Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:18
“For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV)
The Remedy renders it, “the truth about God, His character of absolute Love, as revealed by Christ at the cross, makes no sense whatsoever to those who are dying through practicing the world’s method of survival-of-the-fittest; but to those of us who are being healed and restored, it is the true power of God, the secret of eternal life.”
What Christ accomplished at the Cross for all creation is truly amazing. First, He unmasked Satan as a murderer, so evil he would murder his own Creator. Jesus had called him “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), and at the Cross the whole universe saw it. The lies of Satan were exposed. God is not the unkind, unloving arbiter of laws, ready to strike down anyone who breaks His rules. He gave up everything to become human, to redeem a race so lost they did not even have the ability to want to be saved without His help.
As long as there is any hope of saving a soul and restoring them to be truly happy, God will not let them go. He releases them to their choices only when it is obvious there is nothing more He can do to convince them that they are destroying themselves. “God gave them up” (Romans 1:24) is not anger; it is Love respecting a choice it could not change.
Second, at the Cross He accomplished the healing of humanity from the lethal sin condition, providing an antidote only He could bring about. He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” and “condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). In our very nature He overcame sin, perfecting a sinless, loving character, and brought life and healing back within the reach of any human willing to be healed.
We are given the healed life of Christ. This life we must then grow up into: feed it by our choices, and exercise and strengthen it by using our will to now choose the things that were repulsive to us before. Every choice brings us closer to the character of Christ. We are not His clones. We are like Him in the way we react to life and the way we treat others. We will not have to stop and think, “What would Christ do right now?” We will already be doing the selfless, loving thing He would have done. “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10).
We are living His life, doing the work in our path each day with the same Love and care He showed when He was here.
