Where [is the] wise? where scribe? where disputer of this world? has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
Paul asks three short questions, and none of them looks for information. Behind them stands a church in Corinth that admired clever speech, and a cross that had already settled the matter.
The three questions are not idle. Paul backs them with words God had already spoken through Isaiah. One commentator says no scripture could suit his purpose better:
I cannot agree with those who fail to see how fitting this testimony is. Many scriptures declare how far human resources fall short. Out of them all, it would be impossible to find one better suited to the apostle's purpose, and so one better able to warn the Corinthian saints... The last words are no more than an illustration drawn from Isaiah 33. There we hear a burst of surprise at the rescue from the scornful power of the enemy. Here we hear a triumphant challenge over the failure of its proud claims against God.
The same writer describes what the Corinthians were dreaming of:
They valued those who were wise, scribes, or debaters of this world. They were used to the schools of their age and country. Christianity did such great things while those who had it were poor and simple. So what might it do, they imagined, with the ability, the learning and the philosophy of men behind it! How it must ride triumphantly to victory! How the great must bow, and the wise be brought in!
The verse names three kinds of men the world looks up to. Set them beside what God has revealed, and see what they become:
No doubt these are prominent men in the world's eyes. But in the light of God's revelation they become like the magicians of Egypt when the plague of boils struck them. They could not stand before Moses (Ex. 9:11). Indeed, this matchless revelation actually renders foolish the wisdom of this world.
One writer points to the cross. Faith can already see the outcome there:
Worldly wisdom and strategy may have its day, but sooner or later it will fail completely. Faith already sees its folly and its moral overthrow at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. "Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified," said the apostle — "to the nations foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, God's power and God's wisdom."
If the wisest cannot answer, then knowing God is not a matter of brainpower. One writer sets the greatest mind beside the simplest believer:
Christ is revealed to the humble soul. Intellectual attainment is not in question here; it is no matter of great learning or of philosophy... The most brilliant mind could never discover the ways of God. We get effort, but never success. The simplest Christian already knows what such a mind cannot reach — things "hidden from the wise and prudent" but "revealed to babes." How painful are man's efforts to arrive at darkness! "What is truth?" asked Pilate, and crucified Christ.
Being called a fool stings. One writer calls that truth both humbling and healthy:
Here lies the great moral secret of the whole matter. Man has to find out that he is simply a fool, and that all the wisdom of the world is foolishness. Humbling, but wholesome truth! Humbling, because it puts man in his right place. Wholesome, yes, most precious, because it brings in the wisdom of God.
So where are these men? One writer names the one place you will not find them:
They have turned their backs on everything that makes much of man, everything that men boast in and trust by nature... Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Not in the Christian assembly where the presence of the Lord is.
- Written — The challenge is not Paul's opinion. It rests on God's earlier word through Isaiah, aimed at Christians who prized clever speech.
- Named — The world looks up to the wise, the scribe and the debater. Beside God's revelation they cannot stand, like Egypt's magicians before Moses.
- Cross — This is where God made that wisdom foolish; faith already sees its overthrow there.
- Hidden — No amount of intellect finds God. Pilate asked what truth was, and then crucified Christ.
- Wholesome — Finding out that you are a fool is humbling. It puts man in his right place, and it brings in the wisdom of God.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom has not known God, God has been pleased by the foolishness of the preaching to save those that believe.
This verse holds two surprises. Man's failure to find God happened inside God's own wisdom, and then God chose to save people through a message clever men laugh at.
The phrase "in the wisdom of God" does not describe how the world searched. It describes God's decision to let the search run its full course before He spoke. One writer explains the point as an intentional delay:
It was in the wisdom of God, says the apostle, that the world by wisdom did not know God. This is an inspired declaration. Thinkers of the highest natural intelligence and the widest learning had used their powers to the full and reached their final results. It was all a vain attempt to find out God by searching. In other words, God's wisdom held back the announcement of saving grace in the name of the Son of God on purpose. He waited until man's natural ability had every opportunity to reach its highest point.
God did not leave man in the dark. The darkness was man's own choice:
God never left Himself without witness. He never meant to leave man to the blind gropings of a darkened intellect... So, in the darkness they chose for themselves, their wisdom ripened. In Greece, the nation that stood for all the peoples outside Israel, among people who claimed to seek wisdom, it produced its finest blossoms and its ripest fruits. God's wisdom gladly gave ample time for this development. Israel under law had to show that man was without strength and ungodly. In the same way, the nations had to show that the world by wisdom did not know God.
