St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church + Benton Harbor, Michigan

The Third Sunday in Lent, March 26, 2000

1 Corinthians 1:22-25

“Wise Unto Salvation”

By Pastor Timothy H. Buelow

²² Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Dear Friends in Christ, It’s been said that you can’t argue someone into the kingdom of heaven. That’s very true, and that bit of wisdom is highlighted by what Paul says in our text. You see, arguments revolve around human wisdom which is foolishness to God. God’s Word, on the other hand, is wisdom itself, but to foolish humans it doesn’t make any sense. That senselessness is highlighted during this Lenten season, where we talk so much of the cross of Christ. The cross and what happened there is absolutely central to Christianity, yet only the Holy Spirit through the Word can put that cross at the center of a man’s heart and there crucify and conquer his human wisdom. All human arguments aside, the cross is able to make us Wise Unto Salvation.

1. Itching Ears

The world and its sons and daughters will never believe or understand this truth without the working of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, Paul tells us.

In Jesus’ day, the Jews wanted Jesus to perform tricks like a circus actor. Still when Jesus did his most awesome miracles, they simply got all the more hardened in their unbelief. How many miracles had Jesus done before he was crucified? Yet he was still rejected. Are there people like that today? Are there people who are permanent skeptics, who say they’ll believe only if they see a sign from heaven? There certainly are. Why, there are even people like that in the church—charismatics who spend all their energies looking for signs and wonders and miracles. And does not, in fact, each of us have the same natural, fleshly tendency? We would all like to see what we believe instead of having to hope in the One we have not seen and in His Word. But our text does not commend this to us as a virtue. No, it rather attributes this characteristic to those who are wise in their own human eyes but foolish before God.

Others look for human wisdom. Philosophers and endless debates and discussions were what the Greeks of the world of Jesus looked for. If you were to convince them of anything, it had to be done through human books, human learning, human arguments and human evidence. Are there people like that today? Not only are there plenty of them, but this group too has invaded the church. People who call themselves Christian theologians tell us we can’t really believe what the Bible says. If you want to convince them of anything, the foolish words of God won’t do at all! Human evidence, human learning, no matter how faulty and misguided, is all they’ll listen to.

Again, doesn’t each of us have this tendency too? When we won’t fall on our knees before the Word of God and thoroughly swallow all of God’s promises and make them our own, we’re acting like the stoic philosopher. When God tells us “Don’t worry,” for example, and we go right on worrying, we’re saying “God, I know what you’re Word says, but I’m not quite sure that’s reasonable.

No, nobody was ever argued into the kingdom of heaven. And nobody ever entered into the kingdom because they saw a miracle either. When the rich man in hell wanted Lazarus to rise from the dead and scare his brothers into believing, Abraham told him it wouldn’t work. “They have Moses and the prophets,” he said, ‘They have the Bible.’ If they won’t listen to the Word of God, they won’t believe, even if someone rises from the dead.” Truth is, people can get off the track all their life long by debating philosophy or even looking for miracles, so as not to face the heart and core of our human problem—the sin that destroys our relationship with God and lies at the heart of every problem we face in this world.

2. The Foolishness of Man-Made Salvation

Seeking after philosophy and miracles, looking for such outward things—such dilly-dallying when it comes to salvation—exposes a heart that does not know the depth of its own degradation. Only those who know how far they have truly fallen short of the glory of God will desperately look for some way to be right with God. Those who don’t will be content with their basic theory about how they’re good enough, or at least better than others. Even people who say “If I go to hell I’ll be in good company,” don’t really believe they’ll go there, or don’t ever want to really think through the truth of what they’ve said.

And yet God insists that these questions be dealt with. He has made each of us with a conscience that plagues us when we do wrong. But since our consciences have been dulled through the fall, God accuses us in His holy Word of all the sins we have ever committed. Did you listen to the Old Testament Lesson, The Ten Commandments? The fool ignores them at his own peril. These are God’s eternal commands, and they are binding upon the conscience of all people everywhere—no excuses. The “outrageously” strict demands of the law of our Holy God are designed to show us in no uncertain terms the foolishness and futility of thinking that we, by our own human strength, could somehow gain favor with God. God says “Be perfect,” and people are deaf and dumb enough to think that God said “try hard” or “be kinda nice” or “be pretty good.” No. God says “Be ye therefore perfect.” Only a blind fool could hope to gain heaven by keeping God’s holy law. And yet in blind foolishness, that’s what so many try to do.

