The Folly of the World and the Wisdom of the Cross

Today is the day of the Cross. The Cross is a stumbling block to those perishing and remains beautifully mysterious to Christians everywhere.  A God who dies for his people?  Many have derided such, the ancient Romans would depict Jesus crucified in the carvings known as Alaxemenos graffito, with a Donkeys head.  

But the wisdom of God is greater than that of man.  He is certainly not the God we would have made for ourselves.  Neither the God we would imagine.  Truly the wise of the world have been made foolish and the wisdom of God is folly to men who are perishing, but not so to us.  

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

²⁰ 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? ²¹ 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^[a] to save those who believe. ²² ForJews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

²⁶ For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards,^[b] not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so that no human being^[c] might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ And because of him^[d] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹ so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

 It should stir us each day to marvel, “What love is this?”  God ordained from before the foundation of the world that his people would be so reconciled to him.  The glory and significance of the cross is astounding.  So great is the love and glory of God in the Cross, history was made to pivot on it.  What is it about the cross that confounds the lost and hope to the found?

2 Corinthians 5:21

"For our sake he made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God"

This is often called the most profound single verse in scripture.  Christ took on our sin and suffered in our place.  In our fallenness we want to earn salvation.  We fool ourselves into thinking we can bear our sins but we cannot. We think we may even live a sinless life but neither is true.

Romans 3:30-23 

²⁰ For by works of the law no human being^[a] will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.  ²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

What we could not bear and atone for He did and on our behalf.  By this we are cloaked in His righteousness.  Martin Luther developed this doctrine, which he called the great exchange.  Christ took our sin upon Himself on the cross and gave us His righteousness.  This attests to Christ’s righteousness.   Good Friday is not called good in spite of His suffering.  It is actually because of the act of love that it truly is.  His suffering and his death was not and is not the end.  For all the sorrow, the victory we have in it, it truly is a Good Friday. 

This Good Friday we commemorate this most unique and spectacular truth.  The Cross remains the true greatest example of love that reconciled man to God.  In suffering on our behalf, He provides us with the perfect example of truly selfless love.  Even when upon the cross, He  pleaded with his Father over and over. 

Luke 23:34

"But Jesus was saying, "Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves

The same God who was holding their very being together was being crucified by them.  He could have righteously destroyed them, but instead, (repeatedly) pleaded for them.  He was the one who expressed His desire for them to be in heaven with Him.  We should desire no less.

What we rightly earned was placed upon him.  Truly he was God in the hands of angry sinners.  Yet through this, as He did with even the evil done to Joseph, He provided a salvation for His people.  He lived out truest love “to lay down one’s life for his friends.” More so, He died for those who were even his enemies that they might become the children of God.  

 John 15:13 

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends"

Romans 5:8

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in the while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"

I think an old German hymn puts it quite well:

1. Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, 
that we to judge thee have in hate pretended? 
By foes derided, by thine own rejected, 
O most afflicted! 

2. Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? 
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee! 
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee; 
I crucified thee. 

3. Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered; 
the slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered. 
For our atonement, while we nothing heeded, 
God interceded. 

4. For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation, 
thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation; 
thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion, 
for my salvation. 

5. Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee, 
I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee, 
think on thy pity and thy love unswerving, 
not my deserving.

Sunday we celebrate the resurrection.  Easter is the anniversary of Christ’s victory over death and the vindication of our righteous substitute who evermore lives and reigns.  But without His incarnation, and the death on the cross He came to fulfill, we would never have that ultimate victory.  This is what we have, and what those still lost can know as well.  Pray for those to whom the cross is folly and be a living witness of Christ to them.   May God bless you the rest of this Holy week.