The verse does not say the world was too stupid to find God. The failure came through wisdom itself:
It was not that the world by its ignorance or stupidity did not know God, but by wisdom it did not know God. All the wisdom of the ages, the combined efforts of the keenest minds in the world, ends in one result. It leaves man in complete ignorance of God, and in complete ignorance of himself.
Greece put the result on public display. One writer then asks the same question of the Christian world today:
What did the philosophy of Greece do for its disciples? It made them the ignorant worshippers of "AN UNKNOWN GOD." The words carved on their altar announced their ignorance and their shame to the whole universe. And may we not rightly ask whether philosophy has done better for the Christian world than it did for Greece? Has it given the knowledge of the true God? Who would dare to say Yes?
Commentators are agreed that the word does not mock the act of preaching. It names the message — the content that men judged absurd. The Greek noun behind it points to the thing proclaimed:
The apostle here speaks not exactly of preaching as a mere instrument, but of the thing preached... This the Jews derided, as well as the Greeks. It was foolishness to them. That is no surprise, if they did not see the glory of the person of Christ, given to die in God's love to sinners. To the natural mind, what could seem less reasonable than a crucified man as the only Saviour from sins and the wrath of God?
Part of the offence is how plain the message is:
This great wisdom comes in words so simple and clear that a child can understand it. That is why men who pride themselves on their superior wisdom are arrogant enough to despise it and call it foolishness. It is of course not the fact of preaching that is despised, but the subject matter.
Salvation comes from God's pleasure alone, and the tool He chose looks weak:
Note this too: men owe their ruin to themselves, but salvation is from God alone. It pleases Him to save. As to the means, it is "the foolishness of preaching." To do the mightiest of works, He uses what the natural mind judges the most inadequate of means. In this way He displays both His wisdom and His power.
Faith receives the message, not ability. That reverses the entry rules of every human system:
In this Christianity stands in sharp contrast with every human system of wisdom. Philosophy wants philosophers, science needs scientists, astronomy must have astronomers. Unless a man has the brains and ability their demands call for, he cannot claim to be their disciple. Not so with the grace that saves. The "wise and prudent" are set aside, and "babes" are put in their place.
- Delay — God's wisdom held back the gospel until human wisdom had its fullest chance and reached its finest results.
- Verdict — The failure was not stupidity. Wisdom itself left man not knowing God, and not knowing himself.
- Evidence — Greece's altar to an unknown God announced the result. Philosophy has done no better for the Christian world since.
- Message — What men call foolish is not the act of preaching but its content. A crucified man is the only Saviour from sins and God's wrath.
- Reach — Salvation comes by believing, not by intellect. So the wise are set aside and babes take their place, and God shows both His wisdom and His power.
Since Jews indeed ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom;
Paul names two things people wanted from God before they would listen: a display of power, or a system of thought. He gives neither. He preaches the one thing both groups had already turned down.
Each demand grew out of a people's history and pride.
The Jews had a background and training in the public knowledge of a God who showed Himself in visible miracles and signs. So they held that only striking visible signs could prove that a thing was from God. The Greeks, on the other hand, took pride in intellectual achievement. They looked for the kind of wisdom that would exalt the most philosophical minds.
One writer sees these two as the whole of what the world's wisdom can produce.
In verse 22 we have a summary of the wisdom of this world, measured against the higher longings of mankind. It shows two features, and only two: unbelief that is still gullible, and investigation that relies on itself.
The demand for a sign was not honest curiosity. God had already answered it.
The world is busy with other things, or turns elsewhere. God gave visible signs when He sent the Lord Jesus to the land of Israel. Never since the world began had there been such a cloud of witnesses of this kind. But what can satisfy the heart when everything in it is turned away from God? The Jews overlooked all He gave and asked for a sign as if none had appeared. The Greeks expected nothing from God. But if what they were looking for was wisdom, they never learned its first lesson: the fear of the Lord.
Both groups wanted something real. The problem was the condition they attached to it.
Power and wisdom are the two things man admires. But they must be power and wisdom that suit his own thoughts. The Jews looked for a Messiah dressed in worldly majesty and glory. The Greeks looked for a god that fitted their own philosophical ideas. How then could either one recognize or receive a Saviour who came clothed with humility and weakness?
Paul does not produce a sign for one group or a philosophy for the other.
