WEDNESDAY May 1st
1 Corinthians 1:17-31
V18 ‘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’.
Yesterday we considered how the word of the cross, or as it reads in the NIV ‘the message of the cross’, in the KJV ‘the preaching of the cross’ is foolishness or folly to those who are perishing. Those who are perishing is a reference to all who fail to believe and respond. Sadly, that is a majority of those who live around us as our neighbours, a majority of those who make up our nation, and most of the world’s population. Just consider this, the greatest events in the whole of history, the death and resurrection of Jesus, are considered as foolishness!
Yet, Paul continues to say, ‘but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.’
What the unbelieving world considers foolish, is the most incredible demonstration of God’s power that has ever been demonstrated or seen. A dead man raised to life again, that is powerful, but raised never to die again, that is even more powerful, but raised to give or to grant eternal life to all who will believe on him, that is can I suggest even more powerful, why? Because we deserved to die, we do not deserve to live forever, but God who is rich in mercy and abounding in love, was willing to put the plan of redemption into effect so that because of all that Jesus has done, that is in his death and his resurrection, we can be redeemed, justified, saved and not just for time but for eternity.
My eternal salvation, your eternal salvation is the power of God at work! Dead men (and women) cannot talk, dead men cannot walk, dead men are dead! But hallelujah, this is not so if you or I are in Christ, because Jesus made the declaration, that ‘whoever lives and believes in him shall never die’! In the same statement Jesus has said ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (this was even before he had died!) he then continued ‘whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.’ (John 11:25-26). Yes, we will die, but it will only be a physical death, when it happens, spiritually we will be more alive than ever before, we will be walking and talking with Jesus! And physical death is but temporal, for the day is coming when the dead in Christ will be raised and we shall be changed, transformed in the twinkling of an eye, that which was perishable, mortal, will immediately become imperishable and immortal!
Foolishness says the world, what utter nonsense and incredulous talk. ‘Not to me’ says Paul, and ‘not to us’ says each one of us who have come to believe. ‘It is the incredible power of almighty God at work in our lives’.
So great is the power of God, Paul says in the chapters we have recently considered, first from Romans 8:11 ‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you’, and from 1 Corinthians 15:57 ‘But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’
I cannot but finish by mentioning another aspect of this incredible power of God at work, it is in the words of a hymn:
There is power, power, wonder working power,
In the blood, of the Lamb,
There is power, power wonder working power,
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
If you still consider the message of the cross to be foolishness, I urge you to consider it this way: What if you are wrong, (and I believe you are) think of where you will spend eternity, it will be in the lake of fire, a place of eternal damnation, eternally separated from God (Revelation 20:15). Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he offers you not only forgiveness of sin, but also eternal life. An eternity with Jesus, in the presence of God, where there will be no more tears, suffering, pain, or sorrow, an eternity enjoying all that God is preparing for those who love him.
Foolishness or the power of God. Today I have offered you the choice between life or death—choose life that you may live, choose the power of God.