I Corinthians 1:18-25, part of a segment that extends to 2:16, has the theme of the cross versus the wisdom of the world. Paul directs our attention to the significance of the moment as over against the general and universal. In this case, the moment is the cross. This moment discloses what we know concerning God. The reports of divisions of which Paul has heard from representatives of Chloe told him factions in the community at Corinth. In response to the damage the factions have caused, Paul teaches the community concerning the wisdom of God and the wisdom of human beings. We get a lesson in the dialectic within Paul between revelation and culture. What may feel natural given certain cultural settings contrasts sharply and dialectically with the moment of revelation. Preachers and teachers of Christian faith must never back away from the dialectical tension in trusting revelation. Yet, Nietzsche, in Antichrist, famously took aim at the Christianity expressed here.[1] I Corinthians 1: 18-31 begin with the notion that to those God is saving, the message about the cross is the power of God. The rhetorical tradition of Hellenism that championed the abilities of human wisdom and power and glorified the pride and prestige of knowledge appealed strongly to the Corinthians. Paul deals with this by referring to a passage in the Old Testament and to the blatant foolishness of the preaching of the cross.
18 For the message [λόγος] about the cross is foolishness [μωρία] to those who are perishing, but to us who God is saving, it is the power of God. Why is the word about the cross so foolish, utterly offensive to both Jews and Greeks? Well, for one thing, there was no worse way to die. Romans flogged victims just short of death, then nailed their hands and feet to the wood. Crucifixion proved to be particularly effective in subduing restless colonies, thus the Romans used it widely in Judea. Though widely used, classical Roman literature downplays its role, stressing that government authorities used only on barbarians and then, only in the most rebellious of them. In crucifixion, it was not only the physical pain, but also government authorities hanging up a body naked for all to see and mock. No wonder that crucifixion was especially popular torture for robbers, rebels, and other disturbers of the peace. A crucified Messiah? Bonhoeffer is right in saying, "It is no small thing that God allows himself to be pushed out of the world on a cross." To worship the crucified? Imagine driving by a building that has a hangman's noose on its sign out front. If you were a Jew, Greek, or barbarian, I think you would find it rather foolish for folk to assemble to worship that. While Paul does not speak of the gospel of reconciliation, he will write of the word of the cross, which is describing the gospel. [2] Paul begins his discussion with a look back to the cross. Paul is saying that God has showed up in this world in the strangest way possible – the cross of Jesus Christ. In fact, he is willing to summarize his message and preaching as focused on the cross. That message is the story of self-sacrifice of a man whom believers accept as Son of God. For a population concerned with making as much economic and social headway as possible in the fluid culture of Corinth, holding up the defeatist symbol of the cross seemed stupid and self-defeating. Yet, the preaching of the cross sets in motion the power of God. Such preaching is just words, is it not? German philosopher Lessing spoke of "the ugly broad ditch" that separates the event of Jesus Christ in this time from our contemporary appropriation of that event in our time. How, asked Lessing, can one event in one time be accessible to us in our time? How does the distant “then” become a “now?” The gospels typically solve this dilemma by proclaiming cross and resurrection together. "He was crucified, dead and buried, and rose from the dead," we say in the Creed. Time does not trap the resurrected Christ, as if he were a man of the first century but not our own. God has raised him from the dead. Paul preaches this in places like Romans. But here, to the Corinthians, Paul grounds salvation, not so much in resurrection but in preaching, in the "word of the cross." He does not mention resurrection. He replaces resurrection by a word. He replaces cross-resurrection by cross-word. It is the word of the cross that makes Christ present. An amazing claim for words, do you not think? Thus, we can say that here, Bultmann was right to say that Jesus rises into preaching. Paul is claiming that the saving power comes to us in preaching. I have heard lousy sermons. I have given my share of them. Yet, we give attention to the preached word because we have seen the power of God in something so vulnerable and foolish as preaching. Frankly, preaching seems so powerless to do any good. Sermons are just words. If preaching the word of the cross gives it power to save, this must mean power to break the grip of sin on the life and imagination of people and to bring us to God. The word of the cross is just that dramatic. The cross, of course, is the supreme event, a divine intrusion and disruption.
