The Folly of the Crucifixion I. Base Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 II. Context and Interpretation A. Having greeted the Corinthian Christians and given thanks for them (1 Corinthians 1:1-9), Paul immediately took issue with the divisiveness which had arisen among them (1 Corinthians 1:10-17) B. Paul was concerned that people were using the fact he baptized them to foment such division; he wished to make it clear that he was called to preach the Gospel, “not in the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void” (1 Corinthians 1:14-17) C. Paul then expands based on this contrast between the wisdom of words and the cross of Christ 1. Word of the cross is foolish to those perishing; to those being saved the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18) 2. Paul then quotes Isaiah 29:14 LXX with some modification: the wisdom of the wise will be destroyed; God will thwart the discernment of the discerning (1 Corinthians 1:19) 3. Paul then rhetorically asks where all the wise, scribes, debates of the age are, for God has made their wisdom foolish; according to His wisdom they did not know Him, and so it is God’s good pleasure to save some through the foolishness of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:20-21) D. Paul then speaks of another contrast: Jews seek signs, Greeks wisdom, but Christians preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, foolishness to Greeks, but the power and wisdom of God to those Jews and Greeks being saved (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) 1. We can find many Jewish requests for signs in the New Testament (e.g. Matthew 12:38-39, 16:1-4, John 2:18, 6:30) 2. Paul perhaps has such in mind, but also may be speaking to a general disposition: they expect to see divine demonstrations of things according to their expectations or at least within the range of things they can countenance 3. Greeks seek after philosophy (philosophia is “love of wisdom”), full of philosophical schools: Platonic, Peripatetic (Aristotelian), Cynic, Stoic, Epicurean (cf. Acts 17:18) 4. For better or worse, the current state of Western knowledge and wisdom follows the Greek trajectory 5. Paul accurately assesses the Jewish and Greek response to the Gospel proclamation of Christ crucified 6. For Jews, a stumbling block (cf. Isaiah 8:14-15, Romans 9:32-33, 1 Peter 2:8) a. It was not as if there was no Messianic speculation regarding the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12 among the Jews of the first century... b. ...but Jews of the Second Temple Period were looking for a Messiah who would conquer the Romans, not be crucified by them c. The idea of the Christ as having come, lived, died, raised from the dead, and then reigns over a transcendent Kingdom was scandalous, something upon which the Jews of the day tripped, and did not accept it (cf. Acts 28:21-27) d. The idea of God being One in Three Persons was a non-starter; that God would become flesh and dwell among them seemed blasphemous; what good was the transcendent Kingdom in terms of overcoming the Roman oppression and liberation from pagan overlords (cf. John 6:15, 8:59, 10:33)? 7. For Greeks, foolishness a. Greek philosophy was rather unified in terms of not thinking highly of the Greek anthropomorphic gods b. Plato, in particular, was enamored with his theory of the Forms, and thought of everything on earth as rather imperfect manifestation of the forms c. We can well understand the response to the Gospel on Areopagus in Acts 17:32: so much of Greek philosophy was a desire to cast off the physical and material and embrace pure spirit, and Paul would preach that God in pure spirit would take on flesh, dwell among us, be crucified, and then bodily raised! d. We do well to note how the Corinthians themselves struggled with these things (1 Corinthians 15:1-58), and how many Greek believers would be tempted to hold to a de-fleshed version of Jesus (1 Timothy 6:20-21, 2 Timothy 2:16-18, 1 John 2:18-27, 4:1-6, 2 John 1:7-11) e. According to Greek philosophy, therefore, almost every premise of the Gospel, and the idea of the Christ crucified, was sheer folly, entirely incompatible with their ideology! E. And so 1 Corinthians 1:25: God’s foolishness is greater than man’s wisdom; God’s weakness is stronger than man! F. Paul then turned to the Corinthians themselves as a manifest example: not many among them are wise, noble, or mighty, but are lowly (1 Corinthians 1:26) 1. A recognition of the appeal of Christianity mostly among the humble and poor classes 2. And yet Paul says “not many” for good reason; there are some among them who were of nobility or of note (Gaius, Erastus the treasurer; cf. Romans 