The demand for a sign gets no answer, and the questions of philosophy lead only to emptiness and hopeless doubt. Man has confessed his own failure, whether Jew or Gentile. He cannot rescue himself. Nor can he find the way of peace by the flickering light of his own intelligence. On that ground God now speaks to both alike through His ambassadors.
And there is no alternative message held in reserve for those who find this one unacceptable.
The Jew was waiting for the Christ, but He had to be a splendid figure, spectacular, matching what they expected. The Greek would have welcomed a new philosopher to bring their ideas to a triumphant climax. Christ crucified outraged them both. Such a Christ was a hopeless stumbling block to the Jew, and He looked ridiculous beyond words to the Greek. But there is no other Christ than the Christ who was crucified.
God's answer to both demands is one Person.
The merely religious man looks for a sign, while the man who trusts reason wants wisdom. The Sign God gives is also His Wisdom... He is that hidden wisdom which God planned beforehand for our glory. But the rulers of this age crucified the Lord of glory, because they did not know Him. In killing Him they showed their own folly.
Even measured against the Jewish demand on its own ground, the cross overshoots it.
What kind of sign was this? the Jews would ask. Had not many others been crucified? Yes, but not another like Him. Here is the one Man without sin, the One who is more than man, the eternal God revealed in human flesh... But on His side it was a sacrifice of infinite value — how much more than a sign!
Sign-seeking is not limited to unbelievers. One writer finds the same habit inside a believer.
An angel told Zacharias that his elderly wife, who had never had children, would bear a son. Even so, he asked for some sign to back up the plain Word of God. In this he showed himself to be an "unbelieving believer," though very true to type, for "Jews demand signs."
- The demand. The world's approach to God has only two forms: asking for visible proof, and hunting for a wisdom that flatters the mind.
- The blindness. God had already sent unmatched signs in Christ. Asking for one more meant overlooking every sign He gave.
- The condition. Both groups wanted power and wisdom, but only in a shape that suited them. So humility and weakness ruled the Saviour out in their eyes.
- The refusal. Paul meets neither demand. The demand for a sign gets no answer, and there is no second Christ on offer beside the crucified One.
- The surplus. The cross turns out to be both the sign and the wisdom — a sacrifice of infinite value, far more than anyone asked for.
but *we* preach Christ crucified, to Jews an offence, and to nations foolishness;
Paul preached to two audiences with opposite demands. The Jews wanted a Messiah in power. The Greeks wanted wisdom. He gave both the same message, and it satisfied neither. The very thing God uses to save is the thing that offends the religious and insults the clever.
Is the folly in the act of preaching, or in what is preached? One writer answers from the wording of the passage:
As a translator's note points out, "the foolishness of preaching" points not to the act of preaching, but to what is preached. So in verse 23 the apostle says, "we preach Christ crucified … folly to Gentiles" (older translations read "foolishness"). To those cultured, intellectual men it seemed complete folly to preach salvation through One who died a shameful death on a cross. It offended their pride, because it made nothing of man. By this means God made foolish the wisdom of this world.
Paul names Christ by what men did to Him. That hits hardest at people who prize the world's approval:
The Christ whom the apostle preached was the One whom the world crucified. He was a rejected, outcast Christ — one assigned by the world to a criminal's gallows. What a fact for the poor Corinthians, so full of vanity and love for this world's wisdom!
Paul writes "crucified," not just "died," and the word choice matters:
Here it is not simply the blood shed that makes atonement. To say "crucified" says more than to say "dead." Both words declare the end of man in the flesh. But the cross carries a shame and weakness beyond anything else. God saved by means of the cross, where the world saw the worst of human suffering and humiliation. That silenced the world's wisdom. It proved that wisdom to be folly, for daring to think and speak in that way about His wisdom. … The cross of Christ is the fullest display of God's judgment of sin and of His love to the sinner.
Their problem was not who the Messiah was, but how He came. Behind that lay something deeper:
The Jews looked for a Messiah reigning in power from a throne. He would revive the kingdom, put down their enemies, and set Israel at the head of the nations. Christ reigning on a throne they could understand; Christ crucified on a cross was an offence to them. Having no sense of their need as sinners, they could see no meaning in the cross. To them in their unbelief it became a stumbling block.
