"For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." I Cor. 2:2
The city of Corinth in the days of Paul might be characterized by the terms wealth, worldliness and wickedness. It was a moral cesspool often scorned even by pagan critics. Facing the challenge represented in evangelizing it, the apostle Paul, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, penned the line which constitutes our text for today. It represents a single-minded and determined approach which alone could confront and offer correction for the abysmal level to which that culture had descended; "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." This short phrase incorporates the most striking and radical extreme ever set before the mind of man; Jesus Christ, on the one hand, and Him crucified on the other.
Consider first the subject, Jesus Christ. He is set before us first in scripture as God manifest in the flesh; God, incarnate. As God, He is the creator and sustainer of all that was "made." (Cf. John 1:2; Heb. 1:3) The whole creation is the work of His hand. Infinite in power and wisdom, He was "Lord of all." Within the Godhead, He is the second person of the trinity, the Father's "only begotten Son," and that f rom all eternity past, an unbroken holy and perfect relationship. No words of ours can begin to describe a being so magnificent, so perfect. No thought of ours, however lofty, can begin to imagine it, let alone comprehend it. Incarnate, He was the essence of perfection of both God and man, ideal in every sense of the word. Jesus the Christ.
Then consider the predicate: "…And Him crucified." That takes us to the opposite end of the created spectrum, and reveals at least two things: the awful, awesome power of sin, and the ultimate expression of love.
It was sin that required God to step so far down to render a remedy for its terrible consequences. From the perfection of holiness to the pollution of "the sins of the whole world"—the greatest moral distance ever traveled. He became "sin for us, Who knew no sin," to secure our liberation from eternal destruction.
The second thing thus revealed is the magnitude of God's love and grace which we, tragically, take so easily for granted. Perfect love, the love of the Father for His only Son, willingly suffered heartbreak at Calvary in order to satisfy God's love for fallen sinners. And the Son surrendered His untarnished reputation, spotless character and cherished fellowship with the Father to become "sin for us" so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
"Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut His glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker, died For man, the creature's sin."
"Jesus Christ—and Him crucified" measures my sin, and the magnitude of God's grace and mercy. No other message could penetrate the hardness of human hearts in the wicked city of Corinth, and no other message can penetrate the hearts of men and women in the wicked cities of America and this "present evil world" of our day. It is not a message to impress the intellect, to flatter the religious or to inflate the pride of the well-to-do. But it brought life and immortality to light for those in Corinth who were "ordained unto eternal life." It will do the same today. It is not a message designed to make men comfortable in the world as it is, but to make them ready for the world to come. There is no other message under the sun that can do that, and no other message as important.
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
May God give us the wisdom and the grace to stick to it!
With eternity in view,
"Pastor" Frasier
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