First Corinthians 2:1-5 Proclaiming Christ Crucified

Today we're going to start in chapter 2 of 1st Corinthians and I label this section proclaiming Christ crucified But there's actually many many titles we could give this lesson So as we go through it, you're going to see that them. It's really a class about the message of the cross Which actually you look in Scripture and that's pretty amazing. That's a that idea comes up multiple times So let's get into this outline. I really like Chester McCauley's outline which I use most times so we've been looking at the the book of first corinthians you know we start off with uh... looking at the the problem divisions in the church and we put the person the work of christ and and so paul's approach to this interestingly enough he doesn't come in and say well let's let's get a committee together and let's see what what problems you have here this and that he he tells them about our savior and he tells them about the things in their lives in comparison with the Savior. And he talks about his life and what his mission is. That he didn't come to baptize, but to preach the gospel.

We saw that in verses 13 through 17. And then we came down to verses 18 through 25. And those are wonderful verses. It talks about the foolishness of men. Talking about how men are foolish and it's a stumbling block. And then as we go down to verses 26 to 31, that wonderful verse that Mike covered last week, by his doing you're in Christ Jesus. So now we're going to start into a new chapter.

And this chapter is going to talk about the nature of true wisdom, Paul's preaching, his content and method, and the nature of Paul's preaching. And then the following weeks we're going to talk about the purpose of his preaching and kind of finish out this section on true wisdom, which actually goes for quite a long time. But true wisdom is where it is not found and where it is found. So that's kind of an overview of where we're going.

But for today, I'd like to kind of look at some key points in chapters 1 and chapters 2. So first of all, as I mentioned before, in fact, verse 18, which I have up there in kind of bulletized form, it reads, For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.

And the word for word, it could be translated message, and the original language is actually logos, So it's interesting to think about this. In today's world, many people have crosses. They have jewelry for crosses. They have pictures of crosses. And that can be fine and well. But actually what's critical is it's a message that the cross tells us. And scripture talks about that. So it talks about that this word or message of the cross has two results.

One result that to those who are perishing, those who don't know the Lord Jesus as their Savior, it's foolishness to them. And we're going to see some examples of that, and some pretty interesting examples of that. But to those who are being saved, to those who have put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's a power of God.

And I know Mike used this definition when he taught, and I used it in a time before. It's a definition by Chester McCauley of the message of the cross. So what does that mean? So I want to define that. It's good to define your terms. The doctrine of the message of the cross is a teaching that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died a death wherein the guilt and penalty of man's sin was placed on him, making it possible for salvation to be extended to all those who believe in Christ. That definition just touches all the bases, all the right points. So the message of the cross is Jesus Christ died in our place The penalty for man's sin was placed on him, making it possible for us to have eternal life with Christ Jesus our Lord. Just a wonderful thing.

So that's kind of some of the key points of comparison in chapter 1 and chapter 2. Then there's also a contrast. There's a contrast that's in view. In chapter 1, he talks about foolishness a lot. He talks about that the message of the cross, as I mentioned, is foolishness. So we're going to see some examples of that. And the word for foolish is moria. in the original language. It's the idea that it has a couple of ideas. One is it's not logical. It doesn't make sense. And the second is it's feeble-minded. That's kind of an archaic term.

I would say maybe slow of mind, not the quickest, not the sharpest tack on the whatever. There's various words you can put to that. But anyway, man views the cross, the message of the cross, as foolishness. And I'm going to have an example in the next chart here. but in chapter two he changes he changes up what he wants to point out the fact that the cross is really God's wisdom and it's this word Sophia and Sophia you know unfortunately but it can be used both positive and negatively so we'll see it in chapter one it was used negatively many times but in chapter two we're going to see it's going to be used to communicate God's wisdom so now there's a This example I want to use is of Paul.

Paul was in prison in Caesarea, which is a good deal north of Jerusalem. And he was in there for two years in prison. Basically, he was on his way to Rome because he had asked to appeal to Caesar. And this gentleman named King Agrippa, And he asked Festus, which was the person in charge over Paul, if he could hear Paul speak. He wanted to understand what Paul was saying.

