How God Conquered the World

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

How does any earthly ruler conquer? How does he either rise to power, or gain that power, or keep that power? Machiavelli taught the modern student of politics that fear often works better than love. We are drawn to both. Yet both are an exertion of power, or operate on the assumptions of power—at least in the way that we the recipients need them. When it comes to the real essence of power, here too, God’s ways are not our ways. It had been said in the twentieth century, that the cross was to the first century what the mass graves of Auschwitz or Hiroshima are to us. The way of the cross was not, we were told, the way Constantine or even the Crusaders. Many were understandably put off by the historical revisionism involved in this. I hope to show how unnecessary that was; but I hope to show more than this.

We do not chase away false gospels with no-gospels. We should not swing the pendulum, against the pietism of the previous century, against any “way of the cross” simply because we were given just one more way in which grace eradicates nature. In the second Corinthian letter we can read about how God reconciled the world, but in this first letter the Apostle teaches us that, by that same action in his Son, he conquers the world. And this is really at the core of what sets Christianity apart from all other world religions and even all other worldviews.  

• The Word of the Cross Divides 

• The Word of the Cross Defeats

• The Word of the Cross Differs

Doctrine. God’s goal is to conquer all that detracts from the cross by the cross.  

I do not want to say that it was simply God’s goal to conquer all that opposes the cross by that cross. Of course that is true too, but we should not think we can get away with saying, “Oh, no, this or that isn’t opposed to the cross.” Paul speaks of “enemies of the cross” (Phi. 3:18), and I do not know anyone who would be such as open enemy. But does one’s stance even detract from Christ’s work there? Does it offer a share in the solution? Does it distract from the cross?

The Word of the Cross Divides

That is, the word of the cross divides between the living and the dead, the saved and the unsaved, or as Paul says it here: ‘For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God’ (v. 18). So the division is not merely between saved and unsaved, but between those dead-and-unsaved who consider the cross “folly” and then those living-and-saved who consider the cross the power of God. This is a tale of two ultimate valuations. So the cross divides between those who are alive to rightly perceive the cross, and those who are dead and so cannot rightly perceive.

In the wilderness, Moses was told to hold up the bronze serpent that Jesus would later tell us was a type of his cross: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn. 3:14-15). It was the same as when Aaron was told to put incense on his censure, a few chapters earlier: “And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped (Num. 16:48), or when the blood on the doorpost made a “distinction between Israel and Egypt” (Ex. 11:7). If you were an Egyptian that day and saw the Israelites applying the blood to the doorpost, you would think they were fools! These were all types and shadows of the cross to come: a cross that divides.

It is called a “word of the cross” because that word divides. If the word is what makes alive, we should not be surprised how, in all of those Old Testament texts, the very looking upon the divinely provided sacrifice is what divided between the living and the dead. It did not divide after the fact—the very act of division caused one side to live and the other side to harden in death. This Word is ultimately Christ.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household (Mat. 10:34-36).

The word of the cross is deep, but the action of holding up the cross by that word is simple. Thinking about the depths of the cross like a theologian may be hard; but looking at the cross like a dying man is simple. The cross is savingly simple and the cross is infinitely deep. True Christians are attracted to the story of what Jesus did there. We want to hear more so we can have more life. 

The Word of the Cross Defeats

That is, the word of the cross defeats worldly wisdom, or the world’s expectations of the way things should finally work. ‘For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart” (v. 19). Paul is insisting that God deliberately positioned His gospel against worldly wisdom in a battle for the ages. He does so by citing Isaiah 29:14. The context is the disingenuous ways that man does religion. So God hides Himself from “the wise” and reveals Himself to those who approach Him as children (cf. Mat. 11:25). The history of the world is the story of the world being taken away, by God, from those who think they are running it through all their cunning. Therefore He says to the Jewish leaders, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (Mat. 21:43). And to the Colossians, Paul speaks of what Jesus did on the cross as “triumphing over” (2:14) the most evil powers. And of believers, “they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Rev. 12:11). In the gospel, God’s wisdom is God’s power in disguise. God’s wisdom is conquering. 

Then Paul launches out on a series of rhetorical questions.

‘Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?’ (v. 20) At this point we have to do some definition work. Paul is going to use the two words “wise” and “foolish,” or “wisdom” and “folly” in opposite ways and fix them to opposite objects. So there is going to be some zig-zagging that could be confusing by itself. But on top of that there is major irony being deployed in this whole passage as well. He switches from kosmos to aion here to say “this age” before saying “this world,” focusing on the fleeting, passing-away status of this supposed wisdom.1

Again we must stress that this gospel-versus-worldly-wisdom showdown was not coincidental to Christ’s coming. It was God’s plan since the beginning. Paul says,

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe (v. 21).

