What does it mean that the foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Corinthians 1:25)?

This obstinacy or levity of unbelief did not dishearten the apostle, but rather stimulated him in the work near to his heart. "But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling-block and to Gentiles foolishness." It is not here simply the blood shed that makes atonement; and it is more to say "crucified" than dead; for though both declare the end of man in the flesh, there is the extreme of shame and weakness in the cross beyond elsewhere. That God then should save by virtue of the cross, where the world saw the worst of human suffering and humiliation, was to silence that wisdom, proving it to be folly which dared so to think and speak of His wisdom. Over the stone of stumbling fell the Jews who would only have a Messiah in power and glory. So will He come shortly, but where then will those Jews find themselves who were offended by His stooping to the cross in order to save those that believe? Where the Gentiles who preferred their own ideas and vaunted reasonings to the mighty work then wrought at infinite cost? Like the lightning shall the Son of man shine in His day; but first must He suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. For it was morally impossible for God's kingdom to be till sin was judged in the cross. How senseless and slow of heart were even disciples to see that so it must be if God was to be glorified and man righteously blessed and saved! But "to the called Christ," and Christ thus crucified, "is God's power and God's wisdom; because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (Vers. 24, 25) Any other way had compromised sin or made salvation impossible. The cross of Christ is the fullest display of God's judgment of sin and of His love to the sinner. What men taunted as foolishness and weakness, the incarnate Word suffering on a gibbet, equally proves man's utter ruin and God's saving mercy. So did the Saviour endure the judgment of sin that the believer might be saved. Is it not then wiser and stronger than men? Did not the resurrection prove, does not the gospel proclaim, it to be so?

The expressions "foolishness of God," and "weakness of God" (v. 27) are used merely to put the thing in the strongest way. For instance, death is weakness: "crucified in weakness"; yet everything of man was set aside by it, and in that sense the weakness of God. It is the setting up of God absolutely. 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 - took it on purpose, though to man it was merely some one hanging on a gibbet, and yet God was glorified in it. As to "things which are not" (v. 28), out of death is a thing which is not, but the apostle takes it as an extreme case in the whole scene of God in Christendom. God has brought to nought all of heathenism and Judaism.

And the Greeks, they may say it is foolishness; but when death strikes, where is all human wisdom? Indeed, often before death, many of the wisest intellects are reduced to utter inability to reason, or to even remember. But here is death, the violent death of the curse, proclaimed as the means of eternal blessing to mankind. And it cuts down everything that is merely of man, everything that would tend to exalt man's pride, levelling Jews and Gentiles practically to the dust of the earth, but with the precious object of lifting them out of it. Actually, the wonder of it is worthy of the utmost admiration, and it is nothing but the pride of man that refuses it; whether religious pride, as with the Jew, or intellectual pride, as with Gentiles. But to those who are called, Christ is seen as the power of God, power manifested through such weakness as the Jews despised; and the wisdom of God, far above and beyond all that Greek philosophy could imagine.

If, as in verse 25, men wish to consider this the foolishness of God, yet it is infinitely wiser than man's highest wisdom; and if considered weakness on God's part, yet there is a power in it far above the greatest strength of men: it accomplishes such permanent results as to put to shame those things in which men boast as their greatest accomplishments.

Now Paul appeals to the Corinthian brethren themselves to consider the fact of their calling. Certainly it is God Himself who calls His saints: why were there not many wise men, not many mighty, not many noble among them? Can it be that God arbitrarily discriminated against these? No indeed; for at least there were some of these who believed the gospel. But God had seen fit to choose the foolish things of the world in order to confound the wise, weak things to confound the mighty, and things ignoble, despised, and of no account, to render of no value those things that men highly honor. It is not that God condemns intelligence or human ability, but by the preaching of the cross He strikes the death-blow to man's pride and confidence in these things. Some refuse it simply because it injures their pride: they will not come down to admit that God is really greater than themselves.

Thus the "foolishness of God" — what with men may be considered that — approves itself by its blessed fruit in those in whose hearts, opened by divine grace, it has been received effectually, an incoming of light and joy and peace which nothing else can avail to bring. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men," whatever may be the form of the philosophy he favors; and the "weakness of God," — Christ "crucified through weakness," — "is more powerful than men."

The cross of Christ is the witness of the utter folly of man’s boasted wisdom, and though to the mind of man it may appear both weakness and foolishness on the part of God, it is really the demonstration of His power and wisdom. It is His power, for by it He has paralysed the forces of the devil, annulled death, glorified Himself in His attributes and nature, made salvation righteously possible for the human race, laid a firm foundation upon which can be, and shall be, built up a moral universe immune from the power of evil; and it is the place where, not only has His condemnation of sin been expressed in the sight of every intelligent creature, but where also has come to light the unspeakable love of His heart. And it is His wisdom, for where the creature would have supposed everything to be lost, it was just there that everything was gained. It was the only way by which His eternal counsels could have been fulfilled, the only way by which our severance from the old order could have been effected, the only way by which we could have been placed “holy and without blame before Him in love,” and on the ground of which we could have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

