The Foolishness Of The Cross (RP1)

(Audio version; Music: "Lead Me To The Cross" by: Hillsong United and "At The Cross" by: Hillsong)

Introduction

            Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Albert Einstein was a genius? He was a brilliant physicist that developed the Special & General Theory of Relativity including the famous equation of “e=mc²” which was used in the development of many modern innovations like, the television, the remote control, lasers and the atomic bomb just to name a few. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics and was named by TIME magazine as the “Person of the Century” in 1999. To say he was really smart is probably an insult. A while back it was announced that one of his letters referred to as Einstein’s “God” letter was being sold on eBay with a starting bid at $3 million! I had never heard of this “God” letter and figured it must have had some brilliant theological insights. Well, before I tell you what I think, I’ve included the relevant excerpt from the letter below so you could read it for yourself:

            “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.

For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions…The Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”[1]

            Well there you have it! If Einstein the genius says it then that must be the definitive word on the subject of God’s existence right? A smart guy like that can’t possibly be wrong; I mean he has that whole “e=mc²” thing going for him! My area of expertise is in theology not in science but I know from my basic science classes that there are some basic and universal principles of scientific inquiry; 1) Pose significant questions that can be investigated empirically; 2) Link research to theory; 3) Use methods that permit direct investigation of question; 4) Provide coherent chain of rigorous reasoning; 5) Replicate and generalize; and 6) Transparency and scholarly debate.[2] Although I’m not certain, I’m guessing Einstein used some form of this methodology in his own scientific research. I think it’s definitely safe to say that Einstein probably did not reach a conclusion before going through these steps. Yet one short sentence from Einstein’s “God” letter reveals that this is precisely what he has done when it comes to his belief in God when he writes, “No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.” That doesn’t sound like a very scientific approach to me. Instead, Einstein has reached a conclusion that God does not exist and no amount of evidence or explanation to the contrary could have changed his conclusion.

            Some people seem to think that smart people are just too smart to believe in God. I mean Einstein must know since he’s so smart right? But you can see by his own words that he has concluded that God doesn’t exist without the same benefit of inquiry that I’m sure he would insist on when doing scientific research. I can see how some people might not believe in God because they see that there are some really “smart” people that don’t believe in God. But that principle can work the other way as well. When I was going through seminary, I was consistently amazed at the brilliance of all my professors. However, my New Testament professor, Dr. Craig Blomberg, was so freakishly smart that I almost felt sorry for him that he had to deal with people like me. Let me just give you a brief bio of Dr. Blomberg: He completed his B. A. Summa Cum Laude from Augustana College, he received his M. A. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he received his Ph. D. from University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He was a Research Fellow in Cambridge, England working with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He is fluent in biblical Hebrew and Greek. He has authored or edited twenty books as well as submitted countless scholarly articles. What I’m trying to say is that he is really, really smart. I remember sitting in his class, probably lost during one of his lectures, thinking that God must exist if someone so smart believes in him. I can’t say whether he was or wasn’t as smart as Einstein but it illustrates my point that belief in God is not a matter of intelligence.

For those of us who are believers, God becoming incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ and dying on the cross to pay for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God makes perfect sense. However, the Hebrews of Jesus’ day couldn’t accept a Savior that didn’t conform to their image of a conquering Messiah that would liberate them from Roman occupation. The Greeks couldn’t accept a God that was too weak to save Himself from being nailed to a cross. Einstein calls the notion of God “childish.” Some unbelievers might agree with that but most just consider belief in a God that allowed Himself to be put to death as foolishness. It is The Foolishness of the Cross that is so often the obstacle to their belief regardless of how smart they might be. And that is the point of my lesson this week so let’s take a look at the relationship between the Bible and unbelievers the world considers wise and intellectually reliable.

