A Study of 1 Corinthians (6)

 Christ Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom

¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

²⁰ Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

The Corinthians are acting out of their cultural identity by fostering divisions and fracturing the community of the people of God. And they do so on the basis of the “wisdom of the world” (v.20). Paul sees the world in terms of “those who are perishing,” and “us who are being saved” (v.18). The “foolishness of the cross” is the criterion of division. The world’s wisdom represented by “the wise person,” “the teacher of the law,” and “the philosopher of this age” (v.20) promotes the stratification of society based on the accumulation of honor and status, wealth and education, gender and occupation, on the Roman side, and the status granted by the purity of keeping the law and the wisdom it teaches. All these marks of division are being replicated within the Christian community in Corinth, rendering it simply another specimen of distorted humanity, “those who are perishing.”

Paul begins his assault on this all too common assimilation of the world’s values and status markers in the church by naming it as a failed way of organizing human beings, in fact, a failed way of salvation.

“Philosophers, Torah scholars, and, most significantly, popular orators—all the esteemed pundits of Paul’s day—fail to understand what is really going on in the world. Their vaunted wisdom has failed to grasp the truth about God. Paul suggests that this failure is itself a mysterious part of God’s own purpose. It is “in the wisdom of God” that the world has failed to know God through wisdom (v. 21). Why? Because God’s ways are, as Isaiah declared, shocking and amazing, contrary to what our fallen minds would consider common sense. In contrast to “this age,” God has exploded common sense by an eschatological revelation of the truth “through the foolishness . . .  of our proclamation . . .” The word moria points to the utter craziness of the gospel message by commonsense standards.” (Hays, 1 Corinthians: 781-790)

And it disparages what is in fact God’s way of salvation, the cross, which deconstructs these worldly values and reconstructs those who accept its message as God’s true wisdom, “those who are being saved.” Paul thus stands on its head society based on worldly markers of wisdom, success, wealth, religion, education, and business and names the “foolishness of the cross” as God’s wisdom and power to save (v.18). The worldly wise, the Jewish sage, the skilled orators and rhetoricians of the Greeks Paul turns into the opponents of God. Their “wisdom,” leading to their own version of salvation, is precisely what God has from the beginning set himself to debunk and overturn: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate,” he declares in Isaiah 29:14 which Paul cites here (v.19). V.21 sums up Paul’s view: “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.”

Diversity marks these humanly-devised systems of salvation and social ordering. Jews wants signs and Greeks wisdom (v.22). A similar diversity marks our own systems of salvation today too. A populist know-nothing embrace of “anti-wisdom” and systems of thinking like Critical Race Theory are versions we encounter today. It’s not that there’s nothing true or of value in these approaches. Well, there’s not much in our populist know-nothing-ism but Critical Race Theory has much insight we need to take on board. But in their pretentions to offer us ways of living that will “save” us (rhetoric used by both groups), both fall prey to Paul’s judgment here. Both must be deconstructed and reconstructed by God’s foolishness which alone can bring us the salvation we seek.

Paul’s critique not only cuts away the ground from under human wisdom but more importantly puts front and center Christ, God’s provision of both wisdom and power for humanity to live as he desires (v.24). And this is his remedy for the divisiveness and personality cults troubling the Corinthians. In the cross of Christ we discover the only truly human way of living free of the distorted and distorting group markers we have devised apart from God. But we need more than knowledge and in Christ we also find power in the “weakness” of the cross to empower us to live out this “weakness” in our lives (v.25). Tucker comments:

“These are both key components in the identity-shaping process. Wisdom connects internal belief to external behavior, and power enables this connection to occur. Power, however, may be exercised in either a dominating or an empowering way as identity is formed. Paul empowers the community to transform their identity in Christ and redefines their perception of power: “God’s weakness” is understood to be “stronger than human strength” (1:25). The new understanding of social categories and social comparisons evident in this passage affects the Corinthians Christ-followers’ social identification.” (Tucker, Reading 1 Corinthians: 847)