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The cross of Christ is entirely God's wisdom.
By men's words it can appear to be void of His wisdom. Such a
position begins to occur when the cross is given the least
aspect of being ornate, or is regarded as a burden to be borne.
Moreover, any teaching is to be suspect which tends to indicate
the slightest degree of deficiency as to the completeness of
that which God achieved thereby in the salvation of His
creation.
If our words suggest the need for any
additional extra element, they are, in effect making void the
wisdom of the cross. In the apostle's context of the cross of
Christ, even a commission to baptise would be a matter likely to
diminish the full effectiveness of the cross, for it would
suggest a lack in God's wisdom. Such is the wisdom resident in
the cross that God is able to achieve the elimination of every
feature of the old creation. The cross ever speaks of
condemnation and curse. Therein lies its wisdom.
Paul heralded Jesus Christ, that One Whose
faith took Him to the death of the cross. Upon that faith rests
God's just verdict concerning those who are believing. They are
justified through Jesus Christ's faith. Their deeds, as sinners,
have become God's righteousness. Here is the position of the
first and opening statement concerning justification. Justified
in His blood is an elaboration of His faith. It accepts the
implications to which His faith led. It shows the faith of Jesus
definitely applied to the believer. But the basic statement of
justification is in regard to Jesus Christ's faith. It was
because of our offences that He was given up. Thus did grace
conciliate offenses. But, because of our justifying, He was
roused.
It is most desirable that we learn to
discriminate these and other distinctions as to how God deals
with the varying aspects involved in our salvation. Around the
cross lies God's wisdom, whereas justification is a matter
related to purpose, to power and to the righteousness of God.
Christ crucified starts the reference to God's wisdom.
In the cross is that wisdom of God which is
able to deal with sin in regard to that aspect which puts the
human in a condition of estrangement from God. What remains to
us, due to our relationship to humanity, every problem which the
eons have produced around the sinner, these the cross settles,
and removes to God's glory. The law, and the disposition of
sin's flesh, these are dealt with in the wisdom of the cross. In
a word, anything and everything which could arbitrate against
the just verdict of God, this is dealt with in the cross. The
salvation which God is bestowing upon His creatures, it really
makes us for His glory, and the wisdom to such an end is in the
cross.
These matters the word of the cross
emphasises and explains, and it indicates, in the fullest sense,
that God centres His wisdom in the cross of Christ. It is a
wisdom, which, though nullifying by means of condemnation, yet
it achieves that condition which is salvation. Such a wisdom
repudiates every scribe and discusser of this eon, and overrides
all the requests and seekings of men for the credentials of its
wisdom. The statement of its wisdom must be believed. It cannot
be deduced. In the cross of Christ is a wisdom which disgraces
the wise and the strong. They can achieve nothing which
contributes the least item to salvation.
God's wisdom only becomes apparent to those
who become aware that, in their flesh, they do not possess any
ability for salvation. Also, that they cannot produce any
efficiency in the flesh to that end. At once do we see that
those who have thus realised God's wisdom, they do not pretend
to achieve the least detail toward their salvation. They know
that, in themselves, the effect of God's wisdom, in the cross,
is operative. They were crucified together with Christ. In this
fact God's wisdom is applied to them, for gone is their old
humanity, left on the cross. God's spirit dips them into the
death of Christ, and, with Him, to the tomb they go. As He was
raised therefrom, so they are roused. They live and walk in
newness of life. This has come to be achieved in them by God's
wisdom which He placed around the cross.
It was on such a basis that the apostle went
to Corinth. Knowing their boasts in men, both as to religion and
philosophy, Paul's testimony concerning God was Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. This is not Jesus Christ the Ideal Man, an
example to be followed, encouraged and cultivated. Nor is it Him
as He walked and heralded the kingdom of God in Galilee and
Judah. That One humanity crucified as an undesirable in the
world. Humanity was through with Him, whether they were Jew or
Greek.