For people who judged everything by reason, this message tied life to a dying Man and power to weakness:
The Gentiles looked for something that appealed to reason — some new thing, some scheme of philosophy. Tell them that salvation comes through a crucified Man, life through a dying Man, power through a Man crucified in weakness, and in their sight you were talking utter foolishness. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom.
Both reactions share one root. God designed the cross to leave no room for human greatness:
The cross sweeps away the whole of man in the flesh. It puts an end to everything the flesh could glory in. There is no glory for the flesh in the cross at all. It was God's wisdom to do this: no dignity, no heroism, but shame, reproach, disgrace, and death. It brings all of man down to a place where nothing could be found. There is not even a stone to put his foot on to keep it out of the water. Only slaves ever hung on a cross, and this is what God takes up to bring the world to nothing.
Paul gave the same message to two groups with opposite instincts. He did not adjust it for either, and he did not lean on his own skill:
On one side stood the wise Greek, on the other the devout Jew, who testified that God is one. But Paul's testimony was the same to both, though they stood opposed to one another: "a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles." The veil lay on the heart of the one as much as on the other. Both stood opposed to the teaching of grace. The apostle counted only on the power of God to remove the veil and to open the way for people to receive His testimony.
- Content — The message is not a style of speaking but a subject: a Person, and that Person crucified.
- Offence — The Jews wanted a Messiah on a throne; a cross meant nothing to people with no sense of their need as sinners.
- Folly — The Greeks wanted reasoning. Salvation through a dying Man sounded absurd, because it made nothing of man.
- Design — The cross offends both. It sweeps away everything the flesh could glory in: no dignity, no heroism, only shame.
- Confidence — Paul gave both groups the same message. He counted only on the power of God to lift the veil.
but to those that [are] called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ God's power and God's wisdom.
Paul has just said that the message of a crucified Christ offends the religious and amuses the educated. This verse names the one thing that changes the verdict: God's call. The called see no clever scheme, but a Person — God's own power and God's own wisdom.
One group wanted proof they could see. The other wanted ideas they could admire.
The Jews demanded signs, because God had stepped into their history with miracles again and again. But the sign had to be of a certain kind to satisfy them. The Greeks almost worshipped the human mind, and wanted nothing that did not fit the popular ideas of the day... The Jew was waiting for a Christ who had to be splendid and spectacular, just as they expected. The Greek would have welcomed a new philosopher to bring their theories to a triumphant finish. Both were outraged by Christ crucified. But there is no other Christ than the Christ who was crucified.
The word "called" marks off a group. They look at the same crucified Christ and find in Him what everyone else was hunting for elsewhere.
To tell the Greeks there was salvation through a crucified Man, life through a dying Man, power through One who was crucified in weakness, was to say what in their eyes was utter foolishness. Still, to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. In Him they discover God's power to save, and God's wisdom in carrying out all His purposes.
Paul does not say the called receive power and wisdom. He says they receive Christ, and the rest comes with Him.
The first and special effect of this preaching on "the called" is to set the person of the Saviour clearly and firmly before their souls. To such, the apostle says, "it is Christ." The news of Him reached their ears just as it reached everyone else's. But in their happy case it was mixed with faith, so His Name becomes to them the proof and assurance of His saving grace. They receive the Lord Himself when they receive God's testimony. Next, the Christ they have received is to them the power and wisdom of God. Power shows itself by what it does... And when a soul receives Christ crucified by faith, the effect is to settle it in the lasting peace of God.
God showed His strength in the place of deepest shame. That is what silenced human cleverness.
The point here is not simply the blood shed that makes atonement. To say "crucified" says more than to say "dead." Both declare the end of man in the flesh, but the cross carries a shame and weakness beyond anything else. So when God saved by means of the cross, where the world saw the worst of human suffering and humiliation, He silenced human wisdom. He proved it to be folly, since it dared to think and speak that way about His wisdom.
Set beside anything people can do, God's power and wisdom have no rival.
What power can anyone show next to the "immeasurable greatness" of God's power, "that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places"? What wisdom can anyone show, after all their research, to match what God revealed when He turned the shameful cross of Calvary into the means of salvation and blessing for countless millions? Men refused His beloved Son even the small honour of kingship over the Jews, and God has made Him head over the universe.
Wisdom shows itself by reaching its goal. On that test the cross is God's masterpiece.
Wisdom shows itself when the means chosen actually reach the goal. God's goal must be His own glory. So Christ crucified must be owned as His wisdom. For the cross of the Son of God empties every claim the creature could make, and at the same time shows the rich glory of His grace in the triumphant display of His own righteousness.