Wisdom is knowledge applied to choosing best. Divine wisdom necessarily chooses that which is infinitely the greatest for God’s glory. But what does he mean by salvation through ‘the folly of what we preach’ (v. 21)? The difficulty with Paul’s words here is that the infinitely wise God would use means which Paul calls “folly.” How could it be wise to use the foolish?

Many who are very pro-preaching (or pro-sermon) have argued that this means the medium of the sermon itself, as the KJV said, “by the foolishness of preaching.” Naturally, I am very sympathetic to this view. While that is in view, the context makes for a larger circle. It supports something that includes that.2

John Frame rightly remarks that, “God’s powerful ‘foolishness’ in this verse is not the oral medium, but the content proclaimed through that medium, the gospel itself.”3 This is important to keep in mind when we talk about the word of God as an essential mark of the church. Obviously the mere presence of a Bible is a building—even situated in the front on a wooden pulpit—is what makes the church what it is. When Peter spoke of the word as imperishable seed that makes us alive, a few verses down he qualified what he means: “And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Pet. 2:25). So it is with the “word of the cross,” so that it stands for a “word” that explains what it means for Jesus to have saved us in this way.

So what is supposedly so “foolish” about the content? It is something that can be sensed in every age.

In the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche called Christians “preachers of death.” In his mind, what was ruining Western Civilization was that Christianity had presented a short life of self-sacrifice that looks to eternity. Thus we have weakness. We have no more will to survive. One can hear the resurgence of this complaint today. Nietzsche’s criticism begs the question, because in one sense Paul would agree. We do preach a death. He says that our words, our message, is “a fragrance from death to death” (2 Cor. 2:16) to those who are dying. Knowing that this pleased God from eternity and pleases Him every day in our lives affects how we do church and how we share our faith, doesn’t it? The question is whether this death is ultimate. Our answer to that hinges on whether this life is ultimate. What we will find is that this victory of the cross is no mere escapism. Yes, it subordinates this life to the one to come, but it does not do so by making death an end in itself—even the death of Jesus by the cross an end in itself. I will have to say a word more about this in application.

The Word of the Cross Differs

It doesn’t simply distinguish. But there is a total difference between this word of the cross and any other message. And so Paul differentiates between the two “acceptable” ways for these early Christians to appeal to their audiences. Two ways; both ultimately powerless:

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (vv. 22-25).

Now let us break that down, starting with what Jews and Greeks were each after. The two approaches had something in common. It was the sense of superiority as measured by this life or this age. We will see that both are ways of trying to have some religion, or even relationship with God, yet in a way that attempts to get around the scandal of the cross.

That ‘Jews demand signs’ (v. 22) means that they wanted verification of what they thought their Scriptures were pointing toward. Now at first glance, we might say, “Well that is the biblical approach, isn’t it?” But Jesus was always saying things like, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign” (Mat. 12:39, cf. 16:4). He also said to them: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (Jn. 5:39) — meaning, you are familiar with the Bible, but you look for everything except for the way of the cross. It was not verification of signs by the Scriptures that Jesus was against. It was against reserving the right indefinitely and hiding behind an endless procession of signs. No sign was ever enough: “neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Any sign they saw would have remained a mirror to their own righteousness. 

That ‘Greeks seek wisdom’ (v. 22) means treating religion like a frog on a lab table, very dispassionately poking and slicing it up with our thoughts and words: “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). We can see that both Jews and Greeks were hedging their bets on Jesus. Whether through signs or wisdom, both put God at a stiff-arm’s distance and said, “I’ll accept it when it satisfies all the official standards (as determined by me).”

Martin Luther spoke of two ways of knowing God. One he called a theology of glory and the other he called a theology of the cross. In typical Luther overstatement he said,

That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25). He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.4

Luther employed hyperbole on more than one or two occasions. On the surface this statement is a false dilemma. It would pit Paul against Paul! But what Luther ultimately meant is true to the spirit of Paul’s words here. Knowing God through nature (as in Romans 1:20) withers on the vine of sin and death, so that God can only be known as “my God” in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And so we can be as guilty as the Greeks in seeking wisdom. 

Now how do wisdom and power come together here? Well, the cross was a ‘stumbling block to Jews’ (v. 23) because the Law said, “a hanged man is cursed by God” (Dt. 21:23). This was no more palatable to the Greeks who would still consider it ‘folly.’ It is not hard to see why. Imagine the scene. The scoffing went on till the end. The mockers seemed to have the last word. Not only did the Jews get to say, “Let him save himself” (Mat. 27:42) but the pagan overseer of the whole thing ordered the sign on top of this cross to read “King of the Jews” (Mat. 27:37). Now that was for the purpose of taunting the Jews, no doubt, but that only worked because of the assumed disgrace. Both parties were saying to their opponents, “You ought to be ashamed of this!” This is what theologians have meant by using the word “scandal” to describe the cross even in God’s own design. He ordained that it be so, to confound those who think they know better, or that they could have done better.

