The Wisdom of the Cross

Chapter 1, the believing ones are not those whom the world sees as strong, or as wise, or as those whom we might say haven't made.

Instead, God chose what is low and despised in this world, even some who might be considered nothings of this world.

That is why the Apostle Paul focused on a simple and clear message when he began his ministry in the pagan and depraved community of Corinth.

He did not want the church's faith to rest in their own wisdom, or in their own strength, or in their own position.

He wanted it to rest in God's power.

Now it may sound as though there is no wisdom in the cross of Christ.

It may sound as though we are simply foolish people to ever, ever believe that this could be true.

Perhaps you are familiar with Nabil Quraishi.

He is a young Christian apologist who was a Muslim, grew up as a Muslim, was indoctrinated in Islam, was for a time a Muslim apologist.

When he went to college, he was befriended by a young Christian man.

And as they became friends, they debated and debated and debated.

Because Nabil could not ever conceive of why anyone in their right mind would believe that Jesus Christ and him crucified is a good thing in which to believe.

God changed his heart, though.

And he came to understand who Christ is, and he became a Christian apologist.

But you might pray for his wife and his young daughter because he passed away yesterday of stomach cancer.

But that is just an example of someone today who has approached the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified and has looked at it and said, How in the world could anyone believe this?

So it may sound as though when we come together and we worship that we are gathering together in foolishness.

There is no wisdom in this.

It's just blind faith.

There is no power in the message of Christ and Him crucified.

And anyone who thinks there is wisdom in Christ and Him crucified must simply be quite foolish.

We might be tempted to think that way if we stopped at verse 5 of 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

But if we continue on, we will see that there is wisdom in the cross of Christ.

We will see not only the wisdom in the cross, but the power of God in the cross that is all shown to believers in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you have your Bible, I encourage you to follow along with me as I read.

1 Corinthians chapter 2, beginning in verse 6 through the end of the chapter.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, that's okay.

You can use one in the pew that is in front of you, and you'll find that on page 953.

Again, it's 1 Corinthians chapter 2, beginning in verse 6.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

The Word of God says to us, 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.

But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him, these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

For the Spirit searches the hearts and minds.

In this specific case, the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him?

So also no one comp comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have not received, we have received not the Spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

For who has understood the mind of God so as to instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ.

The Lord's church becomes childish when it is infiltrated by the world and its ways.

The Lord's church becomes childish when it is infiltrated by the world and its ways.

That is the most accurate description of the church in Corinth to whom this letter was written.

They had moved away from the purity of the simple gospel message by allowing the ways and methods of the world to seep into the church.

And as that happened, the simple message of Christ crucified was pushed away from the center to the periphery.

And as the message of the cross was pushed out, childishness took over.

Now that may sound to you like a harsh statement, but it is exactly how God described this church.

In verse 6, we see the word mature.

If you're using the old King James, you'll have the word perfect.

It's a word here that in this kind of context refers to the maturity of adulthood as opposed to the immaturity of childhood.

So instead of mature or perfect here, we could read this as spiritual adults.

In fact, why don't we do that so you can see what I mean?

Let's read verse 6 and put spiritual adults in there.

Yet among the spiritual adults, we do impart wisdom.

Now look over at chapter 3, verse 1.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual adults, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

In the eighteen months or so since Paul had left Corinth, they had regressed from spiritual maturity to spiritual immaturity.

They were not mature spiritual adults any longer, but children.

It makes you wonder if the Apostle Paul was here today, how might he classify our churches in America?

How might he classify the churches throughout the world?

How might he classify you and me?

Would he see us as spiritual adults or spiritual infants?

It's a good time, I think, to be reminded that we are expected to be growing up into Christ.

We are to be constantly growing in our maturity, in our faith.

Says in Ephesians 4 15 that we are to be speaking the truth in love as we grow up into Christ.

Now, here in 1 Corinthians 2, the contrast of maturity and immaturity surrounds the message of Christ and Him crucified.

If the church is filled with spiritual infants acting in spiritually childish ways, they will see the simple, clear message of the cross as foolish, as embarrassing.

They're going to respond negatively to that message.

They will stumble over the message by saying it is insufficient.

But spiritual adults, the spiritually mature Christians, will see that the foolishness of God plus the weakness of God equals the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Any math majors here?

The foolishness of God plus the wisdom of God, sorry, the foolishness of God plus the weakness of God equals the power of God and the wisdom of God.

A spiritually mature church will see the wisdom of the triune God on display in the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

That theme is right here in the beginning of verse 6.

This passage is about the wisdom of the Apostle Paul's message.

Now that wasn't a wisdom that came from him.

It wasn't a message that he derived out of his own intuition or out of a dream he had in the middle of the night or a bright idea that he had one day.

No, it originated with God.