16:23) G. Paul then declares how through His embodiment in Jesus, the Gospel, and election, God is putting to shame the wise and strong of this world, elevating folly and weakness according to the world, bringing to naught the system of the world, so none would have a right to glory before God (1 Corinthians 1:27-29) 1. Jesus would put it another way: whoever humbles himself will be exalted, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled; the first will be last and the last first (Matthew 20:1-16, 23:12, etc.) 2. Prophesied of Jesus; manifest in the Kingdom (Luke 1:46-55, 2:29-35) H. Paul encourages the Christians: through Christ we have access to God, who made Jesus our righteousness, sanctification, and wisdom; thus those who boast should do so in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:30-31; cf. Jeremiah 9:23-24) I. In this way Paul lifts up the image of Jesus on the cross as the embodiment of God’s “foolishness” setting to naught the wisdom and ways of this world J. What are we to gain today regarding the folly of the crucifixion? III. The Foolishness of God Versus the Wisdom of Men A. Paul well chose to emphasize the cross, Jesus’ crucifixion, as the foolishness of God B. To this day, Jesus’ crucifixion is the least disputed part of His life and ministry... C. ...but its meaning proves compelling, and contrary to the way any human would go about things 1. Acts 3:17 and 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 are present for a reason: no one knew what they were really doing when they crucified Jesus of Nazareth 2. For good reason: if you were going to establish a new Kingdom, liberate people from bondage, etc., how would you go about it? 3. People have tried for generations; it all involves the persuasion of people, marshaling of forces, and victory on the battlefield against the oppressor D. Almost everything about the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth would fall afoul of “conventional wisdom” 1. He was born to poor parents, not wealthy; He was not formally educated and trained in Jerusalem by the appropriate authorities but grew up in the backwater of Nazareth (Luke 2:22-24, 39, John 7:15) 2. His coalition of followers were not well-trained and equipped to staff major positions (Matthew 10:1-4) 3. He went about doing good, teaching, healing, not organizing, marshaling forces; when He would be made king, He fled (Matthew 11:4-6, John 6:15) 4. And at the center of it all, Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph to receive His Kingdom...by being betrayed, arrested, mocked, derided, beaten, and crucified (Matthew 21:1-11, 26:14-27:66) E. This is not the way anyone would have designed it...and that is precisely the point! 1. Throughout the Gospels Jesus can appeal to the Scriptures to demonstrate what He is doing 2. We can make comprehensible sense of Jesus in terms of the hopes and expectations of Second Temple Judaism, and yet this is not the way you would put the story together 3. Birth, life, reign, death, resurrection on the final day perhaps; but not birth, life, death, resurrection, reign 4. Thus what is true about the inclusion of Gentiles in Ephesians 3:1-6 is true about the crucifixion as well: God only made all of this known as it was happening, and made sense of it only by revelation afterward! F. The disciples embody this tendency well: they are full of the expectations of Second Temple Judaism, they are convinced Jesus is the Messiah, but do not really understand what He is doing and how He is doing it until it is all said and done (John 6:68-69, Matthew 16:15-23, Acts 1:7, 2:1-47, 10:1-11:18) G. And so in the crucifixion of Jesus we see the supernal “foolishness” of God as greater than the wisdom of man 1. We can see the end result of man’s ideas about how things should have gone down in Jerusalem in the first century: the Jews revolted against Rome and were crushed in 70 2. The “way things are” in man’s view, according to the systems of this world, keep repeating the same cycles over and over, and to what end? 3. God knew what He was doing in Christ, even when no one else did H. In this way we see the hand of God in Jesus of Nazareth, His life and death, and it should lead us to humility and faith I. And, as a result, we ought to look skeptically toward the wisdom of men 1. It has proven all too easy for the people of God to recognize how God has overthrown the wisdom of men in Jesus but then go about trying to do everything else according to man’s wisdom 2. And yet Colossians 2:8-9: we are not to be taken captive by philosophy and appeals to the elemental spirits of this world 3. James 3:13-18: a strong difference between worldly, demonic wisdom and the divine wisdom from above! 