Crucified Wisdom

Sermon on Sunday, June 24, 2018

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

1 Corinthians 2:1-8

I was told this week that the actor Chris Pratt gave something of a gospel testimony at the recent MTV Awards. So I watched it. Interesting. It was not much more articulate and somewhat more crass than the usual celebrity “shout-outs” for Jesus. As someone who grew up watching professional sports, where such testimonies happen much more frequently than in show business, it gave me yet another opportunity to see the close connection between Americans and the ancient Corinthians. Before we so quickly say, “How judgmental!” to a more hesitant evaluation, perhaps we might ask a few questions of self-evaluation.

What do you look for in what we need as the church of God? Or, put differently, what could really use, in terms of communicating our message? Hopefully in asking this we will not forget the right answer to: What is that message again? In fact we are very forgetful about that. The sense of excitement we feel, when a famous person, seems to be “sticking up for God.” What is that? That is only a very American way to do what Paul has in mind here. Another has to do with social causes. Something that “our community can really get behind.” We did that about ten years ago. The “community” remained unavailable for comment. Now, as you ponder that, notice again the theme staying the same from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2. 

If there is any shift, it is from the grand scheme of how God subdues the world in judgment, and rebel sinners to Himself in grace, to now, the implications for the minister with his message.

• The Ministry is Weak and Tempted by Alternative Power

• The Message is Simple and Tempted by Alternative Depth 

Doctrine. Since Christ crucified is God’s Deep Power, we ourselves must be crucified to stay the course.

“The course” here is a faithful gospel ministry, and that applies to the whole of a church’s life. Perhaps you will recognize the inflection in my other phrase, except that, instead of what C. S. Lewis called “the Deep Magic” in Narnia, here we are speaking of a real and divine power that God works from the cross of Christ through the man who would proclaim it.

The Ministry is Weak and Tempted by Alternative Power

The two sections of this passage overlap, but Paul does emphasize his own weakness here and he mentions one thing he could have done to compensate. And that temptation fits perfectly with his Corinthian “market.” He could have played to their preferences. And that would have been a kind of power. It would have had an effect. But you see his emphasis on his own inadequacies in verse 1 and 3.

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom … And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling (vv. 1, 3).

Paul stresses this in other places: “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). This may have even been about his personal appearance: “For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account’” (2 Cor. 10:10). We do not really know what this inadequacy was in Paul. It matters little. Whatever it was, it functioned as a natural source of temptation for him to get an upgrade from the culture to which he preached.

It is in this context that we have to deal with one of those classically abused Bible verses: For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (v. 2). What does this mean? Some have tried to argue that this was Paul’s new resolution against doing any apologetics or philosophy with unbelievers — “new” because he had arrived in Corinth in Acts 18 after his supposed “failure” in Athens in Acts 17. With very few converts using philosophy, he got back to the “ABCs” of the simple gospel. But as John Stott and D. A. Carson and others have pointed out, No.1 That ignores the obvious context that Paul is writing to a church here. That means he already has a believing audience in this case, and so the issue is not evangelistic method to begin with. The fact is, however, as one commentator labors the point, Paul did make “a conscious, deliberate, and determined decision” here.2 In other words, he was tempted away from hammering home his true message with a wider, winsome rhetoric. 

To exclude all ‘except Jesus Christ and him crucified’ is really about our center. The epicenter of our emphasis. I have always said that “The emphasis in your speech is the gospel you preach.” Paul is using holy hyperbole to make this point. He means the same thing, with less hyperbole, in chapter 15 of this same letter. There he calls Jesus’ work on the cross and resurrection “of first importance” (15:3). The words here “and him crucified” call attention to the specificity of the gospel content. It is not enough to bring you to monotheism. It is not even enough to bring you Jesus as a Great Moral Teacher or Example. And it is not even enough to bring you Jesus as a healer and restorer for your earthly illnesses and relationships. Paul was jealous to specify the contours of Christ as the one crucified for the sins of anyone who would trust Him for it. 

