Or, The Terminal Move That Changed Everything
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:8-9
Date: April 17, 2022
Speaker: Sean Higgins
There are stories too good to be told only once. Some people enjoy going over known information, they get edification in the repetition, others enjoy seeking out new information and adding it to their collection. But there is one story in particular that is always the same and yet keeps making all things new.
A key element in these stories is when things are bad. David and Goliath is a genre; there was no way David could win. Aslan at the Stone Table is brutal; when you read it for the first time it seems like hope dies. The 2004 Red Sox were down three games to none in a seven games series against the Yankees; no professional team in any sport had ever won four in a row in that situation. Chamberlain’s men were out of ammunition at the holding the Union’s left flank at Little Round Top. We eat these stories up like meat on a charcuterie board.
What I pray brings comfort and strength and joy to you today is not only our remembrance that the darkness of the cross is eclipsed by the light of Christ’s resurrection, but also that the cyclical attacks of the evil one, as bad as they have been, continually lead to his own undoing. At no point is this more obvious than the cross.
Let’s look at the main text for this morning and then trace the evil one’s series of brutal yet self-defeating blunders.
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. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:6-9)
Paul has been exalting the word of the cross since 1 Corinthians 1:18. That word is folly to the kind of man who can only see what’s in front of him, the man who takes his cues from what’s everyone else around him thinks. Christ crucified made no sense as a way of salvation and certainly not as a way of glory. Christ crucified obviously made sense as the way to shut Christ down. Killing Him was clearly the move to make Him look bad.
But it is preaching Christ crucified that is God’s wisdom. Christ crucified is God’s power.
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. (1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV)
to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:24 ESV)
my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power , (1 Corinthians 2:4 ESV)
so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5 ESV)
The power of God is demonstrated in the crucifixion, which is a kind of divine wisdom, a wisdom that rulers missed, and in missing it they sealed not only their ignorance but their doom.
Verse 6 doesn’t change the subject from Christ crucified, but Paul does clarify that what sounded like a simple message—Christ crucified—is surprisingly powerful.
This age is the current aeon, not just the first century, but is a way of looking at things. It’s less a whenever and more a however of a fleshly, man-centered, and God-hating way. They are playing a game, so to speak, and the field is only what’s in front of them. There can only be one winner, and the competition must be destroyed.
The rulers of this age are not just the Jewish leaders or Roman officials, Pilate and Herod and soldiers. Those men are included, as are all the men ever who lie and murder to get their power. But there are also spiritual rulers, angels, who were behind the scenes and to some extent always have been involved.
There are “rulers and authorities” that are clearly men, there are “rulers and authorities” that are clearly not men. But they follow the same playbook.
You know how some women are always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7)? The evil one is Always Losing and Never Coming to the Knowledge of the Truth.
The ancient serpent hated God’s new image-bearers in the Garden of Eden, and for as much damage as he did to humanity, what he actually got was a specific, but not too specific, threat that became an obsession. “He shall bruise your head…” (Genesis 3:15). Who? When? How?
Whether or not the “sons of God” (Genesis 6) were demons or demonically-possessed men, they tried to corrupt the seed of humanity in order to ruin the seed of the woman. What they got was not only a global demonstration of God’s power, but a forever covenant of God’s mercy.
When news came that a child was born of a virgin, “the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it” (Revelation 12:4). Through Herod attempt was made to kill the boy, and what that got was more fulfillment of prophecy.
And of course, the cross is the ultimate defeat of rebels.
The death of Christ fulfills prophecies and satisfies the Father’s wrath and purchases our forgiveness and eternal life and is the very triumph over the spiritual enemies that thought they were playing the terminal move. Check mate was a trap door.
Satan himself deceived Judas into betraying Jesus. Satan and the rulers and authorities, both in the spiritual realm and in the sphere of politics, wanted Jesus dead. And they got what they wanted. They accomplished the terminal move. Their envy and anger didn’t end with mocking and beating, but with crucifixion. That should have been it, right?
But they didn’t understand the game they were in. They didn’t understand the wisdom or power of God.
They crucified Jesus but it was the crucifixion that purchased the death of rivalry and divisions (1 Corinthians 1:10). It purchased the death of slavery to the opinions of foolish men (1 Corinthians 1:25). It purchased the death of need for self-righteousness, let alone buying our way out of debt (1 Corinthians 1:30). It purchased the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and the confidence that our faith does not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5).
It purchased the death of death.
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself [Jesus] likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14–15 ESV)
Death is the devil’s move. It is his best weapon. But the wisdom and power of God is that death is beaten through death.
If Satan knew what was going to happen, would he have stopped it? For however much Jesus’ death was surprising to evil men, how much more to the evil one?
What the natural man can’t see is that his pragmatism doesn’t even work, which was supposed to be its advantage. It’s self-limiting (to this age) and self-destructing, as they are doomed to pass away (ESV) or “who are coming to nothing” (NIV). Not only is this currently happening in their heyday, it is something they are doing to themselves (the substantival participle τῶν καταργουμένων is in the middle voice, so reflexive. Not only are they causing something to be powerless, they are doing it to themselves.) They are patting themselves on the back with one hand and with the other sawing off the limb they’re sitting on.
The wisdom of men wants immediate results. It’s not mature, it’s as demanding and far-seeing as a toddler screaming for a third helping of ice cream; the crash is inevitable.
The Son of Man, however, is the Lord of glory , a title which is only found in 1 Corinthians 1:8, but already echoes in the age to come. Jesus is not only the glorious Lord, or the one who gives glory, but the very revelation of it. In Him is displayed the wisdom and power of God in defeating so-called rulers by their own selfish glory-grabbing.
This wisdom of the word of the cross is part of the Lord’s glory. It was also decreed before the ages for our glory (2:7).
There is glory , kavod or gravity in Hebrew, weighty, substantial, and splendor with its Greek nuance. Here is magnificence. Here is meaning. Here is God’s purpose for His elect, predestined before the ages by God. He determined the boundary line, προορίζω, mark a horizon (see also Romans 8:29). (Also, the cross was predetermined, Acts 4:28).
All the powers of this age are sinking, slipping, fading in power and glory, while those who believe the word of the cross are being lifted, secured, and gaining in substance and color. His enemies are like the grass that pulls a concrete block onto itself, while we are being planted like trees beside living waters.
as it is written in verse 9 readies us for revelation, and it must be a quote from Isaiah 64:4 and it seems a line from Isaiah 65:17. Not from empirical testing (eye has not seen), community tradition (ear has not heard), or speculative intuition (heart has not conceived)(Garland). We “have received…the Spirit who is from God, what we might understand the things freely given us by God” (verse 12).
The rulers of this age who ignore the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord of glory will know the power of God, but they will know it as their own foolishness undoes them.
The terminal move changed everything. “Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes”! Christ is our wisdom from God, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption and boast!
Do not waste a worry on the opinions or hostilities of the men of this age. Their success is as likely to cohere as a used Easter egg sticker. Do not fear the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places, God’s own purpose is to show off His wisdom to them through the church. Serve the risen Lord with gladness. Be wise as to what is good. Overcome evil with good, in the power of the risen Savior.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (Romans 16:20, ESV)