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5

¹⁸For 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. ¹⁹For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” ²⁰Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For 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. ²²Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. ²⁶Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰It 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. ³¹Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. ²For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. ⁴My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, ⁵so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

Context

            Paul is writing this letter to the church in Corinth to address some sort of division in the local church there (I know you’re shocked that there could be division in a church!). It appears that the division centers around whose teachings are the best to follow. In other words, the church was picking sides and Paul is reminding them that all believers are one body and followers of Christ and Christ’s teachings alone since Christ is the one who died on the cross and into whose name we have been baptized. Paul is insisting that superior human intelligence and wisdom cannot elevate one believer over another if Christ is the center and focus of our faith. “In order to preserve the threatened unity of the church, Paul established that the formation of inner-church groupings had no basis in his ministry as founder of the church nor in the gospel as such. He had baptized only a few of the Corinthians, and his teaching was not worldly wisdom teaching where one teacher may be superior to the other. On the contrary, he had promulgated the gospel—proclaimed by himself and his fellow apostles who were nothing but servants of Christ responsible to God.”[3] Paul goes on to teach in our Subject Text that wisdom and intelligence, if anything, is an obstacle to believing. That’s not to say that smart and wise people can’t and don’t become believers but they do so not because of their superior intelligence but in-spite of it.

Text Analysis

¹⁸For 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.

            As usual, Paul pulls no punches in v. 18 as he makes clear that the cross is only foolish for those who are perishing. Some believers read with satisfaction that they are not included among those who are “perishing.” But these are dire words indeed. Note that Paul makes no specific distinction of those who are included within the definition of those who are perishing. It isn’t a matter of intelligence, wealth, beauty, age, race, gender, or anything else. It is a matter of whether one accepts, as true, Christ’s atonement for our sins through his death on the cross. The cross is the great equalizer for all humanity. “From the standpoint of his new position in Christ, Paul with this sentence sets forth the two basic groups of humankind. Formerly, as a Jew, it was Jew and Gentile (just as for the Greco-Roman it was Greek/Roman and barbarian). Now it is ‘us who are being saved’ and ‘those who are perishing.’ The former groups, Jew and Gentile, continue to exist (indeed, in v. 22 they will serve as representatives for the two most common human ‘idolatries’), but apart from Christ they now both belong to the ‘perishing.’”[4]

¹⁹For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

            In v. 19, Paul draws on the words of Isaiah (Isa 29:14) to demonstrate that God’s ways are not like the ways of the world. The Greek word for “frustrate” can also be translated as “reject, ignore, invalidate or set aside.” How often do we think we know what is right or better even though God says just the opposite? Whether it’s in the area of money, sex or power, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we know that our way must be better than God’s way. Ultimately, that leads to the belief that God is irrelevant. Therefore, it’s up to us to live life according to what we think is best. We do the best we can and try to be the best person we can be and either don’t think about what happens at the end of life or hope we’ve been good enough to make God happy. It is humanity’s sinful condition that believes we’re smarter, wiser or stronger than God but “in its original context this passage belongs to that grand series of text that regularly warn Israel, or someone in Israel, not to try to match wits with God (cf. Isa 40:12-14, 25; Job 38-42). Yet it is the folly of our human machinations that we think we can outwit God, or that lets us think that God ought to be at least as smart as we are. Paul sees this Isaiah passage as now having eschatological fulfillment. In the cross, the promised ‘great reversal’ has been played out before human eyes in its ultimate way.”[5]

²⁰Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

Paul continues his point in v. 20 by highlighting those who are highly esteemed in virtually every society: Those who are wise, the philosophers and the scholars. Paul is not disparaging wisdom and intelligence generally, this is clear when he uses the qualifying statement “of this age” which is elsewhere translated “of this world.” Instead, Paul calls into question worldly wisdom “to say what is left of a human wisdom which God’s saving acts have left high and dry in the light of the cross. The cross places giving, receiving, and serving above achieving or ‘finding the right formula.’”[6]

²¹For 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.

Paul makes a subtle but important point in v. 21 when he says that God in his wisdom knew that the world in its wisdom would not believe in him. Yet God used what the world considered foolish, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, to save those the world did not consider wise. It is really brilliant when you stop and think of it; those of us who may not be considered very wise or intelligent are saved because we believe the very thing that makes us foolish in the eyes of a world that considers itself to be wise and intelligent for not believing. And to top it off, that’s exactly the way God planned it!