But to them what marvels of power and wisdom are here disclosed! Where was victory so complete and so far-reaching as that which was achieved when this Man of sorrows bowed His head and gave up the ghost? The iron bondage of sin and Satan, of the grave and death, was for ever broken; the veil which hid God from man, and kept man from God, was rent in twain from the top to the bottom: the righteous judgment of God was borne by the spotless sacrifice, and the fountain of His grace and love set free to flow out in streams of richest blessing to a ruined world. Such was the display of God's power in Christ crucified; nor was His wisdom less conspicuous or less adorable. If it is in the Church that God now displays His manifold wisdom to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, where would that Church have been but for the hours. of darkness passed by the Holy One upon the cross? There it was that the cunning and craft of Satan were turned to his own confusion, his seeming victory changed to defeat, Christ's seeming overthrow converted into triumph. Thence, from that lowest depth, it was that He ascended up on high, 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."

And this is always God's way, that "no flesh should glory in His presence." So it was when Jesus was in this world; for then the things of God were hid from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes. So it was of old. It was by the foolishness of blowing rams' horns round a powerful fortress that "the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days." It was by the weakness of Shamgar's ox-goad, Gideon's three hundred, Samson's jaw-bone, that Israel was delivered, and the armies of the aliens were turned to flight. Everywhere we see God choosing "the foolish things of the world to confound the wise," and "the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty."

It may be felt by some to be strange that the Spirit of God, instead of entering upon the subject of the coming of the Lord, should at once turn from it to speak of His day. And I have no doubt at all that many readers of this, and other parts of the New Testament, have, through haste, been led to confound the two things together, because of that very circumstance. But we may be always sure that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, as St. Paul says in writing to the Corinthians. They, too, were somewhat confident in their own knowledge. They were reasoning about the ways of God. Why could not God, they might have said, have redeemed and saved His people in a way less full of pain and shame than by the death of His Son? The sacrifice of Christ was required to atone. That cross, the apostle goes on to show, which seemed to some a foolish thing, as it always appears to the world, is the profound wisdom of God. Not merely did He accomplish redemption in the cross: He was putting His sentence upon all that is in man, and bringing out by His love the world's inveterate hatred against Himself.

When Paul came to Corinth to preach the Gospel he did not endeavour to present his message in such a way as would naturally appeal to the learned Greeks. He preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified, telling them that the only way of procuring eternal salvation for their souls was to accept that Jesus died for their sins on the cross, and that He rose from the dead. It was foolishness to the learned of this world, asking them to believe in a Man who died upon a malefactor's cross, crucified in weakness. But what was foolishness to man was the wisdom and the power of God; for the cross was the fruit of God's wisdom, the means whereby His glory in regard to sin was secured and it was the power that brought salvation to ruined sinners.

The preaching of the Cross is foolishness to those that are perishing. Unto us who are being saved it is the power of God, for it saves us from the guilt of sins, the power of sin itself and ere long from the presence of sin in our homegoing. And those who are perishing in rejecting the Cross of Christ were never so numerous as today. To the "Christian Scientist"--the Unitarian--the Destructive Critic-- the new Religionist and others, the preaching of the Cross is foolishness. And the world with all its boasted learning and wisdom did not think of the Gospel and its wonderful plan and power. The nations who boasted of culture and wisdom even in their highest form groped in the dark, and instead of discovering how man can be saved and brought back to God, were dragged down deeper and deeper into sin and despair. And thus God made foolish the wisdom of this world. Therefore the men who today turn their backs upon the Gospel and speak of philosophy, science and wisdom, turn to foolishness once more, which will lead them into the blackness and darkness forever. The preaching of Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness, because the Jews required a sign and the Greeks sought after wisdom, but the Cross puts human pride and glory into the dust. And what Jews and Greeks rejected and treated as foolishness is the power and wisdom of God. What men considered foolishness, a crucified Christ, is therefore wiser than men, for it gives to the believer what the wisdom of the world cannot supply. And the "weakness of God", which is Christ crucified through weakness, is more powerful than men; man is saved by it. Thus the charge of Jews and Gentiles, that the cross is foolishness, that it is weakness, is repudiated and the foolishness and weakness of man is thereby demonstrated and laid bare.

And that no flesh should glory in His presence, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the things which are mighty. He hath chosen the base things, the despised things and the things which are not to bring to naught the things that are. Therefore not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. God in His sovereignty takes up that which is foolish and weak to manifest His power. How fully this is evidenced by experience. And the believer is always in the safe place, if he is in the place of self-abasement, self-effacement and weakness. "Of Him are we in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." It is all of God, and all in Christ, and nothing of us or in ourselves. Christ is the wisdom of God.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:22 that "the Greeks seek after wisdom," but in the cross, in which the wisdom of God is to be seen, they only see foolishness. Nothing can be more foolish to the wise of this world than to tell them that the only way of salvation is faith in the crucified Son of God. Yet it is through the cross that God has procured in Christ blessing for men. The wisdom of God devised the plan that has made salvation available to men by trusting Him who died on the cross for our sins. Man's wisdom, not even the wisdom of a Solomon, could have devised such a plan; when the wise of this world have it brought before them in the Gospel, they account it as foolishness.