19 For we find it written in Isaiah 29:14 (Septuagint) “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” For his primarily Gentile audience, enamored of Hellenistic philosophies, the weight carried by Jewish scripture was slight. Yet, with this citation, Paul introduces the stark contrast between the wisdom or plan of God and the wisdom of humans who view themselves as wise. The cross discloses the folly of the wisdom and strength of this world. One of the paradoxical statements of Paul is that the folly of the cross is wisdom. God has abandoned the wisdom of this world. At the heart of the Christian gospel is the word of the cross. As in other places (such as the wonderful hymn of Philippians 2:5-11), Paul delights in the paradox of the cross and how its offense and weakness reveal the power of God, thus exposing the foolishness of this age. Indeed, in many places Paul embodies this paradox himself as he bears his apparent lack of eloquence as a demonstration of his conformity to Christ (1:17, II Corinthians 10:10ff). Here he applies it to challenge the wisdom and authority of those who would elevate their status in the community over others, and thereby bring disruption to the church. Indeed, the message of the cross has not won universal acceptance
Then Paul offers a series of rhetorical questions in the form of a taunt. 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, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. Paul humbles his proclamation by calling it foolish in the eyes of the world, even while it saves those who believe. His point is that we see the wisdom of God in making sure that human beings could not know God through wisdom. Rather, through the foolishness of the proclamation of Paul and the other apostolic leaders, God decided to save those who believe. We find here the danger of falsification of the gospel through finding worldly strength by presenting the gospel in an acceptable or tolerable form.[3] The foolish are without faith in Christ. Thus, they do not belong to the true people of God. They see in the news of the death of Jesus only the news of a further demonstration of the meaninglessness of human life. I think it fair to say that the culture in the West tends to want general truths to which we can reason. The model is science, for its conclusions, which mathematize the movements of nature, apply to every culture and time. Yet, the claims of religions, as with the claims of economic and political theory, do not have that type of certainty or universality. When the truth becomes specific, something disclosed in a moment or event, it requires a response from us. Do we see this moment as a disclosure of truth we did not discover, but rather, that God revealed? Granting that the world will not see the cross as salvation until Christ returns, we get to experience salvation and life today.
Next, Paul also demonstrates his understanding of the church and its mission, comprised of both Jew and Gentile. Not everyone shared the vision of Paul for a church comprised of Jew and Gentile. Revelation puts both groups at risk, for that on which these groups depend stand in tension with the cross. The moment of revelation places Jew and Gentile on the same footing. Both conflict with revelation! To their credit, both Jew and Gentile want to know God. Their inability to know God by their chosen means to do so is part of the divine plan. We will need to trust something beyond our ability to control or toward which we could reason. We will have to direct our attention decidedly not us to learn who God is. If revelation conformed to our expectations, we would hardly have needed revelation. 22 For, from his experience, Jews demand signs. The Old Testament amply demonstrates the demand for "signs" from God. They are people of the word as well, but the beginning of their existence, arising out of slavery in Egypt and a long journey through the wilderness, involved signs, the cloud and fire, that provided markers along the way. Such a characterization of Jews is consistent with the presentation of scribes and Pharisees in the Synoptic tradition, as the demand signs from Jesus (Matthew 12:38). It suggests that they had trouble with trust. They wanted tangible demonstrations of power. Such a sign would be dramatic intervention in the sky and the earth. The Jews demand a victorious Messiah. They seek the saving action of God through the Messiah, accompanied by certain signs. Even today, some people want to see God act, accompanied by certain miraculous signs. Then, they will believe. Thus, the notion of the Messiah nailed to a cross, coming under the ancient curse, is unbelievable, an offense to Torah, for the Jew. What the Jew naturally demands conflicts with revelation. The Jew will need to become open to the possibility that the moment of divine revelation will not have accompanying signs they have come to expect. In a comparable way, Greeks desire wisdom. The Greeks demand an approach to the ineffable that is intellectually cogent and philosophically sound. They want any talk of God to have intellectual respectability. The Greeks wanted to weigh the pros and cons of a new system. Paul is combating an inflated view of wisdom and knowledge. Human knowledge creates the obstacle here. If one measures revelation by the standards of human reason, revelation will come up short. To put it another way, we do not need revelation to teach us what we can learn through experience and reasoning. If revelation occurs in the cross, then it moves against human presumption. The cross moves against our natural tendencies. It refuses to conform to our standards of experience or reasoning. Revelation in the cross stresses what God has done there rather than that which we can know through the exercise of our reason. Greeks, or Gentiles, do not want to see, they want to know. Others want to believe in whatever notion of God they can develop with their reason. They want divine truths in the same way they get scientific truths. They want to observe and come to their conclusions. We naturally want revelation to confirm whatever we already believe. We are part of a culture. We must not assume that divine revelation will confirm what it thinks it already knows or act in ways it already does. They may see the proclamation of the paradox as in Acts 17:32 and turn away in impatience or alarm. It may well be a good sign that not many wise respond, for it is in keeping with the presumed folly of the Gospel.