In Him was God's wisdom, and humanity, by
their treatment of Him, united God's wisdom to the cross. This
they did in accord with God's wisdom, but not because they
approved of the wisdom. On the cross the old humanity, with all
its ability and disability, was crucified. That is how God
effectually removed all the problems of sin, as well as the
estrangement of His creation from Himself. His wisdom has united
His love and His righteousness, delivering His creation. Thus
will His creation come to have the holiness corresponding to and
responding to His holiness.
The Corinthian epistle moves on to regard
those who rule and control the nations, ostensibly to promote
the good of the populate. In them we meet a very contradictory
situation, for, amidst their ruling and policy, Paul went among
them saying that God's wisdom lay around Jesus Christ crucified.
In affirming this, he also said that God's wisdom did not arise
out of this eon, and that, in His wisdom, God arranged this to
be so. God's wisdom decided that the world by its wisdom could
not know Him. In this way the apostle at once gives proof of his
statement that God's wisdom was not out of this eon. In fact,
the chief men of this eon would not crucify the Lord of Glory,
if they had known God's secret.
Though the nations unwittingly executed what
God planned, they formulated no such value as that which Paul,
on God's behalf, heralded concerning Christ crucified. Moreover,
had the chief men known, they would, in their wisdom, have
avoided any part in the matter. They would have rejected it as
an impossible procedure, incapable of good, for in the cross,
not only did they not approve of Him, but they on their part,
condemned Him.
The chief men, in their regulating of
society, used their ruling status so as to rid it of an
undesirable element among the people ! To them the cross was an
aid in this regard. In crucifying the Lord of Glory, the
position was afforded whereby God, by His concealed wisdom,
transformed Israel's apostasy into an occasion for blessing
directly to the nations. Israel does not channel this wisdom of
the cross. It is a matter entirely apart from their
administration.
The character of the office of rulers should
prohibit that which is wrong or evil. The civil ruler, Pilate,
for His part, did not agree that there was any case against the
Lord of Glory. Yet the superscription which he placed over the
cross gave the appearance that He was condemned because He, by
His claims, opposed Ceasar. It was really Pilate's indecision
which allowed the charge of blasphemy, preferred by the chief
priests. The crowd took its lead from the religious leaders, and
added the intimidation which swayed the civil ruler, and so
upheld the chief priests. The chief men, both of Israel and the
nations, in their ignorance, effect the wisdom of Him Who was
able to lead them to carry out His intentions ! How loudly this
speaks when ears are attuned. Does it not also warn all who
would embellish God's wisdom by making additions from those
sections of the Scriptures which cannot give the cross that full
value which God's evangel heralds for it ?
That there was concealed wisdom in regard to
the cross of Christ receives emphasis when we recall that God,
on many occasions, announced through the mouth of all the
prophets the sufferings of His Christ. These sufferings He
fulfils. This is the detail affirmed by Peter (see Acts 2:23 and
3:18). What of the glory that was to follow ? That was not at
all concealed. Some obvious references to the sufferings of
Christ are in Psalm 22, Isaiah 50:6, 53:3-5 and Daniel 9:26. Of
course there are many others, but these above affirm death,
whilst others speak of humiliation.
In his first epistle, Peter gives the outlook
of the prophets concerning Israel's salvation, of which they
prophesied (1:10 and 11). They searched into the sufferings and
the glories of Christ to follow. Our Lord referred to the fact
that many prophets and just men had yearned to perceive and
observe and hear what He spake in the parables, (Matthew 13:17).
Therein He was hiding from Israel, whilst at the same time
revealing for those who had ears to hear. His ministry had come
to that point when he hid the issue concerning Himself. It was
not the simple issue of the rejection of a prophet whose message
was false, nor of a prophet whose message they did not relish.
