The Foolishness of God vs. the Wisdom of Men

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, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” 20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

When Paul established a church in Corinth, he was in a society which worshiped human wisdom. In fact, the very word “philosophy” means “love of wisdom.” He conceded to the reality that in human eyes, the Gospel was not very wise.

Paul was by no means anti-intellectual. He was all for Christians using their mind and not just their emotions. Diligent study, meditation, and giving yourself to reading are not only things he practiced but commanded other Christians to engage in to be faithful to God (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:35; Col. 1:9; 3:2; 2 Tim. 2:15). His argument in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 is not a call for blind acceptance of the Gospel without reasoning, but an attempt to prove that God’s way is superior to man’s wisdom. He would accomplish this through a series of contrasts between the foolishness of God and the wisdom of man.

• Human Wisdom Finds Preaching the Cross Foolishness, Divine Wisdom Declares it to Be the Power of God unto Salvation

Paul began his argument in verse eighteen: “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” (1 Cor. 1:18). The idea of God on a cross was repugnant in the first century mind. In about 152 AD an early Christian by the name of Justin wrote, “They proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place equal to the unchangeable eternal God.” Graffiti scratched on a stone in a guardroom on Palatine Hill, near Circus Maximus in Rome, shows the figure of a man with the head of an ass hanging on a cross. Below is a man in a gesture of adoration and the inscription says, “Elexa Manos worships his God.” Cicero wrote, “This very word ‘cross’ should be removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes, his ears.” They might have reasoned: “How could God send God to hang naked on a cross and be left for the birds to eat?”

No Greek or Jew of Paul’s day could have ever imagined the symbol of a cross being used as jewelry or wall décor. Yet, one of the main features of Gospel preaching is the crucifixion. Without it – all men will perish. Salvation is a continual process. Preaching the cross is its power (Rom. 1:16).

• Human Wisdom is Temporary, Divine Wisdom is Eternal

Paul continues, “For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (1 Cor. 1:19,20). This Old Testament quote comes from Isaiah 29:14 where the Jews had a plan to pit the Egyptians against the Assyrians and save the nation. God brought their plans to naught and still saved besieged Jerusalem by sending an angel to slaughter 185,000 Assyrian army in a single night.

Paul then fires off a series of questions that mock human wisdom. All of the great men of education, publication, and argumentation could not come up with a wise solution to man’s greatest problem: sin and man’s greatest enemy: death. Human wisdom has solved nothing. God’s plan through the Son of Man has destroyed all their plans.

• Human Wisdom is Impotent, Divine Wisdom is Powerful

The world does not possess the ability to come to the knowledge of God without the assistance of revelation. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:21-25). God cannot be known via the pursuit of human wisdom. It is true that some things about God can be discerned through nature (Rom. 1:18ff). All the collected wise men of old through the present cannot reveal to us God without the preaching of the revealed divine truth. All the accumulated insights of the greatest Greek philosophers equals foolishness. Salvation from sin and its consequences (death) can only come through preaching the cross. To man this is just foolishness. But God chose out of His own free will to save men by the foolishness of preaching.

Neither the Jews nor the Greeks wanted the peaching of the Gospel. The Jews wanted a sign. They were given many miracles of Jesus, including those in His ministry and those surrounding His crucifixion. Most of all they were given the sign of the resurrection. Next, the signs on the day of Pentecost prophesied by Joel had been given to them. Finally, all the signs and wonders given by the Holy Spirit through the early Christians. Yet, they demanded more signs.

On the other hand, the Greeks wanted wisdom. They loved nothing more than to use the mind in their logical attempts at solving the greatest mysteries of man. How illogical in the mind of the Greek for God to kill God in order to rescue man from death.

The preaching of the cross had two distinct affects. 1) It was a stumbling block to the Jews. After all concerning those whose bodies were hung on a tree, the Law of Moses said, “his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God” (Deut. 21;23).The Greek term for “stumbling block” is skandalon from which the English word “scandal” is derived. God cursing God by hanging a Jew on a cross was a scandalous message. 2) The preaching of the cross was foolishness to the Greeks. The Greek word translated “foolishness” is moria from which we get the word “moron.” This is exactly how the intellectuals of Athens treated Paul on Mars’ Hill when they heard him preaching about the resurrection (Acts 17:32). It was bad enough to use the crucifixion for a positive result, but Paul proclaimed the resurrection when their philosophies saw death as a solution to the problems of life. It was totally moronic; because the unloving gods of paganism would never sacrifice themselves out of love for lost man and then come back to earth.

To both the Jew and the Greek their rejection was their loss. “The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?” (Jer. 8:9). In contrast to we should always be thankful for the revelation of God’s wisdom through preaching and teaching.

– Daniel R. Vess