And that brings us back to the real context of CHRIST CRUCIFIED as what I am calling “God’s deep power.” This “word of the cross” (1:18) is real power from God. He continues:

and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (vv. 4-5).

I think we are in a better position to tackle this contrast now. If we take the parallel phrases from Chapters 1 and 2, we have this: On one side ‘plausible words of wisdom’ (2:4), ’wisdom of the world’ (1:20), and ‘wisdom of men’ (2:5), and on the other side, ‘demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ (2:4) and ‘the power of God’ (1:24; 2:5). Now that we know that CHRIST CRUCIFIED is all about the center of our emphasis, this contrast fits perfectly with the contrast back in Chapter 1. In fact it is a continuation of the same. The “word of the cross” (1:18) is the emphasis that is backed by the “demonstration of the Spirit” here, or “the power of God.” Why is that? It is the very nature of the message. All attention flies from what we can do to what Christ has already done for us. That is not only true for the believing sinner, but also for the messenger. The moral efforts of the sinner to turn things around are crucified; and the rhetorical devices of the messenger are crucified. Paul came to realize that if his proclamation is not with crucified words, then their hearing will not be with crucified ears. They will hear nothing but a pep talk to do better and work harder.

More than that, the word used for “demonstration” (apodeixis) is where we get an adjective that students of logic and philosophy use — apodictic — which regards a necessary or certain proof. Paul is saying that when the cross is accurately represented, the Holy Spirit performs an internal kind of proof. He testifies to the heart made new that this is the real thing. Now, conversely, the Corinthians were used to expecting “words of wisdom” that seemed plausible. It was just an ancient form of show-biz-rationalism. They were the judges, and the “sage on the stage” was the performer. Paul knew from his experience at Mars Hill that the crowds would just have soon turned the Christian preacher into a clown. There is no sense in flattering them for approval. This is as true inside the church that mirrors the outside culture as it is the more typical “outreach” opportunities. Everyone’s faith is still invested in what mere mortals can do. That is the temptation. That is Paul’s contrast here: ‘so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’ (v. 5). Ironically, both people who are too high on the preacher and people who always look for someone else to so persuade — they are both focusing on the resources of sinners and not focusing on Christ. It is said that what you win them with is what you will win them to.

There are many young men who will hang on to a church for a season for the sake of a man who has shown them superior reasoning against skepticism or against Rome. But if that young man will not integrate sound speech into a fuller life of wisdom, his faith is in that man’s ability to produce another golden plate of words like a polemical slot machine. The moment the older man’s schedule becomes full, or technology increases so that he cannot compete with the rapidity or polish of the “answers” online, the resultant “failure” of the minister to “produce” will be confused with a lack of resources in Christian truth itself. In our rear view mirror are a trail of spiritual corpses even now, of young men whose anxieties and arrogance was confused with genuine seeking. Such temptations to “keep up” are all around us.

The Message is Simple and Tempted by Alternative Depth

There is another temptation for the church. Not only do we try to overcome our weaknesses with worldly forms of power, but at the heart of our ministry (our message) we try to overcome people’s “not getting it” or the message “not doing it” for others, with alternative messages. And we deceive ourselves in countless ways that we are not changing the message: just the medium, just the tone, just the vocabulary. To the Corinthians, what this meant was a demand for Paul to address the “cultured” issues. Paul’s answer of CHRIST CRUCIFIED was not a rejection of real wisdom or real depth. Remember those “air quotes” from Chapter 1! Paul qualifies them here:

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (vv. 6-8).

This would be real depth: a crucified depth. To be crucified is to die; after death comes burial. Death may not be ultimately deeper than life—not given what real life actually is—but death is far deeper than life on the surface. Moreover, the hearer will have to die to their pretensions of knowledge and wisdom and intellectual ability or cultural respectability. 