In fact, in this section, the first of four sections in this passage, we are told very simply that this wisdom that is found in the message of the cross is divinely birthed.

The foolishness and the weakness in the cross of Christ is indeed wisdom.

But it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age.

The wisdom of the cross did not come out of the age of the Enlightenment.

It did not come from the intellectualism of education.

It did not come from the studies of science.

It did not come from journalistic investigation.

The wisdom of the cross did not come from the power of nations or the forces of imperialism or the majesty of earthly rulers.

How could it, when all of those things are doomed to pass away?

The earth and everything in it is going to pass away.

Why then would God's wisdom rest in that?

It doesn't, of course.

It rests in God's purpose and in God's plan.

God declared before the ages began that his wisdom would be displayed and seen most clearly in Christ and Him crucified.

On the one hand, that wisdom was hidden and secret.

On the other hand, it was decreed by God.

Do you see that kind of opposite picture in verse 7?

This is one of those biblical mysteries.

In Scripture, a mystery is something that was hidden prior to the time that God revealed it.

God decreed the wisdom of Christ crucified before the ages began, but it was secret and hidden in its fullness until God began to reveal it.

And the evidence, or the proof, we might say, that the wisdom of Christ crucified is not of earthly origin, but instead is divinely birthed.

The evidence for that is found in the crucifixion itself.

None of the rulers of this age understood.

That was God's decree.

That was his wisdom.

For if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

What a statement.

The wise of this world, the powerful of this world, represented by those in first century Palestine, not only saw the wisdom of God as foolish, but they hated it.

Playing right into God's eternal purpose, they rebelled against his wisdom by killing the Lord of glory.

That demonstrated in crystal clarity that this world is opposed to God.

And there's a principle there for us if we are willing to see it and hear it.

As a church, our ministry must not be based in worldly wisdom.

The world's sinful ideas are not wisdom but foolish opposition to God.

What may appear to be a great idea, if founded in worldly thought and principle, may be opposed to God.

In fact, our mission and our ministries must be unusual.

They must be otherworldly.

They ought to stand out as unique and different.

Because the only enduring eternal truth and mission is that which is found upon founded upon the message generated by God Himself.

That comes from Him.

This wisdom found in the cross is not only divinely birthed, but divinely planned.

Verse 9 is a paraphrase of Isaiah 64, 4.

And the point latched onto is that human beings are not able to get into the mind of God to comprehend what He's planned.

It's impossible.

Independent of God, there is no possible way for humanity to know the mind of God.

This verse is often misunderstood.

As we read it, we get all excited thinking about the magnificent things that God has prepared for those who love Him.

I mean, think about it.

Imagine all of the wonderful things that God has in store for His people in eternity.

There's no pain, there's no sorrow.

There are no tears.

And that might be at the bottom of the list.

There's glory with Christ.

There's being in the presence of God.

We think about and we imagine all of the glorious, magnificent, wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love Him.

And there's good reason for that.

We ought to think that way.

But this is talking about something very specific.

When we come to the pages of Scripture, we must first come to understand what it's talking about in its context.

And the context of the message here is Christ and Him crucified.

Listen to me carefully.

The wonderful thing that God prepared for those who loved him was the death of his beloved son by means of a cruel and wretched cross.

No eye could see.

No ear could hear.

The heart of man could never prepare for that kind of demonstration of God's goodness and God's wisdom.

But that is what God planned.

That plan was unimagined and unexpected, but it was prepared.

Prepared means it was done beforehand.

It was planned prior to it taking place.

It was planned with purpose and it was planned with intention.

And that planning had certain recipients in mind.

Let this sink into the depths of your soul, beloved.

God's wisdom gave birth to the wisdom of the cross in eternity past.

And God's wisdom planned out that purpose in every wretched detail for you if you love him.

Now we have to ask, who are those who love him, right?

If it's for those who love him, then am I one of those who love him?

So how do we discern those who love him?

Well, there are a couple of references that may help us.

The first is found in 1 Peter chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

Peter was writing to a group of people that were running away from their homes because of persecution.

So they needed encouragement.

They needed support.

And Peter wrote to them, Though you have not yet seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

Who does Peter say are the kinds of people who love Christ?

Those who believe in him, right?

Those who have exercised faith in the only Son of God.

They're the ones who love him.

Some other passages that might help us are found in John, John 14, verse 15, verse 21, verse 23.

John 14:15

Jesus repeatedly says the same thing.

He says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

And if anyone loves me, he will keep my word.

So we have there this idea of faith followed by obedience.

So let's connect the dots.

Those who do not have the love of God, and those who do not love God have no concept of his wisdom in the cross.

Those who do not love God cannot conceive of the crucifixion of God's beloved Son as a purposeful, planned, and wise, intended purpose for the good of those who love him.

That doesn't make any sense to them, but for those who do love him.

