I Corinthians 1:30

First Corinthians 1:30

In First Corinthians 1:30-31 the Apostle Paul wrote to Christians in the city of Corinth and said, "But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the Lord." Paul said that the reason that we should glory in the Lord Jesus Christ is because He has been made four things for us. First Jesus is our wisdom. If you have Jesus, then you have the wisdom of God. You have wisdom because you already know the most important thing that there is to know about God: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. All other spiritual wisdom will eventually flow from that fact. For those of us who have been saved, Jesus is our wisdom because He delivered us from the foolishness and the blindness of the world.

Jesus is also our righteousness. We need Jesus to be our righteousness because all our own righteousness is as filthy rags. Jesus said that except our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees that we would in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. No matter how many good deeds you do, and no matter how much you improve your life, you will never have the righteousness that you need on your own. The amazing grace of God has established things so that the righteous life that Jesus lived becomes credited to your account, and the sinful life that you lived becomes forgotten by God. Paul wrote in the book of Romans that Jesus, who knew no sin, was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. A Christian who understands this cannot be self-righteous because such a Christian knows that Jesus and only Jesus is his righteousness.

Jesus is our wisdom, Jesus is our righteousness, and Jesus is our sanctification. The word sanctification comes from the same word as the word holy, and it comes from the same word as the word saint. It refers to being set aside for God. The grand purpose of every human should be to serve God, but you are incapable of serving God on your own or by your own efforts. In order to be set aside for God, there must be an enabling that only Jesus can give. People cannot serve God just because they are told that they should serve Him. We who believe in Jesus know that we belong to God and that we have been set aside for His service, not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus is, and because Jesus is our sanctification.

Jesus is also our redemption. The word that is translated redemption in this verse means to set free. The reason that we came to Jesus in the first place was to be set free. Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." Because of Jesus we were set free from sin, we were set free from the powers of darkness that held us in blindness, we were set free from the wrath of God that will come in judgment upon the world. Because of Jesus, we will also one day be set free from the injustices of this world. Because of Jesus, one day you will enter the Kingdom of God, and then and only then will you be able to say with the others who have been liberated from the limitations and the sorrows of this life, "Free at last, free at last, thank God, I’m free at last." You have so many freedoms in Christ and because of Christ that they cannot all be counted or described.

Surely it is true what Paul said in I Corinthians 1:31, "if any man glory, let him glory in the Lord," because Jesus is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. In First Corinthians chapter two Paul is still on the subject of human wisdom, and how greatly it differs from godly wisdom or spiritual wisdom. The next point that Paul makes to the Corinthians is that they owe their salvation to the fact that Paul did not use human wisdom when he came to them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote in First Corinthians 2:1-5, "And I, brothers, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

Paul had the privilege of going to the city of Corinth when no one there had ever heard the gospel. Corinth was a Greek city, and therefore the thinking and the outlook on life by the citizens of Corinth would have been greatly influenced by the ancient Greek culture, and of course that culture in a very great way emphasized human wisdom and human philosophy. Actually, the word "philosophy" comes from two Greek words that mean to love wisdom. A philosopher is literally someone who loves wisdom, and the Greeks prided themselves in meditating on and debating about philosophy. Even today when you study human philosophy, many of the things that you study will have their foundation in the ancient Greeks and their philosophies.

Paul is reminding the Corinthians that when he came to them, he did not come with the philosophies of men, and he did not come with human wisdom. Paul said that he came to them with the testimony of God. Philosophy comes from man, but the gospel comes from God. Paul said that he did not come to them with the wisdom of man, because he was bringing the testimony of God. The word that is translated "testimony" is the Greek word “mustarion” and it means mystery. It is a mystery to those who do not know it. There is a great mystery, a great secret, that many people in the world do not know: the truth about God. This mystery will never be discovered by the wisdom of man: it will only be discovered through the gospel of Christ. Learn everything that you can and use what you learn for God’s glory; but remember this: the most important thing in life cannot be learned by the wisdom of man or by human methods of learning.

In verse 5 Paul said that one of the reasons that he did not use human wisdom was so that their faith would not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. If you have been converted to Christianity by the wisdom of man, or by some man enticing you to repeat the words that they tell you to repeat, or by some man persuading you to go the front of the church, then you have not been saved; because salvation comes from Jesus and from God touching the heart and not from the enticing words of man. If you have the kind of Christianity that comes by human persuasion, then eventually you will be persuaded in some other direction by the changing fortunes of life or by some other human who is even more persuasive. But if you have been born-again by the power of God, you will have a faith that is stronger than the most enticing human argument could ever be. Do you want converts that are based upon the wisdom of man or that are based upon the power of God? If you rely upon the wisdom of man to convince people, then you will have converts to your church or to your particular brand of doctrines or to your personality, but you will not have converts to God or to Jesus Christ.

