THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS

“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.” (1 Cor 1:18)

What is the message of the cross?

Why is it foolishness to those who are perishing?

Why is it the power of God to those who are being saved?

What is the message of the cross?

The cross is central to Christianity and its enduring symbol. What was a means of gruesome execution has been turned into the sign of God’s love, mercy and grace. On the cross God was in Christ reconciling the rebellious and disobedient world to himself. Christ died as an atonement for our sins. God, the mighty Creator, made himself nothing, taking the nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, humbled himself and became obedient to death on the cross so that we could be forgiven and enter into his kingdom. The perfect and Holy One became sin for us so that we might be redeemed. “Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:6-8).

Kelly M. Kapic, professor at Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia writes:

God can’t taste dust, get sick, or become hungry. Nor can God die. Such events apply only to creatures that have bodies. Out of his love the Father sent his Son in the Spirit to take on genuine flesh, to become fully human. Only in this way can the eternal Lord – the God who cannot die – enter the reality of suffering and death. Only in this way can the God of light face the darkness of the devil. Only as incarnate can God enter the pit of the grave in order to fill it with life. His death encompasses both the physical and the spiritual aspects of his humanity in their unity. Jesus physically suffered, and Jesus actually died.

Jesus’ substitutionary life and death changes everything for us, for he is the great revelation of the eternal God’s love and commitment to us. “All the promises of God find their Yes in him” (1 Cor 1:20). When the pain of our suffering overwhelms us, when the confusion of broken relationships warps our vision and threatens to crush us in despair, when unrealized hopes now seem only to taunt us, we look to the suffering servant who became one with us and offered himself in our place. And in so doing, he changed the narrative and the reality of the world. He brought light to darkness, life to death, hope to despair. In him everything does look different, even our sickness and grief. (Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering, p.97f.)

Why is it foolishness to those who are perishing?

Those who are perishing are those who are on the road to destruction. They are on the broad way. They are those who claim to be wise in the ways of the world. Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” He goes on to argue, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world. For since in the wisdom of the world the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” He characterized those who do not believe as demanding miraculous signs and worldly wisdom (proofs). “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”

It is foolishness to the unbeliever because the message of the cross is preached “not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor.2:13-14)

The unspiritual man, is the man who lives as if there were nothing beyond physical life and there were no needs other than material needs, whose values are all physical and material. A man like that cannot understand spiritual things….A man who has never a thought beyond this world cannot understand the things of God. To him they look mere foolishness. (William Barclay)

John Stott wrote that the message of the cross: “undermines self-righteousness and challenges self-indulgence.” No wonder the non-Christian rejects it.

Islam rejects the message of the cross. The Koran sees no need for the sin-bearing death of a Savior for ‘each man shall reap the fruits of his own deeds.’ It denies that Jesus died on the cross. The Cross of Christ is a stumbling block and the atonement foolishness to the Muslim as well as to all who do not follow Christ.

Why is it the power of God to those who are saved?

“I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” (Rom.1:16) How do we know this? Because we have experienced its saving power in our own lives. Have you experienced this saving power? How can you?

John Stott recounts the experience of an Iranian student.

Brought up to read the Koran, say his prayers and lead a good life, he nevertheless knew that he was separated from God by his sins. When Christian friends brought him to church and encouraged him to read the Bible, he learnt that Jesus Christ had died for his forgiveness. ‘For me the offer was irresistible and heaven-sent,’ he said, and he cried to God to have mercy on him through Christ. Almost immediately ‘the burden of my past life was lifted. I felt as if a huge weight…had gone. With the relief and sense of lightness came incredible joy. At last it had happened. I was free of my past. I knew that God had forgiven me, and I felt clean. I wanted to shout, and tell everybody.’ It was through the cross that the character of God came clearly into focus for him, and that he found Islam’s missing dimension, ‘the intimate fatherhood of God and the deep assurance of sins forgiven’. (John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.42)

The message of the cross is not only salvation from past condemnation but it is also salvation from present weakness. We die to the tyranny of sin and are freed to live a new life in Christ. We are raised to a new life in the power of the Spirit of Christ. The cross gives us the power to share in Christ’s suffering in this life so that we may share in his glory in the future. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. If God is for us in this way, how can we lose? “If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us. Embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us” (Rom. 8:32, The Msg).