What is the weakness of God (1 Corinthians 1:25)?

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.

The Jews looked for a Messiah reigning in power from a throne, One Who 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.

As for the Gentiles, who looked for something that appealed to reason — some new thing, some scheme of philosophy — to tell them there was salvation through a crucified Man, life through a dying Man, power through One Who was crucified through weakness, was to speak of that which in their sight was utter foolishness. Nevertheless, to them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom. In Him such discover God's power to save, and God's wisdom in carrying out all His purposes.

To the mind of man the preaching is “the foolishness of God” and the Cross “the weakness of God”. Be it so, it will but prove that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men”.

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 first and distinctive effect of this preaching on "the called," is to present the person of the Saviour8 clearly and positively to their souls. To such, says the apostle, "it is Christ." The report of Him fell upon their ears in common with those of other men, but being mixed, in their happy case, with faith, His Name becomes to them the verification and assurance of His saving grace. They receive the Lord Himself in receiving the testimony of God. Next, the Christ so received is to them the power and wisdom of God. Power is known by its effects, and works as the fulfiller of His purpose to whom power belongs. Now God's purpose, as respects His chosen, is to save. And the effect upon the human soul of a believing reception of Christ crucified is to establish it in the abiding peace of God. His Gospel is the Gospel of salvation, and when received with meekness, as His own engrafted word, it sets the simple believer far above all fear of Satan or of man, and gives Him in Christ a present and decisive victory over the world.9 For His Saviour is the power of God.

But He is God's wisdom also. Now wisdom is proved by a successful adjustment of means to an end; and if (as it needs must be) His own glory be God's end, then must Christ crucified be confessed to be His wisdom: for by the cross of the Son of God it is that the nullity of all creature-claims is demonstrated, as well as the abundant glory of His grace in the triumphant manifestation of His own righteousness.1 Wisdom has been man's aim since first the lie of the tempter estranged Him from his Maker. Vain man would be wise.2 But for the opened eye of faith, the cross is both an eternal silencing of natural pretensions, and a willing and grateful oblivion of them all, in the blessed discovery of what God is. Man naturally seeks himself. When quickened by the Spirit he seeks God, and finds Him in the cross of His own Son. In that Light, light is both seen and enjoyed: even the Light wherein is no darkness at all.3 And although the intellect is as powerless as ever to explain the facts which belong to the mystery of redemption, faith sees (though as yet with the feeble eye of spiritual infancy), and marvels at the perfect beauty of that wisdom which the Spirit now reveals; for God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, has suffered Satan to exist and practise, yea, and to prosper also (but to his own undoing) through the bruising of the heel of Jesus, that in every sphere of His redeemed creation, not His power only, but the excellent brightness of His glory as a Saviour, might be acknowledged and adored in the perfected enjoyment of His love.4 In that light sin itself becomes a subject of intelligent contemplation to the believer, but in a far different sense from that knowledge of evil in its origin which philosophy still wearies itself in vain to find; and although in its nature a still undiscovered mystery, it is recognized as a necessity of God's permitting — a means to His great end, who suffers evil only that He may Himself work good; and thus the still unattainable object of human search5 shines forth for faith, in all its priceless lustre, from the cross.

Verse 25. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men," etc. Having asserted in the previous verse the proper glory of the cross, he now takes up again the stigma of reproach already noticed in verse 18, in order to complete his demonstration of the excellency of the Gospel. It is foolishness, it is weakness. Yet in its foolishness it has compassed that of which man's wisdom could but vainly dream; for it has both solved the problem of humanity, and offered to the world a view of its Creator such as no natural imagination had conceived. God's foolishness excels the wit of man. Again, the weak words of His Gospel6 have effected what no human power ever wrought before; for they have given a clear conscience to the guilty, and conferred upon the bankrupt and death-dishonoured soul of man a triumphant assurance of eternal life. By how much the dominion of the soul excels the mastery of the body, by so much does the word of truth exceed in power the utmost efforts of the human will.

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.”

"For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God … We also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you." (2 Cor. 13:4.) Thus, The cross was in Jesus the proof of how He had emptied Himself — "being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

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.

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.

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."

And, through grace, no other Christ is desired by us. But then, we are amongst the "us which are saved." We are called of God, whether once we were Jews or Gentiles, and we can see that Christ really is both the power and the wisdom of God. He will bring to nothing all the mighty schemes of men in consummate wisdom and most decisive power and also establish all that God has purposed. At the same time His wisdom and power have wrought for our salvation. From the human standpoint the cross may be the foolishness and the weakness of God, but it is at the same time both wiser and stronger than men.