For Paul, there were two basic attributes of this crucified wisdom: (i.) It was a hidden wisdom and now (ii.) It is a gospel wisdom. These two sides make up the biblical concept of mystery: “the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:4-5, cf. Rom. 16:25-27). In the Bible very often “mystery” is something that God hides for a time, or from groups of people, but then He blows it open, and especially to the lowly: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). So, yes, there is a deep wisdom at the cross. The deepest kind, as a matter of fact. But it is not a game of Trivial Pursuit or a symposium for the intellectual “in-crowd.”

That this knowledge is hidden means that its reception is personally revealed. It is not impersonally hidden, but personally by God. Thus our audience needs to be told frankly: If you do not pursue God directly, through the way Christ, and in the power of the Spirit, for the knowledge you seek, you will not have it. You are asking God, as surely as a child would ask their mother for their dinner. You are a recipient of grace in knowledge as much as you are a recipient of grace in the rest of spiritual life. If that is not what this is for you, then you are spiritually dead and intellectually deceived.

The last aspect of this verse is how Paul sees two destinies tied to the two sides of this contrast. On the one hand this crucified wisdom is something ‘which God decreed before the ages for our glory’ (v. 7). We talk about predestination. It is news to many that God not only predestined people to be saved; he also predestined the exact message we all receive. More than that, Paul’s sense here is that God’s decree includes us receiving it, and that it has its full glorifying effect. You might say, God predestined the package of preaching that leads us home, tailor made for each one of His own. At every stop and every stretch of highway, God arranged the playlist of messages that you will receive in each season of life. And Paul says here that it was “for our glory.” That is the doctrine of the glorification of the Christian: “those he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). This is not the intrinsic glorification of God, but rather a participation in God’s glory that is appropriate for the creature. 2 Corinthians 3:18, 1 John 3:4, and 2 Peter 1:4 speak of this.

On the other hand there is another destiny tied to this same message: ‘None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory’ (v. 8). Glory is mentioned again, not as belonging to the people of this destiny, but rather to the Lord. Some think these are spiritual “rulers and authorities,” as that phrase is often used of the demonic powers.3 This context fits the earthly rulers (Jews and Romans) better, that is “the lords” or “rulers” of this age, as in Psalm 82. These are those with power who hear of the cross and think the message implausible. Perhaps those not yet with power, but who grasp for it, will say the same: “What glory is there in that for me?” And the answer is None. What power is there in that to meet the great enemies of our culture? It depends. Would you have a culture that is neutral to the true religion as it is in Christ? You will need the work of Christ as the New Testament sets it forth if you would have the true religion—“Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (Jn. 5:23)—just as you will will need the true religion to have a rightly ordered society. The idea of a Christian culture without the cross at its center is as absurd as a Christian culture without Christ Himself.

But here is how Peter ties the two destinies to the word of the cross,

For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do (1 Pet. 2:6-8).

The final act of God’s powerful use of the cross on center stage is that all actors, and even those who think themselves to be mere spectators, must flow to the center of that stage and come out on one side or the other of that cross.

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Correction. What kind of “strengths” and “depths” would tempt us to trade in our weakness and simplicity for? I ask that because we are not exactly the Corinthians. For them these two things are really one. Greeks in Corinth really put a lot of weight on the charismatic philosopher. Imagine that combination! Strength of voice and charm together with (supposedly) profound insight. We have a very different trade-in policy in postmodern, suburban American. Our war is with words in general. We do not seek after “better” words. In fact, we cannot wait to trade in “mere words” for feeling or action. For the most part, we seek after strength and depth in some emotional or community or entertainment experience. 