²²Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

            In vv. 22-23 Paul explains that the Jews want proof and the Greeks want rational comprehension. But all the Church has to offer is that God incarnate in Christ was crucified for our sins. The Jews cannot possibly accept that the Rock of Ages would sacrifice Himself for His creation. Therefore Christ becomes the capstone the builders reject and the stone that causes people to stumble (1 Peter 2:7-8). Instead, the “Jews viewed the crucifixion as the ultimate proof that Jesus had been cursed by God for some sin of his own.”[7] For the Greeks, who prized rational thought and clever rhetoric, the message of the cross was unintelligent. “Many Greeks found numerous aspects of the story of Christ’s death foolish—a suffering God, the ideal of perfect order destroyed, a criminal Messiah, and a way to God not based on human speculation.”[8] Is this really very different from today? Those who refuse to believe at once demand proof of Jesus’ claims while at the same time refusing to believe that God could become a man, offer Himself to die a gruesome death on the cross and then rise back to life after three days in the grave.

²⁴but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

            In contrast to all those who can’t or won’t believe are those who do believe because God has called them to belief. Paul makes clear in v. 24 that God has called both Jew and Greek. Paul’s identification of Jew and Greek is not intended to establish a limitation but to illustrate the two extremes intended to include all those who fall within the extremes. Those who accept God’s call to believe find that,

“The cross of Christ constitutes precisely the mode of action which conveys God’s power and God’s wisdom. It does not rest on human calculations about signs of the times, nor upon manipulative devices which entice belief, nor does it rest on self-defeating strategies to master life by techniques of human wisdom. God’s manifestation of power and wisdom operates on a different basis, namely, the way of love which accepts the constraints imposed by the human condition or plight and the prior divine act of promise, and becomes effectual and operative (has power) in God’s own way, for it corresponds with God’s own nature as revealed in Christ and in the cross. Any version of the gospel which substitutes a message of personal success for the cross is a manipulative counterfeit.”[9]

²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Finally Paul reminds us in v. 25 that our wisdom is hardly comparable to the wisdom of God and any weakness of God is still stronger than any person’s strength. “In the cross God ‘outsmarted’ his human creatures and thereby nullified their wisdom. In the same cross God also ‘overpowered’ his enemies, with lavish grace and forgiveness, and thereby divested them of their strength…Had God consulted us for wisdom we could have given him a more workable plan, something that would attract the sign-seeker and the lover of wisdom. As it is, in his own wisdom he left us out of the consultation. We are this left with the awful risk: trust God and be saved by his wise folly, or keep up our pretensions and perish.”[10]

²⁶Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹so that no one may boast before him.

Paul reminds his readers in vv. 26-29 that when they were first called by God to believe, the world probably didn’t consider them wise. Furthermore, they weren’t socially or politically influential either positionally or by birth. In fact, being affiliated with Christ and the cross made them appear foolish in the eyes of the world. But it is precisely these “foolish” ones that God uses to shame the wise; those who are the lowest, those who are the weakest and those who are despised to shame those who are strong and highly esteemed by society. God uses what has been discarded by the world to shame the world. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to make sense to us because the wise, intelligent, prominent, popular and strong have a louder voice in society and could advance the gospel so much more effectively given the fact that when they talk, the world seems to listen. But that’s precisely the problem as far as Paul’s concerned. A wise person boasts in their wisdom, a strong person in their strength, a smart person in their intelligence and a powerful person in their influence. But those who are despised, broken and weak can only rely on God and as a result can boast only in what God has done for them and in them.

³⁰It 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. ³¹Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

Paul tells them in vv. 30-31 that it is because of God’s wisdom that Christ came to us. And by extension, Christ and everything He represents for us; righteousness, holiness and redemption, is now God’s wisdom reflected in our lives. Consequently, everything about our lives must be Christ-centered because everything we have comes from God through Christ. Paul calls on the words of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 9:24) at the end of the chapter imploring those who boast about anything should boast only in the Lord who has called them to faith in the great reversal that shows worldly wisdom, strength and influence to be shameful in light of the what God has done in and through the foolish, weak and despised.