Those who through faith have believed in him and come to obey him, they see God's wise plan throughout the ages and they rejoice in it.

Now, what does that mean for the church?

Well, it means that every aspect of our ministry must be planned and orchestrated according to God's eternal plan.

In other words, the way we do ministry must be able to be traced back to God's plan to work all things through Christ.

It shouldn't be based first in someone's bright idea or birthed in sinful ideals, but in the message that God planned in eternity past.

Our ministries must express truth that is traceable.

It must be able to be traced back to God's purpose in Christ.

It must be confirmed in the historic Christian faith.

Jude said, his reason for writing was to appeal to believers to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

It's been delivered, beloved.

We don't need to reinvent it.

We are not about anything new.

Our message is old.

Our message is traceable.

Our message has been confirmed through the ages, and if we love God, we can see the wisdom in sticking to his purpose and plan.

Now, someone might argue.

How do we know?

How do we know that the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is indeed God's wise and purposeful plan?

Well, we know that it comes from God because He has divinely revealed it.

Notice what it says.

Verse 10.

These things, what things?

The good things, right?

That God has prepared, the good things in the cross of Christ, these things God has revealed to us.

Through the Spirit.

The only way human beings are able to comprehend, to really truly know that the weakness of God and the foolishness of God is the wisdom and power of God, the only way to truly know that is through God's Spirit.

That's the only way.

The Spirit of God takes the word of God and illuminates it to the heart and mind of those whom God has chosen to know and to understand and to believe.

Now the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, knows this wisdom because he knows the very depths of the heart and mind and purpose and plan of God.

The Spirit knows the mind of God.

That's just a logical truth.

Don't get tripped up over that.

No one but you know what you are thinking right now.

Now I might be able to guess, I might be able to guess that you're thinking, I just wish you'd hurry up and be done already.

But I don't know.

Now sometimes we meet a couple that's been married so long that they're able to finish one another's sentences.

You know somebody like that?

But that's familiarity, not knowledge.

We cannot read one another's minds.

It's impossible for us to know what one another is thinking.

Only you, in your spirit, know what you are thinking.

Same is true for God.

No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Follow me now.

Therefore, if we are to know the thoughts of God, we must somehow come to know the Spirit of God.

Right?

Look at what it says.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God.

That we might understand the things freely given to us.

Do you see what God did?

To have the spirit of the world is to look at the cross and conclude it's foolish.

It's a spiritual truth that has no basis in human wisdom.

It's God's wisdom, and it is a wisdom comprehended only by those whom the Spirit of God has revealed it.

The only way to see the cross as the wisdom of God and the power of God is through the work of God's Spirit.

So, what did God do?

He gave us his own spirit so that he might reveal to us the wisdom and the power of the cross through his spirit.

Verses 13 through 15 illustrate a contrast between those who have God's Spirit and those who do not have God's Spirit.

The message of Christ crucified is a spiritual truth.

It has no basis in human wisdom.

It's God's wisdom.

God has to reveal it.

But the natural person doesn't get that.

The natural person rejects any notion of wisdom found in the cross.

Natural refers to people without God's Spirit living within them.

They are people who have not come to faith in Christ.

They are people who do not love God.

They are natural in that they are in the same state into which they were born.

There has been no spiritual rebirth, no birth from above, as John calls it in his gospel.

The natural person cannot grasp the wisdom of God in the cross of Christ because that idea, that concept, that plan and purpose of God is foolishness to them.

You ever had that family member or that neighbor or that friend that you have shared the gospel with again and again and again and again and again, and you end up beating your head against the wall thinking, why don't they get it?

Why don't they get it?

It's really very simple.

They don't get it because they don't have the Spirit of God who is revealing that.

Why are they not able to see God's wisdom in the cross?

Because it is a truth that is spiritually discerned.

It must be revealed to the heart of a person by the Spirit of God who knows the thoughts of God.

And that only happens when the Holy Spirit indwells a person in salvation, enabling them to discern spiritual truth.

So we come to verse 15.

Need to know that this is a difficult verse to understand.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

What does that mean?

Well, it seems to be saying that Christians, those who truly have God's Spirit within them, are able to discern truth in all things.

They're able to understand when God is working.

They're able to understand spiritual wisdom because their spiritual senses have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

They are able to see the cross for what it truly is.

People with the Spirit of God living within them are able to look at our world and understand it from God's perspective.

They're able to look at truth and error and discern between them.

Now, the word judge here likely means to examine in this context.

The natural person, the person without the spirit of God, has no ability to properly examine spiritual truth as the Christian can.

That means the natural person cannot judge spiritual truth.

They cannot accurately examine a Christian who has God's spirit.

Maybe I can illustrate it in a poorer way.

It's not exactly appropriate for a blind person to judge or to examine what a seeing person sees.