4. And yet, to this day, too many will set aside things Jesus says because “that’s just not the way things work here” 5. Yes, many of the things Jesus has taught about violence, peacemaking, sacrifice, suffering, humility, equality, etc. are not the way things work here; that’s precisely the point (Matthew 5:17-58, Colossians 3:1-11) J. The world is obsessed with knowledge and expertise; they use the same methodology to come to understanding of things as used by the Greeks, that very same wisdom which God has rendered futile and void in Christ 1. There are many things which we can understand about the creation using the scientific method and general philosophical means of inquiry 2. Many of these things are not wrong; but their truth are not rooted in those methods, but in how they accurately reflect how God has made and sustains the world (Romans 1:18-20, Colossians 1:15-18, 2:9-10, Hebrews 1:3) 3. But we must always remember that God is greater than man, as are His ways and thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9); human logic and wisdom has its limits; they must all be subjected to the revelation God has made in Christ (Hebrews 1:1-3) K. To trust in Jesus the Crucified One as Lord and Christ means we must look askance at the ways of the world, and remember in humility how God’s foolishness is greater than man! IV. The Weakness of God Versus the Strength of Men A. We do well to also focus on another element of God in Christ set forth in the crucifixion: the weakness, and vulnerability, of God B. After all, by definition, crucifixion meant failure: a public, humiliating, devastating death 1. Judas the Galilean and many others rose up in the first century, claiming to be the Messiah; after they were crucified, their movements dissipated (Acts 5:34-39) 2. Crucifixion represented how Rome kept the peace: brute force, which everyone would see and from which they would learn 3. Is it really hard to imagine why Greeks thought of a crucified Lord and God as foolishness? 4. Some of the earliest graffiti testifying to Christianity is a donkey on a cross with the inscription “Alexandros worships his god” a. Not flattering; indication of pagan derision aimed at Alexandros b. Christian exaltation of a crucified guy would have entirely baffled pagans! C. And yet early Christians went out of their way to emphasize the humiliation Jesus suffered! 1. Acts 5:30, 10:39: Peter speaks of Jesus as “hung upon a tree” 2. Explained in Galatians 3:10-14: Peter and Paul evoke Deuteronomy 21:22-23, a curse of the Law on those who hang upon trees; Paul thus declares that Jesus took the curse upon Himself 3. Thus, far from running away or attempting to minimize Jesus’ humiliation and suffering, which any decent public relations firm would want to do, the Apostles boldly proclaimed it and made their stand upon it D. Why would the Apostles do such a thing? By revelation they discerned how Jesus proved obedient and victorious by suffering and enduring humiliation: in Christ weakness was strength, strength weakness! 1. Hebrews 4:15, 5:7-8 speak of Jesus being able to identify with us in all points 2. Colossians 2:10-15, Ephesians 2:11-18: Jesus as killing the hostility, triumphing over the principalities and powers on the cross 3. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10: Paul must learn this lesson through a thorn in the flesh: in Christ weakness is strength E. Peter drives home the implications of the prophecies of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12 in 1 Peter 2:18-25 1. He was reviled, but did not revile in return 2. He suffered, but did not threaten retaliation but entrusted Himself to God who judges justly 3. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree 4. By His wounds we find healing 5. And to what end? So we can die to sin, live to righteousness, and to follow His example, enduring suffering! F. We can hardly overstate how counter-cultural and counter-intuitive this idea of a Crucified Lord and Christ prove in all cultures at all times! 1. In Roman times as well as today “conventional wisdom” demands that we project strength, confidence, and assertiveness 2. Practically might has always made right; the winners write the history; and the winners are those who prove victorious in the fight and overcome their opponents through some form of coercion or another 3. To look weak or expose weakness is failure, an opportunity to be eviscerated and destroyed by the strong 4. Yet God has confounded the wisdom of the world; God’s weakness is greater than man at his strongest (so 1 Corinthians 1:18-31) G. Jesus proved weak and vulnerable for our sake; we are to follow His example! 