The Word of the Cross

The power and wisdom of God are revealed in the proclamation of the Messiah, who was crucified by the World Empire.

Jesus of Nazareth performed miracles, exorcised demons, and taught with great authority, and for a time, he attracted large crowds. Nevertheless, his contemporaries failed to recognize who he was despite his displays of supernatural power. Only the Roman centurion on duty at Golgotha perceived that the Nazarene was “the Son of God” when he breathed his last.

The idea that miraculous “signs and wonders” win souls to the faith does not fit the pattern found in the four gospel accounts, and it certainly does not correspond to how Gentiles or the Jewish nation responded to the preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles after the resurrection of Jesus.

[Cross - Photo by Cdoncel (Madrid) on Unsplash]

God does provide supernatural help to His people, including divine healings, but miracles themselves are a means, not an end. As the Bible demonstrates numerous times, unexpected signs and great displays of power do not guarantee that anyone will understand who God is or acquire genuine faith in Him. As Paul wrote:

• (1 Corinthians 1:21-24) – “For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews, scandalous, and to Gentiles, foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”

Only the man or woman who has the “mind of the Spirit” understands that the power and wisdom of God have been manifested in a crucified Messiah. Not even the most powerful of the spiritual “powers and principalities” could understand what God was doing through His Son’s death, though that was His plan from the beginning:

• “We speak God's wisdom in a mystery that has been hidden, which God marked out before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age had known, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory <…>  But God revealed them to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God” - (1 Corinthians 2:7-10).

• “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the participation of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things, to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavens might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the everlasting purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” - (Ephesians 3:7-11).

THE ROAD TO EXALTATION

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus healed the sick and exorcised demons, impressing the multitudes. They had not seen the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, or priests do anything remotely similar. However, only the demons cast out by Christ recognized who he was, namely, the Son of God.

At one point, on the verge of understanding his identity, Peter declared him to be the Messiah, but his sudden insight lasted only until Jesus explained what it meant to be “the Son of Man” – betrayal, suffering, death. Then Peter rebuked him, and with Satan’s very words.

The only human being who recognized Jesus as the Son of God and declared his identity before his resurrection was the Roman centurion who was present at his execution - (Mark 15:29-39).

Only in his self-sacrificial death was Israel’s Messiah revealed. In contrast to the pagan centurion, the Jewish religious leaders mocked Jesus as he was dying. Though they sarcastically called him “Christ and King of Israel,” they certainly did not accept his messianic status. Even the two “brigands” crucified alongside him “reproached him.”

Jesus declared that when he was “lifted up, then you will know that I am he,” that is, Israel’s Messiah. Not his miracles, but his death by crucifixion and subsequent resurrection are the foundation of Christ’s Kingdom and the heart of his ‘Good News’. “If I am lifted up from the Earth, I will draw all men to me.” The nature and purposes of God can only be understood through the Cross of Christ - (John 12:32).

• “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes may have everlasting life in him” - (John 3:14).

• “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I do always the things that are pleasing to him” - (John 8:28).

Despite his powerful miracles, Jesus died alone, rejected by the Jewish nation, abandoned by his disciples, and crushed by Rome’s might. Likewise, he instructed his disciples to deny themselves, take up the cross daily, and follow his path. As he stated to them:

• “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and their great ones tyrannize them. It will not be so among you. But whoever would become great among you will be your servant, and whoever would be first among you will be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” - (Matthew 20:25-28).

After his resurrection, Jesus was exalted and began to reign at God’s “right hand,” but that came only after paying a great price. As Paul explained while alluding to the stories of Adam and the ‘Suffering Servant’ of the Book of Isaiah:

• (Philippians 2:5-9) – “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, counted not the being like God a thing to be seized, but poured himself out, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him and gave unto him the name which is above every name” - (Compare Genesis 3:4-6, Isaiah 53:10-12).

We want power and revelation, but only by finding ways around the Imperial Cross and by walking a very different road than Jesus did.

In contrast to our own inclinations, Paul exhorted believers to “let this same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.” He was exalted and received the “name above every name” because he “poured out his life unto death on the cross” for the sake of others.

According to the Apostle Paul, the preaching of “Christ crucified” is scandalous to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. The idea that God achieved victory over sin, death, and Satan by the unjust death of a politically powerless man is nonsensical to our way of thinking. Yet Paul called the message of Christ crucified, the Word of the Cross, the very power and wisdom of God.

The omnipotent God who created all things achieved victory over sin and death through the execution of Israel’s Messiah by the world’s mightiest empire, having been condemned to death by Jewish religious authorities and Gentile political leaders, an outcome no devout Jew would have expected or accepted.

Jesus cannot be understood apart from his death on the Cross. Likewise, no man or woman can be his genuine disciple without emulating his self-sacrificial service to others, and by living a cruciform life daily. That is what it means to be his disciple.

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SEE ALSO:

• The Suffering Servant - (Paul summoned believers to adopt the same mind that Jesus had when he poured out his life “unto death” for others – Philippians 2:5-11)

• The Royal Servant - (Following his baptism in the Jordan, the voice from heaven identified Jesus as the Son of God and the Servant of the LORD)

• Servant or Caesar? - (Jesus rejected Satan’s offer of unlimited political power and instead chose the way of the Suffering Servant - Matthew 4:8-11)

• The Unexpected Messiah - (Jesus is revealed as the Savior of Mankind in his sufferings and self-sacrificial death for others, including his enemies)