So here's a little excerpt from Acts 26 that talks about this, where Paul defends himself and defends what he believes. So he says, I stand to this day testifying both to the small and the great, stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place. that the Christ was to suffer and that by reason of his resurrection from the dead he would be the first to proclaim light to both the Jewish people and to the Gentiles this next verse is the reaction to this to some people, to us that's wonderful well that he told them the right information that's just wonderful but what do you think you guys already probably know the answer if you've read your Bibles What do you think Festus, who's sitting, this picture shows, the upper right hand corner, shows two kingly people. I'm not sure which one's supposed to be Festus and which one's supposed to be King Agrippa, but it doesn't really matter. One of them is going to react violently. And here's his reaction. While Paul was saying this, in his defense, Festus said in a loud voice, he didn't whisper this, in a loud voice, Paul, you're out of your mind.

Your great learning is driving you mad. So his reaction to this wonderful news about our Lord Jesus Christ being resurrected is foolishness. It doesn't make any sense. Even though you're a brilliant guy, I know you're a brilliant guy, but it doesn't make any sense.

So there's a reaction in Scripture. And I think maybe we've all seen this in different ways, in different forms, not only to the Gospel message, but to other things. You know, foolishness is labeled on many things in our society. That's foolish, this is foolish, and I'm smart and you're not. The message of the cross comes across foolishness to those who are perishing.

So now we're going to go on and look at some other points. Here's chapter 2, the first three verses. And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come to you with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. So I'm just going to cover those first three verses for today, and we'll pick up in verse four next week.

And so this is Paul, so what he's describing here, he's describing his entrance into Corinth. And he comes to Corinth, and we're going to see that in some detail here. So let's just look at these verses. We'll start off. So the first verse says, And when I came to you, brethren. So if you look at what Paul does many times, he'll state a negative either in the beginning of the verse or maybe the end of the verse or wherever to accentuate the positive.

So he's saying, And when I came to you, brethren. Then he states a negative point. And he said, I didn't come to you for these following reasons. But I did come to you to proclaim to you the testimony of God. So let's cover the positive first, and then we'll go back and look at the negative.

So Paul wants to proclaim this wonderful testimony of God. And it's in the Aorist tense, which is a past point fact, and it's this word ekomai, to come or to go, signifies the act of coming. So Paul came to these people with this purpose in mind, to proclaim the testimony of God. Proclaim is to declare to actually is to preach is what we use a word for preach for and We see this in effect. We're going to see this later on when Mike does the Lord's table here in 1st Corinthians 11 26 For as often as you eat this bread speaking about the bread will take Remembering his body and drinking the cup symbolizing his blood you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes so I like to say is when we take the Lord's table, which we'll do here shortly and It's a it's a preaching service that in itself is preaching information about our Savior. So it's that word Proclaim is a pretty important word. So let's go on Proclaiming the testimony of God and actually the word testimony is this word Mysterion I remember our brother Vern he had some really cute little charts.

He had little Moose, he took the word and kind of changed it a little bit, and he had a little moose flashing across the screen. Well, I'm not going to do that today, but you have to imagine that in your mind, this little moose going across the screen.

Anyway, it's a truth what Mysterion is. It's not something mysterious, not something that we may not know about. It's something that wasn't revealed, typically was not revealed in the Old Testament, but now has been revealed. So that's kind of the genesis of Mysterion.

And Paul uses it 20 times at least in the New Testament. And Schaeffer says, interestingly enough, he says, if you kind of think about it, all these things that have not been revealed are all the added truth that we have in the New Testament, which is a tremendous amount. We have a tremendous amount of wonderful new truth in the New Testament in comparison with the Old Testament. And then Constable says, he points out that the Gospel hadn't previously been revealed.

And that's what Paul was proclaiming. So now to the negative part. So Paul says, you know, I came to proclaim the testimony of God that you hadn't heard about before. And he said, I did not come with two aspects. So Paul's going to tell us what they are. I did not come to you Corinthians. Remember Paul said he didn't come to baptize, another place where he kind of used this negative-positive approach. He said, I didn't come to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Well, here he comes and he says, I came to you to proclaim the testimony of God, and it wasn't going to be in the following things. It wasn't going to be with superiority of speech. That's the first thing. according to superior speech, which means excellency.

