1
Corinthians 1:18-2:5
Key verse
1:18
We live in
the age of information. Knowledge and information is power. The gospel has been
losing its voice and Christians also are ashamed of
it, thinking that it is inferior to worldly wisdom. Now look at the Jesus on
the cross. Does he look noble, beautiful, glorious or sad and miserable? What
comes to your mind is the reflection of your understanding of the gospel and
your spiritual status. Are you proud of the cross of Jesus or feel nothing
about it?
In today’s
passage, Paul declares that the gospel is the most powerful and intelligent. If
you don’t know the gospel yet, this is the message for you. If you already know
the gospel but feel no power in your life, I pray that God may restore your faith
and strength through this message.
I. Human wisdom vs. the message
of the cross
V18 - For
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.”
If you
preach, you will see all kinds of different responses from people. The majority
of them, however, will show some kind of indifference or contempt to the
message of the cross. To them, the cross does not make sense. To some others,
the cross is just a religious symbol or an amulet. But to those who are being
saved it is the power of God. Why?
Paul first
talked about the wisdom of the world. Greek people sought wisdom and intelligence.
Among them were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The school of Athens (the name
of goddess of wisdom) was regarded as the symbol of human wisdom. Greek people
developed so-called Hellenism, which dominated the world in Paul’s time and
even now. There are benefits on such wisdoms. What does the Bible say about the
wisdom of the world?
V19-21a - 19 For it is
written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the
intelligent I will frustrate.” 20 Where 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? 21 For
since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him,
Human wisdom
never acknowledges or overcomes man’s sin and death. Basically, it rejects God
the Creator. So, it never recognizes the need of the gospel and thus fails to
receive God’s salvation. As man rejected God, God concealed himself from human
wisdom and made it nothing. He hid the way of salvation in the wisdom of the
world. Human wisdom instead leads us to fatalism and nothing.
When I was
young, I read the book “The old man and the sea” written by Ernest Hemingway.
He was honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was a kind of emblem
of intelligence in the 20th century. But he ended with suicide in 1961. His
intelligence and wisdom did not save him. Instead, it led him to nothing. His
tragic end shows the limitation of human wisdom.
As such, man
totally failed to know God through his wisdom and thus cannot be saved from his
sin. Yet, God opened an amazing way for salvation.
V21b -
God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to
save those who believe.
God was
gracious and was pleased to save people regardless of their rebellion. However,
his salvation is not through human wisdom but through the Jesus on the cross.
II. Paul preaches Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God
However, the
Jesus on the cross was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.
22 Jews demand signs and Greeks
look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles,
Jews demanded
miraculous signs, which they thought were the evidence of being a savior. But
Jesus was crucified powerlessly, which was considered as God’s curse. So, the
cross became a stumbling block for them to believe Jesus. Greeks looked for
wisdom. But the Jesus on the cross was just a criminal and nothing to them. How
could such a weak person be a savior? It was nonsense to them.
Nevertheless, Paul preached Christ crucified. Who is Christ crucified he
preached? Why was Jesus crucified?
The Bible says that man is sinful
and dies because of his sin. (Rom 3:10,23;
Rom 5:12) But that is not all. Man must stand before God to be judged and his
destiny is hell. (Heb 9:27; 2 Cor 5:10; Rom 2:6-9; Rev 21:8) Man lives under the power of sin and death all
his life.
Is there any way to be saved from the power of sin and death? No!
There is nothing man can do about it unless someone pays off the wages of sin
for us. The wages of sin is death. That means the payment requires someone’s
life and he must be righteous enough to satisfy God’s holiness. Who can satisfy
God’s holiness? No one except God himself. To save sinners, God himself came to
us in flesh to pay for our sins and he is Christ Jesus. By his death on the
cross, Jesus has paid for all our sins and satisfied God’s holiness.
1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we
might die to sins and live for righteousness;
Romans
3:25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of
atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did
this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left
the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
By being crucified, Jesus gave his life to pay off all our sins. Who can pay off our sins? Who can
save us from the power of sin and death? The wise man? The scholars? The
philosopher of this age? The wisdom of the world? No, they all failed. Only God
can save us from the power of sin and death. And his power was demonstrated in Christ
crucified.
We have
learned that Christ Jesus was crucified to meet God’s holiness, which shows
God’s justice and righteousness. But we know that God is gracious too. Some
might wonder why God simply overlooks or forgives us our sins since he is
gracious. Here is a dilemma – how justice and grace go together?
There lived
a king. He loved his people. But he found out that his people drank wine too
much. So, he issued a decree that anyone who was caught drunken must be
punished by gouging out his two eyes. One day, a young man was caught while he
was drinking and was brought to the king. And surprisingly he was the king’s
son. What do you think the king did? Did he gouge out his son’s two eyes? If
so, the king would be a merciless father. If he released his son unpunished, he
would violate his own decree. Either way, he would contradict himself. This was
what the king did. He gouged out one of his son’s eyes and then one of his eyes.
That way he kept his decree and saved his son.
In much the
same way, God showed his justice and grace through Christ Jesus. God punished
his Son Jesus in place of sinners and thus met his righteousness and displayed his
love and grace for sinners as well.
As such,
Christ crucified demonstrates God’s power and wisdom. God’s power and wisdom is far beyond man’s power and wisdom!