It's not the best thing for a deaf person to properly examine what a hearing person hears.

Because they're not seeing the same things and they're not hearing the same things.

The same is true for spiritual truth.

The unspiritual or natural person has no ability to judge spiritual truth.

Their examination, their judgments are deficient.

I want to point out here that the church is not given the instruction to make spiritual truth understandable to the unsaved person.

We are not given the command to go out and to make sure that people understand the Bible.

The unsaved specifically.

We are to guide believers in the truth of Scripture so that God's Spirit within them opens it up to them so that they can see the wisdom and the power within God's word.

Our duty is to proclaim Christ and Him crucified to the lost, so that God's Spirit can take that message and through its proclamation give light to the blind and hearing to the deaf, so that they might see God's power in the cross and might hear God's wisdom in that old rugged cross.

I don't know about you, but that's freeing.

I don't have to worry about results.

I just proclaim a message.

And God's Spirit does the work.

But maintaining that consistent message will have consequences.

The consequence is that it will separate you from the world.

There's good reason for that.

The last verse here, verse 16, identifies this.

When we think about the wisdom of the cross, it is a wisdom that distinguishes between people of the cross and people of the world.

The apostle pulls in part of a verse from Isaiah 40 here.

If you look at your Bible in verse 16, it's in quotes in the first part of verse 16.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to teach him, instruct him?

When was the last time you sat down with God to teach him?

You can laugh.

It's okay.

Never, right?

I hope.

Many try, but none succeed.

There is no one who can put their arm around side the Lord and give him counsel.

Hey, I really think you need to know this.

It's blasphemous, isn't it?

No one has understood what God knows, what God thinks, how God acts in such a way as to be able to teach him.

And that's the point of the passage that the Apostle Paul pulls from in Isaiah 40.

Let me show that to you.

Isaiah 40 begins with some questions.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?

Anybody?

No.

No human being has.

Who has marked off the heavens with a span?

Seems to me like every month we have scientists telling us that the universe is larger and larger and larger, so apparently they can't measure it.

Who has enclosed the dust of the earth in a measuring spoon cup that is so large?

Nobody.

Who has measured the spirit of the Lord?

Nobody.

What man shows God counsel as to what he should do?

We're building up steam now, right?

Whom did that person consult to get his knowledge?

And who made him understand?

Who taught human beings the paths of justice and knowledge and shows them the ways of understanding?

You don't just snap your fingers and you're instantly wise.

Knowledge doesn't come to you simply by being.

Mankind in and of themselves cannot know the mind of God.

He is far too great.

He is far superior than anything we might ever imagine.

No one has understood them.

Generally speaking, that is all of us.

But there's a specific group mentioned too.

And it's identified by a particular pronoun in the second half of the verse.

But we.

It's those who love God.

It's those who love God and therefore understand the wisdom and the power in the cross.

But we have the mind of Christ.

What does that mean?

It can't mean that we know everything that Jesus knows.

It can't mean that because then we would be omniscient, and if we're omniscient, then we would be God.

I don't think any of us in our right mind would claim that, right?

When we're thinking, we know God knows everything.

I don't, therefore I can't be God.

So what does it mean?

This is put at the end of this section for a reason.

It summarizes everything we've looked at.

It means that God's spirit knows what he is thinking.

And we have that spirit.

So if we have that spirit that knows what God is thinking, we have the mind of Christ.

In that we are distinct from the world.

And any time that you begin to act or to live or to speak or to think in a way that is different from the world, in a way that is spiritually discerned, you will be separated from the rest of the world.

If by grace you no longer see the cross as foolish and weak, but instead see it as the wisdom and the power of God, you have been separated from the world.

It means that God's Spirit has come to dwell within you, to teach you, to guide you, to instill within you the thoughts of God that are found in the scriptures.

And that's why it is so important for us to be in God's word, because it is through the unfolding of his word that he gives light.

It's through this that God opens it up to us and gives us the mind of Christ, understanding what God is thinking, so that now we begin to see the world, ourselves, our sin, even truth, and the cross the way God does.

When the church is filled with spiritual adults, we think God's thoughts after him.

When the church is filled with spiritual adults, we begin to see that the way forward in life and and in ministry, both as we gather together for worship and then as we scatter to go out into the world to evangelize, the way forward is in and through this wonderful, beautiful wisdom of God displayed in the cross of Christ.

Spiritual maturity sees that.

And we begin to rejoice in that because there we begin to see that the cross of Christ is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

May we rest there.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we come and we confess that too often we fail to see the wisdom and power in the cross.

We rest in our own wisdom.

We rest in our own abilities.

Cause us to know you more, cause us to love you more so that we might come before the cross and see the power and the wisdom and the glory of God and the wretchedness there.

Give us eyes to see and ears to hear.

Amen.

Would you stand as we sing together?