1. Not for nothing did Jesus call upon His followers to pick up their cross daily and follow after Him (Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23) 2. To be vulnerable means one can be wounded, and Jesus was wounded so we could be healed (Isaiah 53:5, 1 Peter 2:24) 3. And so we are to suffer as Jesus suffered (1 Peter 2:18, 24); consider 1 John 3:16! H. In this way we must undergo a thorough reorientation and recalibration according to the values of the Kingdom of God in Christ (Philippians 3:20-21) 1. Yes, in the world, it is about strength and power and avoiding every sign of weakness 2. But it is not so in the Kingdom of God (Matthew 20:25-28)! 3. We must prove willing to be weak in order to be strengthened in Christ; we must suffer; we must manifest humility; we must prove willing to be vulnerable toward others and truly love, feel compassion, and thus undergo betrayal and humiliation at times, just as Christ did (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Philippians 2:1-12) I. In Revelation 13:1-18 we see how the cross is rank foolishness to the world, the beast who is able to overcome the saints in persecution; and yet in Revelation 15:1-3 we are invited to see those same saints pictured as proving victorious the beast precisely because they suffered and died (cf. Revelation 12:10) J. It would seem Orwellian to define weakness as strength and strength weakness; victory as suffering death and defeat as compromise; wisdom as foolishness and foolishness as wisdom; and yet we must redefine these concepts in our minds if we would follow God in Christ K. Such is the essence of repentance: changing our heart and mind to follow the way of the Crucified One, the way of suffering, weakness, and vulnerability, but also the way that leads to life! V. Conclusion A. The Apostles call on us to serve the Crucified One, Jesus of Nazareth, as Lord and Christ B. We are called to boast and glory in the cross, a degrading, despised, humiliating instrument of public execution C. It is sheer madness...to those who are perishing! D. Yet to those of us who are being saved it is the power of God unto salvation E. But are we willing to truly and fully absorb the implications of the cross? 1. The way of strength and power is through suffering and service (Matthew 20:25-28) 2. The way of love is vulnerability and pain (1 Peter 2:18-25) 3. The way of true knowledge is through revelation, not the wisdom of man (1 Corinthians 1:18-31) 4. What is of great esteem is nothing to God, and what is lightly valued is of inestimable worth to Him (1 Corinthians 1:18-31) 5. The way of victory is through suffering and death, loving not our lives even unto death (Revelation 12:11) F. May we follow the Crucified One and boast only in the cross of Christ, and obtain the resurrection of life! G. Invitation Scripture, Meditation, and Application 1: For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18). Christians look for salvation and hope in a man who was crucified by the Romans. Throughout time such has seemed the height of folly to many people. According to worldly wisdom it is foolish. But for those who believe in Jesus it is a means of redemption and hope. May we trust in God in Christ! 2: But we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:23). The Jewish people looked for a Messiah to deliver them from Roman oppression. Gentiles looked for wisdom in philosophical pursuits. God came in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth and died for the sins of mankind. Jewish people considered it scandalous; everything about it seemed foolish to Greeks. But Christians found in Jesus the hope of salvation. May we trust in God in Christ! 3: But God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise (1 Corinthians 1:27a). In the world humans seek wisdom through various means of philosophical inquiry. Yet no amount of philosophical inquiry would ever lead a person to tell a story like the Gospel. God deliberately manifested His great wisdom in how His Son lived and died. The Gospel is not the invention of men but revelation from the One True God. May we accept the truth of the Gospel message and obey it! 4: And God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong (1 Corinthians 1:27b). In the world those who have money and those who are violent and vicious often wield power. Might makes right. Arrogance is rewarded. According to the Gospel, Jesus suffered and was wounded for people, and overcame the forces of this world. Thus, in Christ, weakness is strength, and strength weakness. We must prove willing to be vulnerable in the name of Jesus. May we embody the Gospel imperative of following the Crucified Christ wherever He leads!