24 but to those whom God has called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For
the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the
weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Paul
preached Christ crucified all his life, risking his life, but before he knew
Jesus, he had persecuted Christians. He led people to stone Stephen to death
and did bad things to Christians. But one day the risen Jesus appeared to him
and asked him why he persecuted him. But Jesus didn’t punish him but instead
led him to repentance and called him for his purposes. Since he met the risen
Jesus, such an enemy of God had been changed 180 degrees. In 1 Cor 15:9-10 he
said, “9 For I am the least of the apostles and do
not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church
of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I
am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than
all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”
Paul
preached Christ crucified with no fear and no shame. He lived a very powerful life
for the glory of God. Where did his power come from? It came from Christ
crucified who forgave his sins and called him by grace.
Rom 1:16 -
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of
God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the
Jew, then to the Gentile.
As such, to
those whom God has called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
And his power is real and living in those who believe Christ crucified. Do you
believe that Christ Jesus died for you? Do you believe that Christ crucified
has taken away all your sins? Do you believe that Christ crucified has made you
righteous before God? Believe Christ crucified and you will experience the
power of living God in you. Amen!
III. How the power and wisdom of God was displayed in the
Corinthians
After
presenting Christ crucified, Paul reminds the Corinthians of how the power and
wisdom of God was actually demonstrated in them.
26 Brothers 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.
Roman
society class was based on birth. Many of the Corinthian Christians derived
from the lower ranks of society. They were so called “the things that are not,”
which referred to the ones who were worthless. They were powerless and hopeless
people.
What did God
do for them?
27 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. 28 God chose the
lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are
not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no
one may boast before him.
God chose the
foolish, the weak, the lowly, and the despised so that they cannot but praise
and honor God. Look at us. Who can say, “I deserve
God’s calling?” Billy Graham used to be a timid boy. But God chose him and has
used him for his great purposes. John Newton was a slave trader. But God chose
him and later he composed one of the most recognizable songs “Amazing Grace.” Dwight
Moody was an uneducated person but God called him to be a great evangelist in
American church history. He was not a good speaker, but through his message the
Seven Cambridge students decided to become missionaries in China. He said, "If this world is going to be reached,
I am convinced that it must be done by men and women of average talent."
30 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.
By God’s
grace, we are in Christ Jesus who defends us before God, sanctifies us, and
redeems us from sin and death. We did nothing. But God did everything for us
through Jesus. Jesus was everything to us. Amen!
IV. How Paul preaches
the gospel
Let’s see
how Paul preached the gospel in Corinth.
V2:1-2 - 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. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was
with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came
to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My
message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with
a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that
your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Paul
preached without eloquence or human wisdom. Paul was a great writer but not a good
speaker. But that was not the reason why he preached without eloquence. As
mentioned earlier, human wisdom utterly failed to know God and his power. Only
Christ crucified can save us. He is all we need. Paul believed that Christ
crucified is God’s power and wisdom. So he preached with great fear and
trembling so that he might preach Jesus Christ only and thus their faith might
rest on God’s power not on human wisdom.
However,
after Paul left Corinth, the Corinthian Christians were getting away from the
gospel Paul taught. As their faith in the gospel was weakened, they lost the
power of God in them. And then they looked for something else like eloquent
speech, human knowledge, or miracles. So, when Apollos came to them, they
hailed him because he spoke with eloquence. When Peter went there, they
welcomed him because they saw some visible power of God through him. As a
result, their gospel was compromised and twisted and the church suffered from
all kinds of problems, such as division, sexual immorality, idol worship, and
disputed on spiritual gifts. The power of God does not come from human’s wisdom
and power. Rather, such things compromise the gospel and thus weaken the power
of the gospel. They needed to go back to the gospel of Jesus and firmly believe
Christ crucified. That was why Paul reminded them of the gospel throughout the
book of 1 Corinthians. Particularly in chapter 15, he said, “3 For
what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that
he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to
the Scriptures,”
Today Christians have the same
problem as the Corinthians did. One time I had a chance to watch a famous
pastor delivering a message. I had never seen such an eloquent preacher. I was
just amazed. The people there were all amazed too by his nonstop heart-moving
speech. They were all greatly excited about him, shedding tears. I was jealous
of him since I was not a good speaker. But later I noticed that something was missing
in his message. He talked a lot about positive thinking but not much about Christ
crucified.
The problem of Christians today
is that they follow God with no confidence in the power of Jesus Christ. So, some
spiritual leaders and churches try to add to the gospel, all kinds of things
like rules, practices, programs, membership benefits and human words to attract
and retain people. Some Christians talk a lot about spiritual things but are
frustrated with their powerless life. Even worse, they seek something else outside
church to satisfy their spiritual hunger. Without faith in the power of the
gospel, human efforts and wisdom rather compromise the gospel and we will never
experience the power of God.
Many Christians miss the most
powerful thing God has ever given to man, that is Jesus Christ on the cross. Christ
Jesus is the power and wisdom of God. If you feel powerless or dry, then hold again
to Christ crucified who died for your sins and believe
him. Believe 100 percent Christ crucified and the wisdom of God will illuminate
your hearts and the Spirit of God will empower you to do great things. Christ
crucified is all we need! I pray that we all may win a victory this year by
believing Christ crucified, who is the power of God.
Message by David Yun
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