And it refers to rhetorical skills that have to do with a method of preaching. You know, I mean, we've all seen particular, if we watch on TV, you know, TV evangelists, we might call them. Some have pretty amazing things. They do all kinds of crazy stuff. And so some have, you know, maybe very logical things they present, but if it doesn't line up with scripture, then it's not worth listening to.

So it's not with this superiority of speech. It's also not with superiority of wisdom. And this is the word Sophia, and this is man's wisdom. So here's a case where we have the word Sophia, and actually that's a girl's name. That's a kind of cool girl's name that we hear occasionally. But once again, here's the man's wisdom case.

We saw the word before in 1st Corinthians 1 17 not in cleverness or Sophia of speech so the cross of Christ would not be made void or brought to nothing because if we mingle and Paul is so careful about this if we mingle our Little bit of us. Well, I'll make the gospel a little bit sweeter. I'll put my little twist on it I'll put my little that's gonna invalidate it because you're adding man's wisdom to God's wisdom and that can't they can't prosper and Then McCulloch talks about this. He says this wisdom refers to philosophical depth or pertains to the content of his preaching Alright, so as promised here, I want to give you see if we get in the point here.

Yeah, okay Alright, so I want to give you I'll give you a map. Everybody likes some maps, right? Actually, maps are almost obsolete these days, right? With GPS, you don't need a map. You just plug in where you're going to go, and you say, I'm going to go to Athens. Of course, it may be tough. You've got to fly in an airplane to get there. You can't go in your car easily.

So anyway, this is a map of Paul's missionary journeys. So I circled the two cities that we're going to talk about today. One is Athens, and one is Corinth. Corinth is the place where the church existed that Paul was writing to in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. But he also visited Athens. So I want to look at the case where he visited Athens and he had a very interesting message that he preached. So we're going to talk about 1 Athens and his message to the Athenians. And then secondly, what kind of preaching is he about in Corinth? What is his methodology? How is he going to bring the good news to the Corinthians versus what he did in Athens there? Okay, so as a beginning, the place in Athens that he gave his speech was this place called Mars Hill, and it's actually called the Hopefully, I can pronounce Areopagus in Greek. Areopagus.

That's actually, I think you can visit that. That's actually a picture, I believe, I got off the internet. You know, it's amazing. You type in Mars Hill and type in this, you can get pictures of anything. And so actually, it helps in some of these preparations. I can get pictures. Of course, you might argue, well, Roger, what if that's not really a picture? What if that's somebody, you know, mocked that up with their, you know, who knows what? And I could be taken in by that. So that's a picture, I believe.

Anyway, so his audience on Mars Hill. You know, typically Paul's approach when he traveled on his missionary journeys, because he was a Jew, and he was well thought of, he would go into the synagogues. So he'd go into the synagogues and he would preach the message of Christ, or he would preach the message of the Messiah, if you will. And then he would go to the Gentiles next, and then from there on, other people. So his audience here on Mars Hill, was the Jews, and they were the least responsive. The Gentiles, God-fearing Gentiles, were a lot more responsive.

But then there's this group of people, pagans, and in the context that refers to the Epicureans and the Stoics, they were these guys that went around and they loved to hear new things. You got a new thing to tell me? Well, I want to hear about your new thing. I haven't heard that before. They would spend all their time listening to new things. So when Paul shows up on the scene, they say, wow, I haven't heard that before. I haven't heard about this guy named Jesus. And he, and they, they couldn't, you know, when he talked about being resurrected, that just blew their circuits. They didn't, they couldn't understand that.

So Paul's argument, so his approach and his sermon, we're going to go through all 10 verses here shortly. His argument will be as follows. He's going to show God as the creator. God is their judge. that every man will have an encounter with Jesus Christ. But he does it in an interesting way. So let's just look at the verses. And if you want to do it afterwards, pick up Acts and look at Acts. It's Acts, verse 17, Acts 17, 22 through 33. Acts 17, 22 through 33.

Okay, so here's Paul's sermon. So Paul said, men of Athens, I observe you are very religious in all your aspects. Passing through, I found an altar with the inscription to an unknown God. And I understand they had so many gods, they were almost uncountable, but they had one to an unknown God just to cover the bases in case they had forgotten any. So Paul used that as a launching point. He says, therefore, what you worship in ignorance, I proclaim to you.