[4] The demand for logic and reasons, in other words, can blind one from seeing the moment of revelation. However, 23 we proclaim [κηρύσσομεν] Christ crucified, a stumbling block, understood as an offense to Torah, to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. How foolish it is to think that something significant happens in something so vulnerable, so prone to misunderstanding, as preaching. The moment of revelation goes against the expectations of Jew and Gentile. Revelation in the cross is not glory as the Jew would understand it, nor wisdom as the Gentile would understand it. Both Jews and Greeks, as Molly Marshall-Green puts it, are looking for God in all the wrong places. They shall have neither signs nor wisdom. Paul is stressing that the difficulty in discovering the presence of God is the preconceived expectations of who God is and how God ought to behave. Sign-seeking Jews and wisdom-desiring Gentiles denounce the gospel because it does not meet their norms of godliness. The prophetic work of Jesus Christ has the form of passion. Yes, he is Jesus Christ the Victor, but through Gethsemane and Golgotha. In this form of suffering, as the Rejected, Judged, Despised, Bound, Impotent, Slain, and Crucified, we see the Victor who marches with us and to us through the times, alive in the promise of the Spirit. In this form, he is at the core of the kerygmatic theology of Paul and the kerygmatic accounts of the Gospels. In this form, as an obstacle to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, he has addressed his own, his community, and through this the world, from the time of his resurrection onwards. He encounters humanity in this form, or not at all.[5] However, 24 to those who God calls, emphasizing the extent to which human decision is not involved, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power (δύναμιν)of God and the wisdom (σοφίαν) of God. The gospel claims that Christ crucified is the ultimate revelation of God's wisdom and power. Paul makes it clear that the cross goes against expectations of Greek and Jew, for the cross is neither glory nor wisdom. To believe or trust in its wisdom and power is to accept the paradoxical way of God in this world. The march of world occurrence hides the reality of divine wisdom. Only at the end of history will the divine counsel that underlies what takes place be knowable. The dawning of such revelatory events of the end-time in the person of Jesus initiated the definitive revelation of God and showed the goal of the divine counsel, leading Paul here to regard Jesus Christ as the embodiment of the divine wisdom.[6] 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Paul is combating an inflated view of wisdom and knowledge. Some may have tried to measure the Christian message by standards of human reason, so that they could defend God by reason.
I invite you to stand back from the specifics of this argument and consider its broader implications. Paul condemns arrogant human wisdom. He does not condemn genuine knowledge. He suggests the deepest human need is to know God, but the quest for knowledge could not fill the void. However, that inability was part of the plan of God. Nevertheless, one does not find here a biblical warrant for abandoning the study of wisdom and enshrining ignorance on the altar of spirituality. Are we to disregard the idea of philosophy as the handmaid of theology? Does Athens have nothing to do with Jerusalem? Early theologians (Clement of Alexandria, for one) were quick to rehabilitate Paul on this point, arguing that Paul, influenced by the Greek philosophical setting, is not railing against philosophy, but against bad philosophy, particularly philosophy of the Epicurean and Stoic variety. He himself quoted the philosophers to make his own theological point, although without much success (Acts 17). A preacher wrote John Wesley: Dear Mr. Wesley, the Lord has directed me to write you to say that he don’t need your larnin’ to spread his word.” Wesley wrote: “Dear Sir, I received your letter in which you observed that the Lord directed you to inform me that he does not need my learning in order to spread his word. I reply, not by the Lord’s direction, but on my own to inform you that while the Lord does not require my learning, neither does he require your ignorance.”
In addition, here lies the heart of the distinction that Martin Luther drew and famously expounded in the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 between theologia crucis and theologia gloriae. He links those who embrace the wisdom of the world to a theology of glory, an ontological enterprise in which one presumes to be able to discover the transcendent, majestic reality of God through natural signs and wonders and intellectual pursuits. A theology of the cross, on the other hand, seeks not the glory of sophistry but the humiliation of the cross, to recognize God where God has hidden himself, hidden under the cloak of incarnational darkness and the scandal of the cross.
In an article that examines Jewish perceptions of the cross as a Christian symbol, Mary C. Boys wonders whether hundreds of years of Christian anti-Semitism has tainted the symbol. She considers other symbols as potential replacements but discards them. She recognizes that like all symbols, the cross evokes more than one can explain. It condenses death and life into one symbol. It enfolds some of the deepest fears of humanity - vulnerability, betrayal, pain, forsakenness - and transfigures them into expressions of hope. When Christians proclaim the power of the cross, they are voicing their confidence that death is not the end, that God has broken the grip, and that God will banish the powers and principalities who control this world. When Christians proclaim the power and wisdom of the cross, they declare with trembling voice that at times one must simply endure suffering, that one must bear certain things in life. Moreover, they are declaring that in the passion of Jesus we find a model for our fidelity.[7]
[1] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.2] 242
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 455.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.5] 632.
[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.3] 435-6.
[5] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [70.1] 390-1.
[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1, 441.
[7] -Mary C. Boys, "The cross: Should a symbol betrayed be reclaimed?" Cross Currents, Spring 1994.
Good point. I like the conclusion and appreciate the underlining theology. Our pastor, a couple of weeks ago, preached a sermon on the temple in Athens and the one in Jerusalem. Contrasted what they were about then showed us the ruins. Point being both are gone but the temple of God is now the church and we are the building blocks.-Lynn Eastman
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