Or, The Terminal Move That Changed Everything1 Corinthians 2:8-9 April 17, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

There are stories too good to be told only once. Some people enjoy going over known information, they get edification in the repetition, others enjoy seeking out new information and adding it to their collection. But there is one story in particular that is always the same and yet keeps making all things new.

A key element in these stories is when things are bad. David and Goliath is a genre; there was no way David could win. Aslan at the Stone Table is brutal; when you read it for the first time it seems like hope dies. The 2004 Red Sox were down three games to none in a seven games series against the Yankees; no professional team in any sport had ever won four in a row in that situation. Chamberlain’s men were out of ammunition at the holding the Union’s left flank at Little Round Top. We eat these stories up like meat on a charcuterie board.

What I pray brings comfort and strength and joy to you today is not only our remembrance that the darkness of the cross is eclipsed by the light of Christ’s resurrection, but also that the cyclical attacks of the evil one, as bad as they have been, continually lead to his own undoing. At no point is this more obvious than the cross.

Let’s look at the main text for this morning and then trace the evil one’s series of brutal yet self-defeating blunders.

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,nor the heart of man imagined,what God has prepared for those who love Him.”(1 Corinthians 2:6-9)

Paul has been exalting the word of the cross since 1 Corinthians 1:18. That word is folly to the kind of man who can only see what’s in front of him, the man who takes his cues from what’s everyone else around him thinks. Christ crucified made no sense as a way of salvation and certainly not as a way of glory. Christ crucified obviously made sense as the way to shut Christ down. Killing Him was clearly the move to make Him look bad.

Surprising Power

But it is preaching Christ crucified that is God’s wisdom. Christ crucified is God’s power.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV)to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:24 ESV)my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, (1 Corinthians 2:4 ESV)so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5 ESV)

The power of God is demonstrated in the crucifixion, which is a kind of divine wisdom, a wisdom that rulers missed, and in missing it they sealed not only their ignorance but their doom.

Verse 6 doesn’t change the subject from Christ crucified, but Paul does clarify that what sounded like a simple message–Christ crucified—is surprisingly powerful.

This age is the current aeon, not just the first century, but is a way of looking at things. It’s less a whenever and more a however of a fleshly, man-centered, and God-hating way. They are playing a game, so to speak, and the field is only what’s in front of them. There can only be one winner, and the competition must be destroyed.

The rulers of this age are not just the Jewish leaders or Roman officials, Pilate and Herod and soldiers. Those men are included, as are all the m[...]