Our Gospel Lesson of Jesus cleansing the temple gives a vivid example of how human attempts to keep the law result in all kinds of crazy aberrations. The sacrifices of the temple were intended to point God’s people ahead in faith to Christ’s crucifixion, his perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world. But for the moneychangers and their bosses in the Sanhedrin, the very thing designed to bring them closer to God in faith became the very opposite, a temptation to abandon God for the gaining of sinful profit. What should have reminded them of Christ, instead caused them to covet, to steal, to love something more than God and his holy house and his holy day.

The fact is that people who suppose they can keep the law on their own wind up attacking the very heart of the law. Paul wrote in Romans that “those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; …The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. [Rom 8:5a,7,8] Such crazy acts of human righteousness—whether it’s the selling of cattle in the temple or all the modern ways people try to make bargains with God—do nothing but make our holy and righteous God even more angry. That’s why we see Jesus, consumed by true zeal for his Father’s house, angrily turning over the tables of the money changers in our Gospel Lesson.

We ignore the law at our own peril. God has written the law on the conscience of every man, woman and child. And because our consciences are corrupt God even put his law into print. God summarizes his law with the words “Be Perfect,” because he wants us to abandon all hope of trying to gain heaven on our own. Such attempts only result in hypocrisy and damnation. All worldly wisdom on how to get to heaven, how get right with God, and how to get rid of the nagging pangs of conscience are fatally flawed and ultimately completely foolish.

But there is a way to get to heaven, a way to be right with God and to have a conscience free from guilt. It is a way so wise man could never have devised it, a way so full of love and grace, no man would ever have invented it, a way so divine, man could never have accomplished it. It is the wisdom and power of God—Christ Crucified.

3. Christ Crucified

Cast all demands for miracles and philosophical arguments aside. This message alone will bring salvation. To man it is pure foolishness, yet it is the “wisdom and power of God.” ... “We preach Christ crucified.” This is the Gospel that saves you, and this is the Gospel that will save all who believe. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

The holy Son of God himself was crucified for our sins. He died our well-deserved death for us. Through faith in him we are cleansed of all our sins. He alone was holy and kept God’s law, but through faith His righteousness is credited to our account, and we are saved. What beautiful foolishness!

But that message of wisdom from God presupposes an understanding of the force of the law. We are unholy, unrighteous, ungodly by nature. We are damned and need a Savior from sin and death. Sometimes we Christians make the mistake of assuming people already know that. But that’s not necessarily the case. Do you think the drug dealer is worried about eternal life or damnation while he’s dealing on the streets from his BMW? What about your ordinary neighbors? Someone told me once about a Jewish roommate he had in college. In trying to share his faith with the young man, the roommate asked the question: “What do I need a Savior for, I’ve got a good life, the Jewish people have Jerusalem back, what for?” Matters of eternal life hadn’t even crossed his mind, much less guilt from a knowledge of his own sinfulness. In the same way, Satan has done his best to drug the whole world into obliviousness about its real need.

When we value the gift of a Savior, it’s because we have first come to know the law in its full force. We know how we have sinned against almighty God, no matter how much the devil and the world and our own sinful flesh want us to believe otherwise with their message of “I’m OK, you’re OK.” That means we need to tell the world the message of the law before they will ever understand the Gospel, no matter how foolish the world judges God’s Word to be. Then, only after the Holy Spirit has plowed up the field of people’s hearts with the wise and true law of God, can they come to understand and believe and rejoice in the greatest foolishness of all—Christ crucified. Don’t underestimate the power of the truth. After all, you have believed, as have millions of others throughout history. God’s foolishness truly is the “power of God.” ... “for the salvation of everyone who believes.”

Have faith in the foolishness of God’s truth. Yes, it’s a stumbling block to Jews—and many others—who think they’re good enough through their outward attempts at good deeds to enter heaven. Yes, it’s foolishness to Greeks—and many others—who are too busy philosophizing and pursuing earthly pleasures to care. But it is still the power and wisdom of God that gives the gift of eternal life to everyone who believes, first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. May God in his mercy keep each of us wise unto salvation, and through our preaching of Christ crucified, bring others into his kingdom, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.