I’m trying to decide what picture to put on my gravestone. I was hoping you would help me decide. How about a picture of a noose to represent a hanging? How about a flame to represent a burning at the stake? How about a sword to represent a beheading? How about a stone to represent a stoning? How about an electric chair to represent an electrocution? How about a needle to represent a lethal injection? No? Totally inappropriate? Disturbing? How about a cross? Yes? A cross would be a good picture for my gravestone?
Did you know that there was a time when the image of a cross was as bad or worse than the other images I just mentioned? It’s no wonder Paul said, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (v. 19). The message of the cross says, “Put your trust in a crucified Christ and you will be saved.” What kind of stupidity is that? How can an executed man save me? He couldn’t even save Himself!
PROPOSITION: God has determined to save people in a way that appears foolish to the wisdom of man: through the message of the cross.
Crucifixion was a horrific form of capital punishment. The condemned man died an agonizingly slow death by suffocation. The only way the victim of the cross could breath was by pulling himself up on the nails in his hands or by pushing up on the nail through his feet. After hours of suffering, he would gradually become so exhausted that he no longer had the strength to breathe and would finally die.
At one point early in Julius Caesar’s political career, feelings ran so high against him that he thought it best to leave Rome. He sailed for the Aegean island of Rhodes, but en route pirates attacked the ship and Caesar was captured. The pirates demanded a ransom of 12,000 gold pieced, and Caesar’s staff was sent away to arrange the payment. Caesar spent almost 40 days with his captors, jokingly telling the pirates on several occasions that he would someday capture and crucify them to a man. The kidnapers were greatly amused, but when the ransom was paid and Caesar freed, the first thing he did was gather a fleet and pursue the pirates. They were captured and crucified . . . to a man! (Today in the Word, Nov. 23, 1992).
Such was the Romans’ attitude toward crucifixion. It was reserved for the worst of criminals, the lowest of the low, the scum of the land. It was a means of showing extreme contempt for the condemned. The suffering and humiliation of a Roman crucifixion were unequaled. Polite society simply didn’t discuss crucifixion. Cicero wrote, “Let the very mention of the cross be far removed not only from a Roman citizen’s body, but from his mind, his eyes, his ears.” The idea that anybody who died on the cross was in any sense an exceptional, elevated, noble, or important person was absurd.
And in the face of all this, Paul came, and all he ever talked about was . . . the cross!
The message of the cross divides the human race into two groups: those who are perishing and those who are being saved: “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.”
I. THOSE WHO ARE PERISHING BELIEVE THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS IS FOOLISHNESS.
Newsweek religion editor Kenneth L. Woodward writes:
Clearly, the cross is what separates the Christ of Christianity from every other Jesus. In Judaism there is no precedent for a Messiah who dies, much less as a criminal as Jesus did. In Islam, the story of Jesus’ death is rejected as an affront to Allah himself. Hindus can accept only a Jesus who . . . escapes the degradation of death. The figure of the crucified Christ, says [one Buddhist authority], “is a very painful image for me. It does not contain joy or peace, and this does not do justice to Jesus.” There is, in short, no room in other religions for a Christ who experiences the full burden of mortal existence --- and hence there is no reason to believe in him as the divine Son whom the Father resurrected from the dead. . . . (Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion, p. 231).
A. The message of the cross has turned the wisdom of man into foolishness (vv. 19-21).
For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 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.
The Scripture passage Paul quotes in verse 19 is Isaiah 29:14: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” The message of the cross is God’s way of doing what He said He would do: by the cross, God sets aside and shatters all human claims to wisdom.
Paul asks, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Paul does not merely mean that God made the world’s wisdom appear to be foolish. What he says is far stronger: God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. He has reduced the vaunted wisdom of the world to folly. How has God done this?
1. God has made it impossible for Him to be known through human wisdom (v. 21a).
It was “in the wisdom of God” that “the world through its wisdom did not know him.” Not only did the wise men and the scholars and the philosophers fail to understand, God in His all-wise providence actually worked it out that way.
2. God has made it possible for Him to be known only through faith in the message of the cross (v. 21b).
God determined that some men and women would come to know Him --- but through a means completely unexpected and unforeseen by the “wise” people of the world. “God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (v. 21).
God determined to save those who believe “through the foolishness of what was preached,” not “by the foolishness of preaching” (as the KJV suggests). God determines that the message of the cross, the content of what is preached, should save “those who believe.”
God has not arranged things so that the foolishness of the gospel saves those who have IQ’s in excess of 130. Where would that leave the rest of us? Nor does the foolishness of what is preached transform the young, the beautiful, the extroverts, the educated, the wealthy, the healthy, the upright. Where would that leave the old, the ugly, the introverts, the illiterate, the poor, the sick, the perverse?
These people are saved by Him, not because He chooses those who boast some superior trait or insight, not because He loves people who judge themselves to be wise, but because He has determined to rescue those who believe in Him. By His grace, they trust Him, they rely on Him, they abandon themselves to Him. He is their center, their rock, their hope, their anchor, their confidence. And thus God quietly and effectively banishes the wisdom of our culture as complete foolishness.
B. The message of the cross does not meet the expectations and demands of most people; therefore, they refuse to believe (v. 22-23).
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks.