In First Corinthians 2:6-8 the Bible says, "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

In this passage of scripture Paul has talked about two different kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. The wisdom of the world is not really wisdom: it is what the people of this age think to be wisdom, but they are wrong. What they think to be wisdom is actually blindness and foolishness. The wisdom of the world is also called the wisdom of man, and in verse 6 it is called the wisdom of the princes of this world. The rulers of this world: the governors, the kings, and others who are in power are infected by the wisdom of this world. After all, it is through the wisdom of this world that they came into power. Through deception and the destroying of their opponents and other manifestations of the lust for power is how the rulers of this world came into power. It is not surprising that they used such methods to come into power because we know that it was the devil who offered to Jesus the Kingdoms of this world, and the devil has given such power to those who are willing to use his methods.

The princes of this world think that they were wiser than others to have come into the positions of power like they have. Sometimes other humans in observing those who have come into power also think that the powerful must have been wiser than everyone else in order to have accomplished what they have. But Paul says that there are two things to consider in order to realize that the rulers of this world are not so wise at all. The first thing to look at is what Paul mentioned at the end of First Corinthians 2:6, "the princes of this world, that come to naught," or "that come to nothing." You must look at the end result of what someone has accomplished in order to determine the real value of it. Jesus said, "What shall it profit a man, should he gain the whole but lose his own soul, or what could a man give in exchange for his soul?"

The rulers of this world are not wise, because they have chosen a course in life that will end in their destruction. The rulers also showed that they were not wise because they crucified the Lord of glory. The great, eternal judge of the earth will return one day and everyone who opposes the truth will give an answer. The ruler of a small kingdom would not be wise if he executed the son of the ruler of a much greater kingdom. How can the rulers of this world be considered wise since they executed the Lord of glory? The rulers of today are no different. We give them honor because it is commanded for Christians to honor those that are in authority, but if Jesus came to the earth today, He would be put to death just as He was in the first century. Of course, the next time Jesus comes, He will conquer the wicked. The wisdom of the rulers of this world is not wisdom. If they were wise they would not oppose God or the commandments of God. If they were wise they would not advance or defend the wicked or the rights of the wicked to do wickedness.

Real wisdom comes from God. It is a wisdom that is hidden from those who are caught up in this world, but it is made manifest to the believers in Jesus. In contrast to the wisdom of this world that leads to destruction, the wisdom of God leads to glory. It says in First Corinthians 2:7 that this wisdom was ordained by God before the ages unto our glory. If you want to understand the biblical meaning to predestination, this is a good verse to help you understand it. The word that is translated "ordained" means preordained or predestined. There are some things that God has already decided, and there are other things that God has not yet decided. The things that God has not yet decided are affected by human action and human decision. But there are other things that will not change no matter what humans do. Some people put too much emphasis on the predestination of God, and others put too much emphasis on the free will of man. Both concepts are in the Bible, and if you are going to avoid the extremes of one or the other, then you must have the correct Biblical balance.

Be very careful to notice how the word predestined is used. What is predestined is not who will be saved or who will be lost. According to First Corinthians 2:7, it is the fact that the hidden mystery of the gospel would result in the glorification of believers, is what is predestined. The hidden mystery of the gospel is predestined because God planned it that way before the world began. The eventual glorification of those who come to know the mystery was predestined because God planned it that way before the world began. "Whosoever will may come" is true because what is not predestined is who will be saved. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" is true because it is not predestined who will be saved or who will be lost. That will be determined by whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord.

Should you believe in predestination? Yes, because it is in the Bible. It is right here in First Corinthians 2:7. But it is not the predestination of the saved and the lost. Predestination simply means that God has decided certain things beforehand. God did not decide beforehand who would be saved and who would be lost, but He did decide beforehand the fact that the mystery of the gospel would be the means of the lost becoming saved.

If God is speaking to your heart, you can become one of the saved by turning from your sins and turning to Jesus for forgiveness, with the purpose of following Him as your Lord and Savior. The choice is yours. You can stay in the darkness of this world, or you can receive the glorious liberty of the children of God from Jesus Christ.

___________________________________________________