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. ²For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. ⁴My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, ⁵so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

Paul picks up in Chapter 2, vv. 1-2 right where he left of at the end of chapter one when he claims to have come to them originally without fancy words or intellectual arguments about God. Instead, Paul was determined to keep his testimony simple and to the point: Christ and the cross. “Paul does not deny that he tried to present his message in as compelling a form as possible, merely that by the world’s standards he was at best ordinary.”[11] Paul’s comment in v. 3 that he came to the Corinthians originally in weakness, fear and trembling, is difficult to understand because we don’t really know the context of Paul’s weakness. Many believe that it is a reference to some sort of illness since some of his other letters reference “my illness” (Gal 4:14) in one case and “severe suffering” (1 Thess 1:5-6) in another. Nevertheless, Paul uses his “weakness” as an advantage to demonstrate the power of God’s message even in, or perhaps especially in, weakness.

Paul’s sense of “fear and trembling” is not based in the receptivity of his audience but in the gravity of the message. “Paul is precisely not a visiting orator come to entertain the crowds as an audience-pleasing performer.”[12] Instead, Paul makes it clear in vv. 4-5 that even though his words may have not been wise or persuasive as defined by the world, they were, nevertheless, laden with the power of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, their faith was not rooted in the wisdom or words of Paul but in the power of God alone. Paul “deliberately avoided the very thing that now fascinated them, ‘the persuasion of wisdom.’ But his preaching did not thereby lack ‘persuasion.’ What it lacked was the kind of persuasion found among the sophists and rhetoricians, where the power lay in the person and his delivery. Paul’s preaching, on the other hand, despite his personal appearance and whatever its actual form, produced the desired results, namely it brought about the faith of the Corinthians.”[13]

Application

            This ministry has put me right in the line of fire for those “smart” and “wise” people who think I’m “diluted, deceived, unintelligent and irrational” just to point out a few of the more civilized ways some readers have characterized me. But I’m pretty sure that I’m none of those things (at least not most of the time). Nevertheless, standing up for the truth of the Gospel seems terribly difficult at times. Not because it’s hard to defend but because most of us are the foolish, weak and despised and don’t have much of a voice in the world. We’re not like Einstein who says belief in God is “childish” and an illustration of “human weakness” and because he’s a genius, people automatically think he must be right. But that’s the beauty of God’s wisdom! We don’t need to match wits with the Einsteins of the world. We can put them all to shame with the message of salvation represented by our lives.

We each have a salvation “story” that demonstrates, first, God’s mercy but also God’s power to transform lives. If you are a believer, think about your “story” against the backdrop of Einstein’s words. You substance abusers or addicts of any kind who have kicked the habit; is that weakness? You women who have been abused and/or raped yet have forgiven those who have harmed you; is that weakness? You single people who remain sexually pure until your wedding while fighting a world constantly trying to entice you to compromise; is that weakness? You who have forgiven your spouse who has been unfaithful to you; is that weakness? You who have given your lives in service to those who are lost, broken, hungry or in prison; is that weakness? Don’t be intimidated by a world that prizes intelligence, power, influence and outward beauty. You have all you need because of what God has done for you and in you through Christ. Remember The Foolishness of the Cross will never make sense to those who are perishing!

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[1] “Einstein ‘God’ letter to sell on eBay, with bidding starting at $3M,” http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/04/einstein-god-letter-on-ebay-with-bidding-starting-at-3m/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+(Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content), (Accessed October 4, 2012).

[2] “Principles of Scientific Inquiry,” http://www.mc3edsupport.org/community/knowledgebases/principles-of-scientific-inquiry-64.html, (Accessed October 5, 2012).

[3] Gerald F. Hawethorne, Ralph P. Martin, Daniel G. Reid, eds., Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, (Downers Grove, IL: InverVarsity Press, 1993), p. 969.

[4] Gordon D. Fee, NICNT, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 68-69.

[5] Ibid., p. 70.

[6] Anthony C. Thiselton, NIGTC, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000), p. 162.

[7] Craig Blomberg, The NIV Application Commentary, 1 Corinthians, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), p. 53.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Thiselton, NIGTC, p. 172.

[10] Fee, NICNT, p. 77.

[11] Blomberg, NIV, 1 Corinthians, p. 54.

[12] Thiselton, NIGTC, First Corinthians, p. 213.

[13] Fee, NICNT, First Corinthians, p. 94.