I'm going to tell you about the true God, is what he's saying here. So the true God, the God who made the world and all things in it, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He served by human hands, as though He needs anything. Since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. So He's showing the attributes of God. He's showing who God is and what He's about. And that he's in control of all things.

He made from one man, I put Adam in there, every nation, every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth. Having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitation. Verse 27, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and exist even some of your poets have said for we also are his children and Being then the children of God we ought not to think of the divine nature like gold Images formed by the art and thought of man, so he's trying to he's trying to tell him don't look you know Many gods were statues right they have statues of this one and they people thought of them as well That's a gold God and that's a silver God and whatever he says that God's not like that So he says, therefore, overlooking the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to all men everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which we will judge the world in righteousness through a man, Jesus Christ, whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.

So what do you think their reaction was? Oh, yes, please, please, please, please, please come back. Please, please. Tomorrow? Is that soon enough? Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, kind of as expected. Others said, we'll hear you again concerning this.

It doesn't sound like they're real anxious, but here's the good news. So Paul went out. He left the Mars Hill, but some men joined him and believed. So his message to these pagans, mostly focused on the pagans, was one of who God is, His nature, what He's about, and that God has, through His Son, the Lord Jesus, is going to judge all men. But you see the response. So that was his method in Athens.

So now, let's look at... So now in verse 2, we see Paul's method when he arrives at Corinth. He stayed in Corinth about a year and a half so in that time period a church was formed apparently and I'm a little bit out of I'm not sure Anyway, so the church was formed. We'll just leave it at that for right now So Paul says for I determined to know so remember we started off He talked about you know the previous verse was and when I came to you brethren came to Corinth I did not come to you with superiority of speech proclaiming to the testimony of God for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

So Paul, it almost seems like, you know, as I was studying for this, some people said, well, Paul found out he really didn't do a very good job in Athens. Because actually they're pretty close, in that map, they're very close. And he could travel, you know, it took some time, but it was relatively close. Some said, well, Paul really messed up in Athens.

He didn't have much success there, and so he changed his whole game plan. He went to Plan B. After looking at it and studying it, I said, you know, I think that message for the Athenians, for those pagans called the Stoics and the Epicureans, that was exactly the message they needed, because they had all these gods floating all over the place. They didn't have a clue who they were.

He presented exactly the right message. And he's presented exactly the right message for the Corinthians. Because they're going to, as we see, that the church grows and becomes a viable entity. But they've got problems, right? They've got divisions. And Paul's message to them is the same message that he started with their salvation.

It's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And there's a lot in that message, and I'm going to show you that shortly here. He says, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So he determined. It's the idea to resolve or decree. So I think he did it based upon what he saw. He saw that there were issues there. And the way the issues are solved is not getting committees together. It's pointing men and women who come to know Christ and do know Christ to the Savior and what He's done and who they are in Him. To know nothing among you.

So Constable says, as far as his preaching went, Paul only spoke about Christ crucified. This was his regular practice, as we saw in Galatians 3. He left all other knowledge aside. So I think Paul's message was consistent both in Athens and then as he got to Corinth.

The cross of Christ is a central information that believers need to know in living the Christian life. So, for I determined to know nothing else except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So, you know, when we look at that phrase, I don't know, I look at that and I thank my brother Hal for this little insight. I mean, whenever I see that, I say, well, he's talking about a person. He's talking about the person of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says, to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So Him crucified, what's that? Well, if you think about it, that's what happened on Calvary, His crucifixion. And His crucifixion just wasn't that time period he was crucified, it describes a whole life of the believer. We serve a risen Savior. We serve a Savior who's been crucified and that is so key. So I want to go through and just look at some aspects of the person of Christ and the work of Christ on the cross.

So first of all, the person of Christ. So who is Jesus Christ? So actually I didn't put the verse numbers behind each of these statements but this first little section comes from John chapter 1 and Colossians 1 and 2 chapters 1 and 2 so first of all, and this is this is just wonderful stuff Christ was in the beginning with God this starts with the basics he starts with the basics, right? he was in the beginning with God Christ is both with God and is God boy, that's kind of a head scratch you think but think about it so now we're moving into the area we have a triune God Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit So Jesus Christ is both God and is with God. Christ is the creator of all things.

