What do you think of when you see a cross?

You might think it makes for a nice piece of jewelry or a meaningful religious symbol. But that’s not what it meant to people living in the first-century Roman Empire. Crucifixion was a disgusting and shameful way to die.

Last time, we saw that Paul’s contemporaries associated crosses only with a humiliating death. But Paul constantly preached the cross of Christ.

If it weren’t enough that crucifixion bore such a shameful stigma, there was also the shameful simplicity of the cross, a repudiation of worldly wisdom. First Corinthians 1:19–21 reads:

For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

Both Jew and Gentile enjoyed complexity, especially the Greeks with their philosophical systems. They loved mental gymnastics and intellectual labyrinths. They believed the truth was knowable, but only to those with elevated minds. This system produced gnosticism, a belief that certain people, by virtue of their enhanced reasoning powers, could move beyond the hoi polloi and ascend to the level of enlightenment.

In Paul’s time, we can trace at least fifty different philosophies rattling around in the Greco-Roman world. And the gospel came along and said, “None of them matter. We’ll destroy them all. Take all the wisdom of the wise, get the best, get the elite, the most educated, the most capable, the smartest, the best at rhetoric, oratory, and logic; get all the wise, all the scribes, the legal experts, the great debaters, and they’re all going to be designated fools.” The gospel says they are all foolish.

Paul’s quotation of Isaiah 29:14 in verse 19, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,” had to be an offensive statement to his audience. He was basically saying, “I’ll trash all you philosophers and all your philosophy.” Nothing was subtle about Paul, nothing vague or ambiguous. But the message wasn’t Paul’s, as he reminded us when he affirmed, “It is written”—literally, “It stands written.” It stands as divinely revealed truth that the gospel of the cross makes no concession to human wisdom. Paul was just God’s mouthpiece. Human intellect plays no role in redemption. And in verse 20, it’s as if Paul was saying, “What do you think you have to offer? What contribution does the legal expert, the scribe, make? What insight can the debater provide? They’re all fools.”

First Corinthians 2:14 reads, “But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” This is the problem. An unconverted person may have great reasoning power and intellect, but when it comes to spiritual reality and the life of God and eternity, he makes no contribution. Whether it’s Athens or Rome, whether it’s Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, or wherever else, all the collected wisdom outside of Scripture adds up to nothing but foolishness.

God wisely established that no one could ever come to know Him by human wisdom. The only way anyone will come to know God is by divine revelation and through the Holy Spirit. The final word on human wisdom is that it’s all nonsense. Man, by human wisdom alone, cannot know God.

A Scandalous Message

How, then, can man know God, if not by wisdom? “Through the foolishness of the message preached.” You want people to know God? Then just preach the message. Jeremiah 8:9 says, “The wise men are put to shame, they are dismayed and caught; behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what kind of wisdom do they have?” If you reject the Scripture, you don’t have any wisdom. If you change the message of Scripture, you can’t preach wisdom.

We have no artistic license in delivering the gospel. Look again at 1 Corinthians 1:18: “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Then verse 21: God determined “through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” And verses 23–24: “We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Paul was giving one message alone: The power of God through the word of the cross is what saves people. Men are the tools for delivering that message, but the message doesn’t come from them; it comes from God. And this is the only message we have.

Any other message is false and absolutely unacceptable, as Galatians 1:8–9 declares without apology or compromise: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” But that is precisely what the popular Christianity Lite of today has done—it has substituted the gospel for another message that tries to eliminate the offense of the cross.

Almost no one tolerates the exclusivity and supremacy of Christ these days, even some who profess to be Christians. The message of the cross is not politically correct—it’s the singularity of the gospel, on top of everything else, that bothers people. Can you imagine for a moment what might happen if a celebrity or political leader just said, “I’m a Christian, and if you’re not, you’re going to hell”?

And then imagine if he said, “All the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the people who believe they can earn salvation, whether liberal Protestants or Roman Catholics, and all the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses—you’re all going to eternal hell. But I care about you so much, I want to give you the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it is far more important than wars in the Middle East, terrorism, or any domestic policy.”

You can’t be faithful and popular. So take your pick.

What Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians was that the gospel collides with our emotions; it collides with our minds; it collides with our relationships. It smashes into our sensibilities, our rational thinking, and our tolerances. It’s hard to believe. And unfortunately, this is why people compromise; and when they do that, they become useless because God saves through this truth.

The cross in itself proclaims a verdict on fallen man. The cross says that God requires death for sin, while it proclaims to us the glory of substitution. It rescues the perishing—the damned, the doomed, the ruined, the destroyed; they are the lost, under the judgment of God for endless violations of His holy law. And if you don’t embrace the Substitute, then you bear that death yourself, and it is a death that lasts forever.

The message of the cross is not about felt needs. It is not about Jesus loving you so much He wants to make you happy. It is about rescuing you from damnation, because that is the sentence that rests upon the head of every human being.

So the gospel is an offense every way you look at it. There’s nothing about the cross that fits in comfortably with how man views himself. The gospel confronts man and exposes him for what he really is. It ignores the disappointment that he feels. It offers him no relief from the struggles of being human. Rather, it goes to the profound and eternal issue of the fact that he is damned and desperately needs to be rescued. Only death can accomplish rescue, but God, in His mercy, has provided a Substitute.

No matter how unpopular this message is to the world, it should always be our joy to proclaim it.

(Adapted from Hard to Believe)