Mid-Lent 4
Third
Article
1
Cor 2:6-16
3/30/22
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming
to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I
decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” That’s what the apostle Paul has said just
before our text as he describes his work in sharing the Gospel with the
Corinthians.
Humanly speaking, there was no reason to expect that Paul would
succeed. First of all, he did not have the rhetorical training that the
Greco-Roman world expected. Rhetoric – the accepted rules for constructing
speeches – was the focus of education. This
provided the standard against which people evaluated a speaker. St. Paul did not possess this kind of
training, and he readily admitted it.
And then not only was Paul’s speech
unskilled in this way, but the content of his message was Christ crucified. In the previous chapter he wrote, “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.” Quite simply,
to the world the message of the crucified Christ was moronic. Paul was proclaiming that a crucified Jew was
the Christ and Lord of all.
During Lent
we are preparing to remember the death of our Lord on the cross. But to the first century world, proclamation
of a crucified Lord was simply laughable.
Jews knew that according to God’s word, anyone hung on a tree – anyone
crucified – was cursed by God. Gentiles
knew that Jesus had died the death of a criminal. What is more, he had not just been
executed. He had been crucified. This was the most shameful and humiliating
way a person could die. It was the
ultimate demonstration of weakness and helplessness. Crucifixion was so terrible that people
didn’t even mention the cross in polite conversation. But Paul proclaimed that Jesus who had
been crucified was the Christ and Lord of all.
Paul
acknowledged how the Gospel – the message of the crucified Christ sounded to
the world. But he goes on to say in our text, “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.” This wisdom was the wisdom of
what God had done in Christ. Paul had
just written, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we
preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but
to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God.”
This wisdom of God in Christ was something that was revealed by
the Spirit of God. It was something that
could only be shared by the Spirit of God.
Paul says in our text, “Now we have received not the spirit of
the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things
freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by
human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to
those who are spiritual.”
In fact, Paul says in our text that apart from the work of the
Spirit, a person is completely incapable of believing and understanding the
Gospel. He writes, “The natural man does
not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him,
and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually
discerned.”
This is the truth that is the confessed in the
first part of the Small Catechism’s explanation of the Third Article of the
Creed as it says, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe
in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him.”
In the sin of Adam and Eve – the Fall – humanity lost the image of God. We are no longer able to know God as he wants
to be known or live according to his will.
We became sinful, fallen nature, which simply produces more sinful,
fallen nature. Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“That which is
born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit.”
Only the Spirit of God can change
this. Later in this letter, Paul declares “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the
Holy Spirit.” And so the explanation in the Small Catechism continues, “but the
Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, elightened me with His gifts,
sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”
The Spirit calls us to faith through the Gospel – the good
news about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul told the Romans, “For I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” He
informed the Thessalonians “But we ought always to give thanks to God for
you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first
fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief
in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that
you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Spirit calls us to faith through
the Gospel as it is proclaimed. And he
works this rebirth to new spiritual life in baptism. Jesus said that we are “born of water and the
Spirit” and Paul called baptism “the
washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”
By calling us to faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit
sanctifies us. He makes us holy in God’s
eyes because of Jesus. In chapter six of this letter Paul says that the unrighteous will
not inherit the kingdom of God. He
reminds the Corinthians about their sinful past. Yet then he adds: “But you were
washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” For this very reason he can begin this letter
by writing: “To the church of God that is
in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints
together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.”
This is what the Holy Spirit has done for you. He has called you by the Gospel, enlightened
you with his gifts, and kept you in the truth faith. He does this through the Means of Grace.
Through the Word of God, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the
Altar he has not only called you to faith in Jesus Christ, but he also sustains
you in that faith.
The Holy Spirit creates the faith that receives Jesus’
saving work. He makes us a new creation
in Christ. And by doing so he leads and enables us to live in ways that reflect
God’s will. Paul told the Ephesians, “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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we
should walk in them.”
We are God’s workmanship – his
creation by the Spirit – who have been created in Christ to carry out good
works. Unfortunately, we also know that
the old Adam – the remnants of the fallen nature – continue to be present. Paul told the Galatians, “But I
say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the
flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the
desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each
other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
The apostle acknowledges that there is a struggle. But he also asserts that the Spirit is the One makes it possible for us to live in ways that are true to God’s will. He adds: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
We are no longer the “natural man.” We
are no longer flesh – fallen sinful nature.
Instead, the Holy Spirit has called us through the Gospel and
enlightened us with his gifts. He has
called us to faith. He has given us
regeneration so that now we are a new creation in Christ. And therefore we
approach Holy Week knowing that the crucified Christ is not folly – it is not
moronic. Instead, because of the
resurrection, Jesus Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God for our
salvation. Jesus is our Lord, and with
Paul we are not ashamed of the Gospel because by the work of the Spirit we know
that it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes.
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