God’s wisdom gets the last laugh, so to speak. His enemies will profess that He is king both in this age and the age to come. The fact that they do not mean it now will be all the more bitter when they are made to see. 

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Correction. Does the Postmodern “American-ish” person seek either signs (like the Jew) or wisdom (like the Greek)?And I would say Yes and No. On the face of it, these are two forms of ancient searching for meaning in life. We do not do either anymore, at least not in their way. In fact we have even abandoned meaning. Then there is the power part. Most modern Western people have not been looking for conquest at all, at least not by a king. We may long for some ultimate solution to the problems in the world, but we do not invest that hope in some person. So this hardly even registers for us. Or, so we tell ourselves.  

We have compromises to the gospel because all of these alternative ways are still in play. Churches are told, “No, not another word about the cross — this is what will solve that, or this is what will get people in the seats.” That sounds like a synonym for POWER to me. “No, not your ‘gospel’ — this is what people sense that the problem is. This is what people are thinking.” Sounds like a synonym for WISDOM to me. “No, not more words about facts — this is what will impress people. This is what will get their attention.” Sounds like a synonym for SIGNS to me. As a matter of fact, we have not really graduated beyond sign-seeking and worldly-wisdom as much as the postmodern gurus are telling us. 

Use 2. Instruction. I brought up the criticism of Nietzsche as a typical—perhaps the most famous—modern Western version of the case against the cross for its weakness. We must revisit this. If you have not caught wind of it by now, the crumbling of what remains of the West is sure to revive the “return of the strong gods,”5 as R. R. Reno expressed it. A return to fascism is predicable. A return to literal paganism to back it up must also be considered. Why? There are two levels of the answer. On the surface, young men of European descent are not all going to simply lay down and die before their Muslim conquerors, as their parents (Generation X) and grandparents (Boomers) seem to be commending to them. Christianity will be abandoned and explicitly blamed for this very reason. Those who do not see this taking shape are frankly disqualified from offering their two cents.

Deeper into the same question, what conception of deity can be realistically entertained by those who sense that the fundamental need of the hour is power? In light of this, it would seem to many that Paul’s words here must be either spiritualized as a mere private dying to self, or else rejected as the very “slave morality” that Nietzsche put his finger upon. The way out of this false dilemma is to properly situation the ultimate ways of God (which is Paul’s subject matter) with some proximate ways of God (which the anxious interpreter is forcing out of Paul’s words). I do not mean to dismiss this question as trite or to deny that its truth is relevant to the political realm—many have indeed come “in Christ’s name” in order to exert their own political Messianism—but I do mean to suggest that we not make this passage about everything or everything about this passage. It can be true that both:

(1) Christ reconciles all things by His cross and we overcome our most constant enemy by dying to self.

and,

(2) The law of God demands the civil magistrate to protect the life of his nation, which is an exercise of power.

Both can be true in such a clearly demonstrable way that the burden of proof is really on the person who would either spiritualize away Paul’s words here, on the one hand, or reject them as commending immediate physical death as the universal demand of the gospel, on the other hand.

Use 3. Consolation. How is this good news for the average person who feels neither wise nor powerful? The parts of the gospel story that will most melt your heart and change your life are exactly those parts of the gospel story that Paul means by “foolishness to the world.” It was, as the prophet said,

because he ... was numbered with the transgressors (Is. 53:12)

It was because He put himself in the ultimate line of criminals, something that no merely human mindset can understand. We must ask we truly believe this gospel. Have we seen ourselves in that lineup first. In fact, have we seen ourselves at the front and center, as the chief of all sinners, as if the real and most obvious scandal is that God has suffered me to live on another day having committed the crimes against Him that I have.  Such a view has no more room to make demands on God to conform to our own ways of making the world right.

I should say then that this is how God conquered the world in the middle of history by the death of His Son, not that there was nothing else to the work of Christ—not that He will not make a final conquest when He returns. Nor is Paul saying anything like that. I should also say that this is how God conquered the hearts of those who would follow His Son. Unlike in Islam or in modern ideology, followers are not gained by the fear of being refuse, unfit for jihad or the collectivist machine, if they stand in the way of the leader’s imperialist demands. In Christ, the One who is justice Himself annexes souls to Himself by love, because the instrument on which He accomplished this is where love was willing to go to the uttermost to meet the inflexible demands of that justice.

_______________________________________________

1. Leon Morris, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 44.

2. Morris comments “It directs attention to both the matter and the manner of the apostolic preaching. The message does not please the perishing, any more than the stark simplicity with which it was presented.” — The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, 43

3.  John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2008), 483.

4. Martin Luther. Heidelberg Disputation. No. 19, 20

5. R. R. Reno, The Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West (New York: Regnery, 2019),