The Message of the Cross

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 1: 18, NKJV

First Corinthians 1: 18 is a continuation of the reasoning found in the pericope immediately before it.  In those earlier verses, Paul had made it clear that Christ is not divided.  Therefore, the Corinthian believers are not to be divided either.  Toward that end, Paul implored the Corinthians not to become bogged down in peripheral issues, testifying that he was not called to preach such things as water baptism, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ that culminated in His saving cross, and it is precisely this message that is foolishness to the world.  Thus, Paul was not speaking about the piece of wood that Jesus died on in his reference to the “cross.”  He was speaking of the salvation that Jesus accomplished for us (and for all people) through His substitutionary death and resurrection; he was speaking of the atonement, specifically alluding to the truth that salvation is a gift we are to receive rather than a work we are to accomplish or a prize to be earned.  Jesus literally paid it all, taking the fullness of our sin upon Himself and dying a criminal’s death on our behalf that we might be set free from that sin and know new and abundant life.  Therefore, there is nothing left for us to do except believe the Good News … except to humbly receive His grace.  Paul’s invocation regarding the “message of the cross [as] foolishness” then is a restating of one of his favorite themes: salvation by grace, which is nonsense to the world.
Our culture teaches that we have to earn our way – that nothing’s free; that, by the sweat of our brow, we take hold of our own destiny.  We overcome by the strength of our cunning and by the force of our hands … but God’s grace comes to us, unassumingly, as a gift.  God willingly gives us what we could never earn through the Person of His Son, one perfect sacrifice for all broken people.  This is where the Gospel would take us – past our own reasoning, beyond our own strength, to a cross on a hill where the Savior has died.  “It is finished,” He said only a moment before His last breath.  Here is grace; here is salvation – One Man lifted up for the sins of the world … One Man lifted up for my sins, and there is nothing I can do but know the blessing of receiving it.  How absurd!  How wonderful is this grace!
As prepare for Good Friday, we do well to consider the magnitude of God’s gift – a gift so unexpected and extraordinary.  Have we received this gift or are we trying to earn it?  How is this changing us?  Having received God’s gift of grace are we gracious in return?  We must remember that Christianity is not about doing something; it is about a relationship with Someone.  It is a daily walk with Christ, not a list of duties that we are bid to perform.  As foolish as it may seem, “the message of the cross … to us who are being saved … is the power of God.”

In Christ,
Pastor Todd

Father, help us not only to receive Your free gift of salvation by grace but to stop approaching our faith as if it were a duty to be performed.  Instead, help us to humbly receive Your gift and to walk with You on the Way.  Help us not only to embrace “the message of the cross” but, as foolish as it may seem, to share it with the world even as Paul did who “[counted] all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus [his] Lord, for whom [he] suffered the loss of all things, and [counted] them as rubbish, that [he] may gain Christ” in whose name we pray, saying: amen.