisoned and later died under house arrest for suggesting the earth rotated around the sun. Everyone thought the sun rotated around the earth. We still say “the sun comes up – the sun goes down” even though most of us know the sun doesn’t move. Everyone thought the earth was flat and that if you sailed far enough out on the ocean that you would fall off the end. In the Bible, they thought rain came from heaven, we know now how rain forms, well, you and I might not, but meteorologists can explain it. And if you fly in a plane, you’ll go above the rain clouds. We have become so self-sufficient and smart as a society that many people think that they’ve outgrown God. The irony is that we only know what God allows us to know.
“There is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and Him be wrong any more than a stream could rise higher than its own source. When you argue against Him, you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all.” - CS Lewis on ‘Arguing with God’
What, then, is the truth about truth?
1. The Cross – Power of God (vs. 18)
Paul makes it clear that there are only two categories of people: the “perishing” and the “saved.” Ultimately, all must fall into one of these two classes; there is no other. Paul writes that those who are perishing consider the word of the cross “foolishness.” Five times in eight verses, Paul will use a form of the word “foolishness.” Now it will help you to know the basic Greek word is moria. In 1: 25 it appears as an adjective—moros. I probably don’t have to tell you that we get the English word “moron” from this Greek word. It has the idea of something that is ridiculous, ignorant, stupid, and contemptible. If someone were to say, “You moron!” you would be insulted, and properly so. But that is the very word that Paul uses here—and not just once, but five times. What Paul is saying is this: Most people consider the cross to be moronic! Now there are countless reasons for this, but at the top of the list has to be that the cross offends our pride. The word of the cross is that salvation is freely granted by God’s grace, not human merit or intellect. Furthermore, salvation is extended to all people. This levels the ground at the foot of the cross. Everyone comes to God through faith, based upon the work of Jesus Christ. This offends man’s pride.
While the unbeliever considers the cross utter nonsense, the Christian sees it as “the power of God.” Please read 1: 18b carefully. The word of the cross is not simply good advice or helpful information … it is the power of God! In other words, our victory in salvation and life can only be attained through the cross. The cross is everything to the Christian.
John Stott shares this brilliant thought: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I turn to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me. He set aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death.” These words provide one of the best arguments for both the existence of God and the power of the cross.
2. Wisdom of Man – Foolishness to God (vs. 19-21, 25)
Paul is speaking of the philosopher, the religious scholar, and the debater. What do these three categories of persons have in common? They are all perceived as professional experts. God has not simply disregarded the wisdom of the world or shown it to be foolish. He has “made foolish the wisdom of the world.”
Just think about this: None of us would have ever come up with the plan of salvation that God did. In our “wisdom” we would have made it much more confusing, complex, and inequitable. Earn your way to heaven. We would have devised a “lay-away” salvation plan. But God designed a salvation free for all, available to all, by sending His Son to die for our sins. In the death of Christ, God displayed His own sheer genius in masterminding a plan of salvation whereby He remained both just and the justifier (Romans 3: 26). If we had a million lifetimes to think and create a means by which a holy God would accept sinful man, we could never come up with the cross. Only the inscrutable wisdom of God could have thought of it. God designed His plan of salvation in such a way that sinful man could not come to know Him by human wisdom, which could only exalt man. So God purposed to save lost sinners through a means that seemed utter nonsense to a “wise” world—the cross. In the cross, we see the wisdom of God most fully revealed. In His infinite wisdom, God designed a plan that in no way compromised His holiness or left His righteousness unfulfilled. God’s wrath has been poured out on man’s sin; all the while, His righteous demands have been met, and He is now free to receive sinners into His holy presence. This ought to blow our minds. God “fools” us to show Himself wise and powerful.
Now, please understand, Paul is not against knowledge. God created us to be inquisitive, to investigate, and to gather knowledge. The problem with fallen humanity apart from Jesus is that we still don’t have a clue with the knowledge we obtain. The problem isn’t with knowledge but with the wisdom that interprets and applies the knowledge to concerns and struggles. We need to recognize that our knowledge is limited. But God knows everything that can be known or could be known. We need to entrust ourselves to Him and recognize that He loves to cut the wise and powerful down to size.
Illustration: On one of our trips to Chicago couple of years ago we visited the Sears Tower. We will never forget our awe when we first saw the city’s magnificent skyline. The closer we came, the more the skyscrapers seemed to rise in height. As we headed toward the heart of this impressive city, the imposing buildings ahead of us appeared to grow out of the ground before our very eyes. The famous Sears Tower dwarfed even the tallest of the other superstructures. As we entered downtown Chicago, this massive construction loomed even larger. Standing at its base, we gazed straight up at the 110-story building that soars 1450 feet in the air. Built with 76,400 tons of steel, containing more than 4.5 million square feet, and covered by 16,000 bronze-tinted windows, the Sears Tower is an amazing sight to behold. We were astonished at its greatness and grandeur. The closer we drew, the larger it grew. And the larger it grew, the more we seemed to shrink.
That is what drawing close to something awesome will do. It will make you feel smaller and smaller by comparison. This is precisely the dynamic that occurs in our own hearts when we draw near to the starkest, most awesome display of God’s glory—the cross of Jesus Christ.
3. Christ Crucified – Power & Wisdom of God (vs. 22-24)
Paul explains (“for”) that God humbled the world by keeping those who were wise in their own eyes from knowing God. Paul says that God was “well pleased.” By this, Paul means that God was sovereign over His purposes. God doesn’t want to share His glory (Isaiah 42: 8), so He chooses a message that gives Him the most glory possible.
