God’s Word for You
1 Corinthians 1:18 The message of the cross
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, October 31, 2022
Christ the Power and Wisdom of God
18 For the message of the cross seems like foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
Let’s take these words and phrases one by one.
The message of the cross. Here we have a message about the cross, that is, the whole gospel message which absolutely must include the cross. For just as Mark does not mention the birth of Jesus, he nevertheless takes us to the cross and therefore has to be described as a gospel writer. John records no parables, but he proclaims the cross. The whole phrase is similar to the structure of “message of the gospel” (Acts 15:7), “message of his grace” (Acts 14:3), “message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19), “message of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 3:1), and “message of salvation” (Acts 13:26). To veer off and talk about Jesus apart from the cross with the intention of ignoring or downplaying the crucifixion is to empty the cross of its power. What would John possibly have meant by “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) if he was not pointing to the cross on the horizon? What would the Father possibly have meant by “he will crush your head and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15) if he was not thinking of the cross, so very many centuries down the road? The cross was the whole point of Jesus’ entrance into the world and his incarnation, so that he would be able to lay down his life and take it up again (John 10:17-18).
Seems like foolishness to those who are perishing. Paul takes Isaiah 29:14 and breaks the poem apart so that we can appreciate all of the implications (more about that with verse 19). Foolishness (Greek moria) is nonsense, whatever is the complete opposite of wisdom, logic, or valid information. We could say “is” foolishness, but since it is not truly foolishness at all, I want to be careful with the wording here. The message of the cross can go from foolishness to salvation in the blink of an eye, as Paul found out on the road to Damascus.
“Perishing” is a way of talking about those who are headed for hell. The devil doesn’t care one bit which path his victims are taking to hell. Just as a compass has 360 degrees, and only one of these is the way to heaven (John 14:6), the rest all lead to hell. Not one of them leads to a side door, back door, cellar, or balcony of Paradise. Instead, they all go by winding tracks and beautiful journeys into the land of the Parasite, not Paradise at all. If the devil can get thousands of people to think they are following Peter and Paul into heaven but are misled into trusting themselves and not Christ, then they’re not following Peter or Paul in the least, and the devil laughs and claps his hands. The path that they’re on uses some of the same language, and so they are fooled. The true road to heaven is the way of the cross, the sufferings and death of Christ on our behalf. Anything else might sound familiar, but it doesn’t lead to forgiveness, the resurrection, and eternal life.
But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. “It” is the same message of the cross. The message of the cross proclaims, offers, and gives to us everything Christ won on the cross in our place. Simply trusting the message is faith. But be certain about this: Faith is not just knowing the information. A thousand college professors around the globe teach about Jesus and Christianity and have read the Gospels. Many of them know the details of the accounts better than many of our people in the pews. But how many of those secular professors of world religion, ethics, or comparative religion would say that they trust in Jesus for their forgiveness and for eternal life? But for us who trust, who put our faith in Jesus, the message of the cross is the power of God.
“Power” here is the omnipotent strength of God, the ability he has to do anything and everything. What God wants to happen, his will, is precisely what is going to happen, because that is what true power is. He is the “Mighty One” (Matthew 26:64; Genesis 17:21). But power is also more than ability, it is authority and it is command. In a sense, our modern understanding of power in terms of electricity is a better illustration of divine power than the ancient illustrations of kings and armies. A king can be overthrown; an army can be defeated. But if an electric device such as a light is plugged in to a power source, it works. It functions because that is what it does. God has power, almighty power, because he is God. The illustration only collapses when the power is interrupted or the bulb burns out, but even there the exception proves the point: God’s power does not collapse (Romans 1:20). God’s light never burns out (Revelation 22:5).
What is foolishness to the damned and the perishing is life and the resurrection for all those who trust in Jesus. This is the advantage that the newly baptized infant has over the Doctor of Philosophy. The one has many letters after his name, and the other has not even learned his letters yet, but one trusts in Christ and has forgiveness, like a vaccination against a terrible plague. Let the learned man with all of his so-called personal research into matters die thinking that he is right. He will learn in that very moment that he was wrong, but the moment of being wrong will never end. The infant’s blessing of being forgiven will also never end, and I know which one I would rather be.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.