This wisdom did not begin at the cross. The Old Testament already pointed to it, through a man famous for wisdom of his own.
How fitting that the man once given wisdom beyond anyone else should be the one to reveal, in the Old Testament, the One who is that Wisdom in His own eternal Person!
- Called — one message meets sign-hunters and idea-hunters. God's call turns the offence into treasure and opens eyes to see Christ as His power and His wisdom.
- Christ — the called receive a Person, not first a benefit. They "receive the Lord Himself" when they receive God's testimony, and the blessings come with Him.
- Power — power shows itself by what it does. Here it settles the soul in the lasting peace of God.
- Wisdom — wisdom proves itself by reaching its goal. God's goal is His own glory, and the cross reached it while emptying every human claim.
- Both — Paul names Jew and Greek alike. No background gives an edge, and none locks anyone out. The crucified One is the only Christ there is.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
The world looked at the message of a crucified Christ and called it foolish and weak. Paul takes those two words and hands them straight back — but can God have folly or weakness at all?
Neither word describes anything true of God. They are man's language for the gospel — and God chose exactly what man despised.
The expressions "foolishness of God" and "weakness of God" just put the thing in the strongest way. Take death as an example. Death is weakness — "crucified in weakness". Yet death set aside everything of man, and in that sense it is the weakness of God. It establishes God completely. The weakness of God was the gospel, that is, as man would speak of it; and foolishness as man looks at it. And God chose that. He took it on purpose. To man it was only someone hanging on a gallows, yet it glorified God.
Paul does not weigh God's wisdom against man's wisdom. He sets what men call God's folly beside man's best work — and even then it wins.
Men may wish to call this the foolishness of God, as in verse 25. It is still infinitely wiser than man's highest wisdom. And if they count it weakness on God's part, there is a power in it far above the greatest strength of men. It achieves such lasting results that it puts to shame the things men boast of as their greatest accomplishments.
Paul could have written that Christ died. He wrote that Christ was crucified, and the difference matters.
It is not simply the blood shed that makes atonement here; and it says more to say "crucified" than to say dead. Though both declare the end of man in the flesh, the cross holds an extreme of shame and weakness found nowhere else. In the cross the world saw the worst of human suffering and humiliation. That God should save by that very cross silenced the world's wisdom. It proved that wisdom to be folly, for daring to think and speak that way about His wisdom.
Measure the cross by what it achieved and the labels turn around. The moment that looked like total defeat is the moment Christ won everything.
Where was there ever a victory so complete and so far-reaching? It came when this Man of sorrows bowed His head and died. ... There the cunning and craft of Satan ended in his own confusion. His seeming victory became defeat, and Christ's seeming overthrow became triumph. From that lowest depth Christ went up on high. He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. For truly "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
Commentators differ on what the cross shows most of all. Most read it as God's wisdom and power hidden under an appearance of folly. One writer sees love shining there instead, and places the display of power at the resurrection.
We speak of the cross of Christ as the strongest expression of love, and of His resurrection as the brightest display of power... It was not the display of wisdom, though it certainly was the wisdom of God. To the wise of this world the cross is foolishness, and to the self-righteous it is a stumbling block. Nor was it the display of power — "He was crucified in weakness" — but it was the showing of love. If to the worldly-wise it looks like weakness and foolishness, to admiring faith it is the highest expression of love enduring.
The same test sorts what is of God from what is only of man. One writer applies it to how churches are run: what happens when God is left out?
What a human system boasts of as its glory is really its condemnation: it can run on smoothly without God. That system points to open ministry, carried on in dependence on the Holy Spirit, as proof of folly. But that is its real excellence: it cannot go on without God. If it were of man alone it would collapse in a moment. How true it is here, as in everything else: "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men!"
- Seeming, not real. God has no folly and no weakness. Paul takes the world's insult and repeats it at full volume to make the contrast unanswerable.
- Seeming folly outthinks men. The contrast is not God's wisdom against man's wisdom. It is what men call God's folly against man's finest work — and God's folly wins.
- Seeming weakness is the cross. Crucifixion was the extreme of shame. God chose it as the way of salvation.
- Seeming defeat is the victory. Satan's apparent win became his defeat, and Christ's apparent overthrow became His triumph.
- Seeming strength is the danger. Anything that runs well without God stands condemned by that fact. Anything that cannot go on without Him is His.