All of this raises the question, “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?” Why not a heart attack or some other form of death? In Galatians 3: 13 Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us - for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’” This verse reflects the theology of Deuteronomy. The Law of Moses had a curse attached to it. If you failed in one point of the Law, you blew the whole thing and came under the Law’s curse (Deuteronomy 27: 26; Galatians 3: 10; James 2: 10). All of us qualify for the curse. That’s very bad, but here’s something that’s very good. Jesus took our curse for us by hanging on a tree (another term used for the cross). In the Old Testament days, a person who committed a capital crime would be executed, usually by stoning. If the crime was particularly hideous, the dead criminal would then be hung from a tree as the ultimate form of disgrace and shame. This also served as a warning to others. But the central idea was to bring shame to the criminal, because for the Jews to be hung up like that was disgraceful. It was obvious to all that a person hung on a tree was cursed.
Now hold that thought and fast-forward to New Testament times. The Romans had a favorite method of execution for criminals they really wanted to punish. It was crucifixion - nailing the criminal to a cross made of wood from a tree. A good example of the kind of criminal the Romans crucified was Barabbas, the thief and revolutionary who was released by Pilate at Jesus’ crucifixion. Barabbas had led a rebellion against Rome, and that was considered the worse kind of offense. So the Romans didn’t just want to execute Barabbas, they wanted to shame him and make him suffer untold agony. Both were accomplished on a cross.
• First, it was a symbol of shame. You had to be very bad to be crucified.
• Second, it sometimes took crucifixion victims several days to die. The Romans wanted to make these people suffer so much that they would wish for death, but it wouldn’t come for many hours.
So the cross was a curse too, and Jesus came under the curse of the cross. In so doing, He satisfied the curse of the Law and made it possible that you and I would never have to suffer that curse.
Obstacles man faces to understand the power and wisdom of God:
(i) Many people stumble over the cross (1: 22a, 23a). The Jews “stumbled” over the cross because most of them were looking for signs of power. (They must be from Missouri—the “show me” state.) They wanted God to prove Himself to them. In a sense, they required God to submit to them before they would consider submitting to Him. Such people don’t want to obey God; they want to order God around. Jewish history is filled with miraculous events, from the Exodus out of Egypt to the days of Elijah and Elisha. When Jesus was ministering on earth, the Jewish leaders repeatedly asked Him to perform a sign from heaven, but He refused. They were looking for a political leader who would deliver them from the heel of the Roman Empire. They simply could not imagine a crucified Messiah. Because the Jews were looking for power and great glory, they stumbled at the weakness of the cross. How could anybody put faith in an unemployed carpenter from Nazareth who died the shameful death of a common criminal? They looked for a Messiah who would come like a mighty conqueror and defeat all their enemies. He would then set up His kingdom and return the glory to Israel. This was the attitude of the Jews, because their emphasis is on miraculous signs and the cross appears to be weakness.
(ii) Many people laugh at the cross (1: 22b, 23b). Paul identifies with the Greek quest for wisdom. People think that they might submit to God as soon as they can “figure Him out.” They want God to fit into their minds before they will let Him fit into their lives. This was the response of the Greeks. The Greeks didn’t practice crucifixion, so they didn’t have the problems that the Jews did. They looked to philosophy as the answer to the deepest problems of life. The notion of a man hanging on a cross to save the world was utter nonsense to them. To them, the cross was foolishness. The Greeks emphasized wisdom and we still study the profound writings of the Greek philosophers today. But they saw no wisdom in the cross, for they looked at the cross from a human point of view. Had they seen it from God’s viewpoint, they would have discerned the wisdom of God’s great plan of salvation.
(iii) Some people believe and experience the power and the wisdom of the cross (1: 24). “Those who are called” is parallel to “those who believe” (1: 21) and “us who are being saved” (1: 18). Part of being called is being able to hear God’s call, and being open to it. Those who respond by God’s grace are granted His wisdom and power. It is worth noting that Paul did not alter his message when he turned from a Jewish audience to a Greek one; he preached Christ crucified. This is the simple message that everyone needs to hear and believe. The word of the cross is foolishness to the most intelligent and self-sufficient people in the world. But it is the power of God for those who will receive it as a child. The phrase “the power of God” in 1: 18 and 24 brackets 1: 18-24 as a unique literary unity. Verse 25 summarizes this unit and then provides a transition into 1: 26-31.
Application: (a) “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” It is the ultimate “trash-talking, put me in my place” type of statement. Paul is suggesting that IF (and this is a big “if”) it was possible for God to be foolish and weak, His foolishness and weakness would still overwhelm us. This should humble us to dust! The CROSS is NOT just a symbol @ church or an ornament worn around someone’s neck.
(b) Popular Christianity has been big business in politics, entertainment, sports, etc., but many have crossed over without the cross. Yet, Christianity without the cross is like music without a tune. When you and I talk about our beliefs, we must make a beeline to the cross of Christ. That is what makes our message both unique and powerful.
© Finally, it may take a crucified church to bring a crucified Christ before the eyes of the world. Christ’s cross makes foolish human wisdom. The cross insults our intelligence (too simple), ability (nothing to do), and ambition (not glory for self). Yet, the churches that God is going to do great things through are weak and foolish in the world’s eyes, so that God can fool the world and receive wisdom and power.
