God’s Deep Irony…!

HG Wells, historian and author of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds responded to a request from The American Magazine in July 1922, to identify the six most influential people in history. “I am an historian,” he said. “I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history”.

Why then was HG Wells, and many like him, not a believer? Perhaps it has something to do with what we might call, God’s deep irony. In First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 22 we read: For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, …

The Jewish people wanted miracles – something that Jesus recognized in the course of his public ministry. In Luke chapter 11, verse 29 he seems to have strangely observed: “This generation… seeks a sign…” I say, strangely, because Jesus performed many miracles. He objected to performing signs because he knew what was in the hearts of people who asked for them: in their pride they thought they had a right to evaluate him, test his credentials.

Significantly, Paul the Apostle not only knew what was in Jewish minds; he also understood the mindset of the non-Jewish world, the Gentiles. They may not look for signs, but they too had a problem which proved to be an obstacle to faith. They believed they were smart enough to explain the world and life: if God exists, he would need to fit into their philosophical and scientific worldview.

First century Corinth was a world not much different from our own. But Paul came with a very different message – a message about a king who came and who was put to death. In verse 23 he writes: but we proclaim Christ crucified,…

It’s not what we would call a brilliant line! But it sits at the heart of God’s powerful message that can transform people’s lives across the nations and races throughout time. It doesn’t sound wise, but it is the only power that can rescue a lost humanity.

Many Jewish people longed for the coming of God’s Messiah who, they believed, would come in majestic glory and great power. For them, Paul’s message of a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms. It was blasphemy to think that God’s Messiah would hang, cursed by God, on a tree. And this is what Paul also thought before he met Jesus in a vision on the Road to Damascus.

Paul, a Roman citizen who had been educated in the University of Tarsus, also understood the non-Jewish world. He knew the Gentiles valued reason and philosophy. They weren’t interested in tales about an uneducated man who was put to death as a felon.

Both Jewish and Gentile peoples rejected or mocked the message about a cross. But Paul is insistent. In verse 24 he presses his point: but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

The Jewish people expected a powerful Messianic ruler, a great King David. They scoffed at the idea of a crucified Messiah. It is a matter of deep irony that Jesus’ death which seems to be a moment of supreme failure, is in fact a moment of God’s supreme power.

For their part, the Gentiles who prided themselves in wisdom, mocked the idea of a crucified hero. Yet again, it is a matter of deep irony that through what seems to be utter foolishness, the profound wisdom of God is revealed.

Which brings us to an all-important question: In What Do You Glory? In verse 26 he says: Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

Are you ever impressed when you find you are in a church where there are successful people – perhaps a top surgeon, or successful banker or financier, a top sports person? How easy it is to focus on people like this. But the reality is, in human terms, not many of God’s people are successful. This was true in the church in Corinth.

Back in Paul’s day, churches brought together people from all backgrounds and with a wide diversity of ability and skills. One of the things that came to be noticed about them was this very diversity – of free people and slaves, of rich and poor, of educated and uneducated.

Paul is reminding us of the way that God’s mercy reaches across our social divides. None of us can claim an advantage with God because of birth or family, position, success or wealth.

And Paul comments that even in this very diversity God has a purpose: But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God (1:27).

None of us can boast about anything we have done to secure a place with God. We are not good enough. Our relationship with God is God’s free gift to us. To quote Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

However, there is one thing about which we can boast: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1:31).

Typically, we don’t respect people who boast about themselves. It’s rude and arrogant, the height of pride and self-centeredness. Paul’s words about boasting here are of a very different order. He is talking about boasting in God. In fact, another word we could use for boasting is glorying – glorying in the Lord.

In verse 30 he tells us why: He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord”.

Christ Jesus who died and rose again is God’s wisdom. His wisdom secures our righteousness – our legal standing before him. God’s wisdom brings about our sanctification – the special status we have with God. It is God’s wisdom that purchases our redemption – the freedoms we now enjoy as God’s people – freedom from sin, from the power of evil, and from death.

How wonderfully wise is our God. How amazing is his mercy. The more we get to know him, the more we will want to bring every part of our life in line with him – our hopes and dreams, our joys and our sorrows, our laughter and our tears.

Here is the God who is not just worth knowing about, but personally worth knowing.

Prayer. Father in heaven, whose Son Jesus Christ was wonderfully transfigured before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain, and spoke of his suffering in Jerusalem: give us strength so to hear his voice and follow him, that in the world to come we may see him as he is; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

© John G. Mason