We'll see that multiple times. Christ is life. He gave life. His life was given. And that life is the light of men. Christ became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory. Christ is the image of the invisible God. Remember in the past he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Why do you say, show us the Father? He was being asked that and he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Christ is the physical manifestation of the Father.

By Christ, all things were created in the heavens and on earth, visible or invisible. In Christ, all things hold together. Christ all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form we were talking about this in Sunday school a little bit This is that's another wonderful verse the full deity of God dwells in Jesus Christ.

He didn't he's not Because he's the God's Son. He has he has equal deity with the Father as does the Holy Spirit okay, so that's a That's what's called the person of Christ. So Paul said, I determined to know nothing else except the person of Christ described by these wonderful attributes here and the many other verses that describe it. And the second part is, what work did he do on the cross? So that's the work of Christ. So first of all, he died for all sins. And this comes from, if you're taking notes, this comes from 1 John chapter 2, Romans 5, and Hebrews. And I've forgotten the address there exactly. Okay.

Christ is a propitiation or satisfaction for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. Christ is taking care of the sin issue, right? He is, and that's for the whole world, that includes every single person. So the issue moves from not being, are my sins paid for, is do I accept the one that paid for them? Do I accept the Lord Jesus Christ?

And that's a big step, because people constantly want to show God that they can do something that will please Him. And then the next verse is, God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And the third verse is, Jesus, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man, which he did. We see him crowned as victory with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. That's from the Weiss translation, which is maybe a little bit different. So the second part of this, the work of Christ, kind of in two parts.

The first part, he died for all sins. And the second part, which is super critical, he died unto the sin nature. The second part is often left out by many people, and it's a real shame. It's a tragedy, actually. So he died unto sin. This comes from Romans 6 and 8. He died with respect to our sinful nature once for all. And then Romans 8. God having sent his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin, he condemned the sinful nature in the flesh. So the sinful nature is still around, but it's been condemned, and we've been separated from it.

So that's just wonderful news. So that's a bird's eye view, if you will, of what Paul, he wants to focus on Christ Jesus and Him crucified. So now the third verse and the final verse here is, I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. So this word was, is ginome, to come into a new state of being, Paul came to Corinth with a new focus, knowing only Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

In Athens, Paul's preaching was to the intellectual pagan, so that he started with the basics. He showed them that God is Creator, God is Sovereign, God is Infinite, God is Independent, God is Life, God is Judge. Therefore, men should repent. and come to the true God through Jesus Christ. But we went to the Corinthians, so now he moves from Athens to Corinth. We went to the Corinth. He went to the Jews first, which most rejected him. Then to the Gentiles for their salvation. And then, as the church grew at Corinth, he was preaching Christ crucified for their salvation and growth.

So this last little phrase here, in weakness and fear and much trembling, now I kind of pondered over that and I said, boy, What is he really trying to convey there? I found different people, and you can go off different directions and say, well, he was fatigued, he was fearful, people were chasing him. I think that, and actually I found that I like what Macaulay said, the reason Paul felt weak and fearful and trembling was probably his sense of personal inadequacy in the face of the spiritual needs he faced in Corinth. In fact, it was such a burden to him that the Lord had to appear to Paul. And this is one of the unusual acts in the amazing book. We have appearances and marvelous miracles happening. And this is one of these appearances to Paul.

And here it is in Acts 18.9. And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent. For I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you. For I have many people in this city." And many joined Paul in Corinth. And that's what has produced these wonderful two books, 1 and 2 Corinthians. But Paul was, it was a tough go there. And I think it was just a burden of these Corinthian believers.

Okay, so our last final thought here from Constable. Paul did not design his content, his message. or his delivery, his preaching, to impress his hearers with eloquent words of wisdom, even though he was an eloquent man. Rather, he emphasized a simple message he announced. Constable uses conviction, but I always like, you know, if you look in the original, convincing is much better, I think. The convincing came as a result of the Holy Spirit's power, not the wisdom of the preacher.

The preacher is not the one who convinces anyone. It's the Holy Spirit taking God's word and applying it to their heart. So let's close. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time today, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. In Christ's name, Amen.