Isaac Watts:
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God;
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
The cross seems foolish and weak, but it is God’s means to save; it is true wisdom and power.
- The cross divides the Christian from the unbeliever.
- 1:18. The message of the cross is death to the unbeliever but life to the believer – 2 Cor.2:16.
- One can say: ‘My hope is built on nothing less/ Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness’, and another will think only in terms of being good citizens. Christ’s sacrifice divides all humanity – Luke 2:34; John 3:36.
- The cross is true wisdom.
- 1:19-25. The Greek mind loved wisdom (Acts 17:18). John Donne: knowledge without Christ is ‘an elaborate and exquisite ignorance’. Cicero said the word ‘cross’ should not be mentioned in polite society; Jews knew that hanging on a tree was a sign of God’s curse (Deut.21:23).
Freud, Marx, and Russell were all disasters in their personal lives. Jacques Derrida argued that literature has no inherent meaning; in 1992 Cambridge University conferred an honorary doctorate of literature on him.
- 1:19-25. The Greek mind loved wisdom (Acts 17:18). John Donne: knowledge without Christ is ‘an elaborate and exquisite ignorance’. Cicero said the word ‘cross’ should not be mentioned in polite society; Jews knew that hanging on a tree was a sign of God’s curse (Deut.21:23).
- The cross is true power.
- Matt.12:38-39; 16:1 e.g. Moses dividing the Red Sea or Elijah calling down fire from heaven. Mark 2:10-11 – the miracle points to something greater. Proverbs 14:12. Christ suffered the judgment of God the Father that the weak and foolish might find salvation in Him.