1. Some people want to believe in something powerful, and to them the message of the cross is weakness.
This kind of person is like the ancient Jews who demanded miraculous signs. When Jesus came on the scene in Israel, the Jews constantly asked Him to give them a sign that would prove He was indeed the Messiah. He once replied, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign!” (Matt. 12:38-39).
You might wonder, “Why did Jesus object to performing signs?” After all, He performed many miracles. Why should He object when someone asked Him for one more?
There is a longing for a display of Jesus’ power that is good. However, there is another kind that puts the person making the request into the driver’s seat. Some want to see Jesus perform a sign so that they can evaluate Him, assess His claims, test His credentials. At one level, of course, He accommodates Himself to our unbelief by performing miracles that ought to provoke faith (John 10:38). But at another level, He cannot possibly reduce Himself to nothing more than a powerful genie who performs spectacular tricks on command. As long as people are assessing Him, they are in the superior position, the position of judge. As long as they are checking out His credentials, they are forgetting that God is the one who will weigh them. As long as they are demanding signs, Jesus, if He constantly complies, is nothing more than a clever performer.
Thus the demand for signs becomes the model of every condition people raise as a barrier to giving their lives to God. I will devote myself to this God if he heals my child. I will follow this Jesus if I can maintain my independence. I will happily become a Christian if God proves Himself to me. I will turn from my sin and read the Bible if my marriage improves. I will acknowledge Jesus as Lord if he performs the kind of miracle, on demand, that removes all doubt. In every case, I am assessing Him; He is not assessing me. I am not coming to Him on His terms; rather, I am stipulating terms that He must accept if He wants the privilege of my company.
Many Jews saw the cross as the ultimate sign that Jesus was not their Messiah. Deuteronomy 21:23 states, “Anyone who is hung on a tree in under God’s curse.” They argued, “How could God’s Messiah be under God’s curse?” It is true that Jesus did die under God’s curse --- not because of His own sin, but because of my sin. However, the Jews did not understand this and the cross became a “stumbling block” to them.
The Jews demanded that God give them a Messiah who met their expectations of power. Instead, God gave them a crucified Messiah, and they would not believe.
2. Some people want to believe is something wise, and to them the message of the cross is foolishness.
This kind of person is like the ancient Greeks who exalted reason and public philosophy, not faith and public criminals. The Greeks and all Gentiles would dismiss an expression like “crucified hero” as complete foolishness.
The world today says, “How stupid to believe that the death of one man on one hill on one piece of wood at one moment of history determines the eternal destiny for every person who ever lived! That’s foolishness!”
The word Paul uses for “foolishness” can be understood to mean “mania” or “madness.” Gentiles wrote off the message of the cross not as harmless folly, but as dangerous, almost deranged.
Isn’t that how may people view Christians today. We are seen by many as not simply harmless fools, but as dangerous enemies of enlightened society.
The Greeks demanded that God follow their way of reasoning. Instead, He gave them a crucified Christ, and they would not believe.
The wisdom of the world (both Jewish and Greek) arises out of man’s rebellion against God and his determination to make God fit his own ideas and desires. The sign-seeker and the wisdom-lover tell God, “The message of the cross is unacceptable to us. We refuse to believe in it.” At the root of this attitude is self-centeredness.
The cross, then, is dismissed and derided by everyone. But still, Paul insists, “we preach Christ crucified” (v. 23). The message of the cross may be nonsense to those who are perishing, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (v. 23), “but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (v. 24).
II. THOSE WHO ARE BEING SAVED BELIEVE THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS IS THE POWER OF GOD.
. . . but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
A. Those who are being saved have been called by God (v. 24a).
. . . but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks. . . .
If it was God’s wisdom that ensured that the world through its wisdom would not know Him (v. 21), how did some people come to believe? If everyone finds the cross foolish and repulsive, how did these people come to delight in it? Paul’s answer: They were called by God Himself (v. 24). In other words, God reached out and saved them. Those whom God calls are always saved. (There are two kinds of “calls”: a general call and an effective call.) “Those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). From the human perspective, we are saved when we “believe” (v. 21). But from God’s perspective, we are saved when He calls us.
B. Those who are being saved have believed that the foolishness of a crucified Christ is actually the power and wisdom of God (v. 24b-25).
. . . Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.
Though most people see the cross as weakness and foolishness, the Holy Spirit has opened up our eyes to see it as the greatest display of the God’s power and wisdom.
APPLICATION
· The message of the cross will never be a popular message. If Christianity becomes too popular, we had better check to make sure we have not so diluted it that the offense of the cross has been removed. This is a great danger today. In our attempts to become seeker sensitive there is the temptation to remove all the offence from the cross. However, to remove the offence from the cross robs it of its power. Paul declared, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). May you and I same the same: “We are not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation of everyone who believes.”
· The message of the cross must never be replaced by the wisdom of strategic planning. There is the danger of depending too much on plans, programs, purpose statements. There is nothing wrong with planning, but it must never take the place of the preaching of the cross.
· The message of the cross destroys all human pride. This was a cause of division in the Corinthian church. Paul reminded them how they were saved. It wasn’t by their own wisdom or ability. It was by the wisdom and power of God through the cross. Was our salvation any different? No. So there is no reason for boasting in ourselves. “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (v. 31).
INVITATION
God has determined that salvation cannot be gained by man’s power or wisdom. It can only be received by faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross and rose again. Will you humbly trust in Him and be saved?