Some of that is philosophical (a hundred years or more of ideas that led up to this point); but honestly much of it is commercial and technological.  Our i-gadgets have whittled our attention spans down to goldfish level. And I am not just talking about attention to a single event called a sermon. I mean our ability to meditate and process what God is calling us to in His kingdom throughout the course of a year or a few months or even weeks. If I have seen one thing to be true during my fifteen years now in ministry, it is this: Everyone can say “Yay” to Paul’s message here, but just give everyone a few months and the slightest bit of inconvenience or slow-going, and we start reaching for alternatives. Staying the course in God’s kingdom, in our own lives, is an act of being crucified to our fidgety, low-attention-spanned, suburban-stimuli-stretched, selves. 

Use 2. Admonition. A supposedly better word of wisdom comes in the form of debate. A debate can reveal some angles on truth that other forms of communication or study cannot. But very little in the grand scheme of things. It is irreducibly rhetorical, and thus exchanges careful attention to logical coherence and evidence for elaborate strategies to inundate, entice, and entrap. It is more posture than proof. Debate has always had its limitations, but all the more so in our day. Young men between the teenage years and their thirties are now receiving the majority of their total view of the world from the internet. The theology of professing Christians is no exception; nor are those traditionally expected to have a high view of the local church exceptional in this regard. Things get worse. It is not only that this generation of young men are lost in a sea of information without a hierarchy of ideas to serve as their rudder. The very form of the medium—the YouTube “short” and the communication by emojis—reduces the critical faculties where the attention span had already been reduced by screens in general. As one could sense Lewis’s own lament through those words of Screwtape,

It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons, we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false,’ but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical,’ ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary,’ ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless.’ Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.4

But wait! The “press,” as Lewis called it, was filled with words: filled with arguments even. Indeed. So is that vast treasury of “research” on YouTube. Devils make monkeys of men who fall in love with their own reflection in the ink and the pixels. These words of the Apostle are not condemning argument. Far from it! They are condemning those whose words are like the waterless clouds, fruitless trees, and endless procession of sea foam in the waves that Jude paints of his antagonists. But it is seductive to the newcomer, and all humans are newcomers to this spiritual war where demons weave their own deep paths through shallow logic. Being new to such a scene means easily exchanging the valid and sound with the “brave” and “new,” the self-congratulatory “chance meeting” with those things one’s parents had “kept hidden” from them. That the video-editing removed all the slightest embarrassing stutters and awkward downtime and selectively ignored difficulties—such reservations do not enter the young male mind in his anxious quest for novel ground. He is a sitting duck in such a frenzy. In God’s wisdom, one’s sense of need for the cross tethers the soul to the main and plain that is unaffected by such peripheral difficulties posing as core defeaters.

Use 3. Instruction.Waiting for this message to bear fruit is compared to agricultural norms. We will see later on in this letter that, just as in a few of Jesus’ parables, the payoff of staying the course of the cross shows up in time: we might say, “agricultural time,” that is, the time of a farmer. That makes two strikes for us. Our gadgets have give us the fidgets; and we don’t live in an agricultural age anymore. No matter. The word and the Spirit and the soul all still work the same way as they always have. So when I say, “If you will stay the course, you will see …” we must ask: What will I see and when will I see it? Jesus said in one of those parables:

“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come” (Mk. 4:6-29).

Our very definition of “success” is really what needs to be crucified. The trouble is that we may often have a radically different idea than Jesus does about what is being grown.

The word of the cross is a synonym for the gospel, and the product is eternal life. These are no “mere words” about the cross, but it was The Word Himself that willingly bled and died to secure your salvation, believer. It is as if the reason that Paul was trembling in carrying around this message and had to really resolve to stick to it, is that what is perfectly natural is for everyone to ignore it, or grow familiar with it, and revert back to earthly “star gazing.” We cannot embrace what Jesus did for sinners like us unless God does a work on our hearts and arrests our attention, and we see that “the Lord of glory” Himself bled and died for you and me. 

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1. D. A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 35.

2. Prior, 1 Corinthians, 49.

3. cf. Morris, 1 Corinthians, 54-55 - as in Acts 3:17.

4. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 19.