The Foolishness of the Cross
Posted by Isaac Butterworth | Filed under Five Questions, Gospel, The Cross
In my last few posts I have been experimenting with reading the Scriptures by asking of a given passage five questions. My hope has been to hear the gospel in each passage read. Rather than simply generating a set of “do’s and don’ts,” I have wanted to hear how the text proclaims the transforming power of the gospel to sinners like me.
The key is to look behind the sins we commit to their source, the human heart, which is “deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). It is only then that we are able to hear how the Scriptures speak to us with any hope of transformation. If all we hear the Bible say to us is something like “stop doing wrong and start doing right,” we have no hope of change. The law of God is good; there is no doubt about that. It can show us what we should do, but it cannot give us the power to do it. Only the gospel can do that. In order to hear the gospel in any given passage of Scripture, I ask of that passage these five questions:
- What is the situation?
- What temptations does the situation provoke? Or, what sins do we commit in reaction to the situation?
- What does our reaction reveal about the the condition of the human heart? (It is to the heart’s condition that the gospel must speak. It doesn’t simply say to us, “Don’t commit this or that sin!” It proclaims to us what God has done in Jesus Christ to transform the source of any given sin, which, according to Jesus in Matthew 15:18-19, is the heart.)
- How does the gospel address the heart’s condition?
- How might we respond with living faith, expressed in active love?
As I have mentioned previously, these questions are prompted by two resources which I encourage everyone to access: (1) a most helpful book by Paul David Tripp and Timothy S. Lane entitled How People Change and (2) an enlightening audio series by David Powlison entitled Bible Reading for Personal Application.
In a recent study of 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, I asked each of the questions in turn, and I wanted to log the results of my inquiry. Here is what I found:
This passage comes, of course, from the pen of the Apostle Paul. He is writing to the first century church in Corinth to address certain problems in that congregation. Paul has spent “some time” in Corinth before departing for Syria, and now, according to John Calvin, false teachers arrive in the city, “puffed up” because of their “loftiness of speech,” and they set about promoting “their own honor, rather than Christ’s kingdom and the people’s welfare.” These pretenders look upon “Paul’s simplicity, and even the gospel itself, with contempt.” Their attitude has the effect of splitting the church into various factions. It is no surprise, then, that, in this part of his letter to the church, Paul calls the people to humility, demonstrating that “the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:25).
WHAT IS THE SITUATION?
The situation is one in which “the message of the cross” is proclaimed (1 Cor. 1:18). Or, to say the same thing in different words, it is Paul’s claim that “we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23a).
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:1-5).
In other words, Paul says that he preached the gospel in its simplicity, “not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” (1 Cor. 2:13).
WHAT SINS DO WE COMMIT IN REACTION TO THE SITUATION?
So, what do people do when they hear the gospel preached — forcefully but simply? Many people find that it is not to their liking. They want something “better,” something, perhaps, more refined or even more demonstrative.
Paul exhibits the sinful reactions of two types of people: Jews and Greeks. “Jews demand miraculous signs,” he says, “and Greeks look for wisdom.” What he is telling his readers is that people prefer either a religion of power or a religion of intellect over the message of the cross of Christ. The cross to some is weak; to others it is foolish. Therefore, Paul says, the preaching of Christ crucified is “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23b).
WHAT DOES OUR REACTION REVEAL ABOUT THE CONDITION OF THE HUMAN HEART?
To displace the message of the cross in favor of our tastes exposes — as does every sin — the corruption of the heart. “The man without the Spirit,” Paul says, “does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).
We see here the inability of the fallen human heart to grasp the truth about Christ. “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Cor. 1:18). When it comes to God’s wisdom, displayed in the cross of Christ, “none of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8).
HOW DOES THE GOSPEL ADDRESS THE HEART’S CONDITION?
It is just this inability to understand — this incapacity of the human heart — that the gospel addresses. It unmasks human folly and weakness with its proclamation of God’s wisdom and power. Quoting Isaiah 29:14 and 19:12, Paul writes, “For the message of the cross is…to us who are being saved…the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of 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” (1 Cor. 1:18-21).
It is God who enlightens the heart so that it can understand the wisdom and strength of the cross. God chooses those who will hear the message of the cross, and he effectually calls them, uniting them to Christ, so that they are able to believe the gospel. Paul puts it this way: “To those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] 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. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Cor. 1:24-29).
Of course, when Paul speaks of God’s “foolishness” or God’s “weakness,” he is speaking figuratively. God is neither foolish nor weak. He is wise and strong. But his wisdom and strength are revealed. They are not evident to the mind darkened by sin and therefore trapped in futility (Ephesians 4:17-18). Paul says, “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began” (1 Cor. 2:6-7).
What a great gift this is — to have the wisdom of the cross, of Christ crucified, revealed to us! “As it is written,” Paul says, “‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’ — but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit'” (1 Cor. 2:9-10a, quoting Isaiah 64:4).
Notice the verbs that Paul uses as he speaks to the inability of the unaided human heart to grasp the wisdom of the cross. He tells us that God’s wisdom is “hidden” (2:7) from others but “revealed” (2:10) to those for whom he has “prepared” it (2:9). These he “chose” (1:27, 28) and “called” (1:24, 26, 27). He “destined” his hidden wisdom “for our glory before time began” (2:7). The gospel is all of God, who determined to save sinners through the cross of Jesus Christ.
HOW MIGHT WE RESPOND WITH LIVING FAITH, EXPRESSED IN ACTIVE LOVE?
That brings us to our response. In light of all of this, shall we continue boasting in our own wisdom or ability? Hardly! “It is because of him,” Paul says, “that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord'” (1 Cor. 1:30-31, quoting Jeremiah 9:24).
Our understanding of the gospel cannot be attributed to our intelligence in any way. It is something that we have “received,” as Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 2:10b-12: “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.”
What we have “received” by the grace of God, Paul claims, is “the mind of Christ.” He writes: “The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:15-16, quoting Isaiah 40:13).
The message of the cross, offensive as it may be to those who prefer something more sophisticated or as unsatisfying as it may be to those who crave something more spectacular, is nevertheless the wisdom of God and the power of God. We must preach nothing less — and nothing more — than Christ and him crucified. And, likewise, we must desire to hear from those who preach to us nothing less and nothing more. This is the essence of mature religion: to see in the cross of Christ both God’s wisdom and God’s power.
Photo Credit: Corinth by Ronny Siegel