Here was One Who knew what lay ahead, both for Himself and for
the glory of His Father. Christ is described as the "given up"
One (Acts 2:23). He was this in regard to the specific counsel
and foreknowledge of God. Nevertheless, the people, and the
rulers, and the circumstances, choose the method — gibbeting and
assassinating. There was no wisdom in their action, and their
hands were lawless.
The Scriptures do not express a supposition
when they say that had they known God's wisdom around this One,
that is, what He was proposing to accomplish by Jesus Christ
through the crucifixion, they would not crucify the Lord of
Glory (1 Corinthians 2:6-8). But they did not know the mind of
the Lord, and they certainly could not deduce it. Nor had they
the wisdom to know how to save themselves. By this, the
Scriptures show how thoroughly distinct is the wisdom of this
eon from the wisdom which is of God. Ere the chief men could
enter into such transaction, they would have to admit that their
position before God was such as the evangel affirmed of them. It
was they who needed to be crucified ! That was the crucial
point, and this would be the basis of their refusal, for they
did not accept such an estimate of themselves.
At a point when His ministry was much
developed, the Lord explained to His disciples that He was to be
crucified, and to be roused the third day. He did this
privately, but they did not understand. To the throng (John
12:32-33), He spoke of being lifted up to signify by what death
He should die. This, too, was late in His ministry. In the talk
to Nicodemus, the Lord also spoke of being exalted as Moses
exalts the serpent. The priests were reminded that this deceiver
had said that He was to be roused the third day. Thus, when the
facts of His death and resurrection were told, they still saw no
wisdom or value in it, yet they requested Pilate to seal the
stone of the tomb ! Nor subsequently, when He is roused, would
they believe in order that the glories should follow His
sufferings.
Significant it is that, in announcing the
sufferings of Christ, God never stated the means of His death.
This occurred during a time when death was by stoning. We see
this when we think of the death of Stephen, for that was
executed in true Jewish style. By their law the false prophet
was to die (Deuteronomy 18:20), and stoning was the means. We
note here that the words, "cross" and "crucify," are not words
of the Hebrew Scriptures. To render these matters of the Greek
Scriptures into Hebrew, the Aramaic word "tzlb" is borrowed !
Yet God designated this concealed wisdom before the eons for our
glory, and the language of His people agreed with the concealing
!
Such was God's wisdom that He was able to
proceed with a ministry which is eminently concerned with His
secrets. What God had concealed, His wisdom was able to achieve,
in an eon where the chief men afforded no sympathy or
understanding and were distinctly opposed to His wisdom. Thus
God leads forward to that which the eye has not seen, nor the
ear heard (1 Corinthians 2:9). Paul in his ministry, gave full
evidence of God's wisdom in the cross, and, at the same time,
when Paul spoke thus, his ministry presaged that completing
glory related to the cross, which is recorded in Paul's later
epistles. Even contemporary to the writing to the Corinthians,
Paul spoke to the mature, that is, those who realised what
Christ crucified signified to them: he spoke more deeply as to
what was involved in God's concealed wisdom, and so matters from
the depths of God were revealed.
The spirit of the world does not perceive
what God is graciously giving, yet God's wisdom does justify
itself. It brings out its treasures of knowledge, and those who
are spiritual become aware of them, realising that in the cross,
and before the eons, God's wisdom did designate glory for them.
He Who was the Lord of Glory believed the cross was related to
God's wisdom. His faith should be sufficient for us. His God and
Father honoured the faith of His Son, for He roused Him from
among the dead. That act on the part of God was the crowning
demonstration of His wisdom, as it was also of His power to save
others and glorify His creation and Himself.
The human association of the cross are shame
and condemnation. God's Son despised these, and His obedience to
His Father took Him far beyond them. HE WAS
WISDOM FROM GOD FOR US.
He is this besides righteous and holiness
and deliverance. It is the wisdom of the cross which brings us
to the new creation. This is the teaching of the cross. This is
what God achieves by it.
E.
H. Clayton
Contents Page
"Grace
and Truth"
granted permission
to Martin Lee (GoodNewsGospel.info)
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