1 Corinthians 1:23. We preach Christ crucified.
“Christ sent me,” says Paul, “to preach the gospel.” He says also: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ” (Rom 1:16). Indeed he glories in it. He is not afraid as he stands as a preacher of the gospel to issue a challenge to all the wise men of the world. How ridiculous in the eyes of the world his attitude seems, and how unwarrantable his assumptions as he cries, “Where is the wise, where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this world?” True he was a poor toil-worn wanderer, regarded as a fanatic by the world, given to uttering absurdities regarding one called Jesus, who was crucified in Judea.
But how sublime is His position! God had confounded the wisdom of the wise. He stood in the counsel of Jehovah. “For after that, in the wisdom of God” – either, according to some, the counsel of God so appointing; or, according to others, in the midst of the manifested glory of God, “the world by wisdom knew not God”. Though His glory was so clearly revealed, “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe”. Here the wisdom of God is contrasted with “the foolishness of preaching”, and “the wisdom of the world” with the simplicity and docility of “them that believe”. What a contrast there is between the wonderful manifestation of the divine glory in the stupendous and varied works of creation and providence and the manifestation of His will and glory in the preaching of a few poor men! And how unlikely to the world that a few Jews and Gentiles, fools in their own estimation, and guided solely by the testimony of God regarding Jesus Christ, should be saved while all others perished!
“The Jews”, in their superstition and unbelief, “require[d] a sign” – some tangible evidence of the truth of the gospel” – and the Greeks sought after wisdom” – straining their unaided reason in speculation regarding the things of God. “But we preach Christ crucified,” said Paul. That is our work. And it is not in vain, for some are effectually called of God, and to them Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God”. Yet we cannot make it efficacious, and the Christ we preach is “to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness”.
In considering this subject, these four points claim our attention: (1.) The position and theme of the preacher of the gospel. (2.) The only way in which the gospel can be effectual for good. (3.) The benefits secured to all who are called. (4.) The result of the gospel to all not called.
1Taken from a booklet entitled, The Old Paths, published some time after Kennedy’s death. This is the second of two sermons in the booklet; it was preached at Dingwall on 21 April 1867 and at Edinburgh on 28 April, 1867. The sermon printed here, with editing, is said to be “transcribed from his manuscript”. The other sermon appeared in the July FP.M.
1. The Apostle’s work was preaching “Christ crucified”.
To this work he was called by Christ according to the will of God. These two things are abundantly plain from the New Testament: (1.) The Great Head of the Church did not set all believers apart to the work of preaching the gospel. He chose some in the exercise of His own sovereignty for this work, and by His own authoritative appointment set them apart to it. (2). Those who had been thus called to preach had been previously called effectually. To this, after Christ’s ascension, no exception can be found. This was, and this is, the rule.
But there are two extremes against which we must guard – the extreme of High Churchmen, and the extreme of the Brethren.
(1.) High Churchmen.
There are those who claim a monopoly of all church service, and who pretend to have an exclusive right to office in the Church. It does rouse our indignation to hear men who, in their knowledge of the things of God and in their life and conversation, can show no credentials of a divine appointment. They claim to be the successors of the Apostles, or to have derived their credentials from those who say they have a right to hold office and carry out work in the house of God. They are men who, when they meddle with the Word of God, expose their ignorance, and who seem, from their life and conversation to be of the earth earthy, like the mass of the ungodly around them.
Against them we hold these two positions:
– Not all who pretend to hold office in the house of God, according to the most unexceptionable ecclesiastical rules, are regarded by God as His servants.
– While the office of a preacher is not open to all, all are required in their own positions to hold forth the Word of Life and to combine in evangelising the world.
(2.) The Brethren.
There are those who would claim for all Christian men an equal right to preach the gospel. It is enough to say in reply that Christ set apart some for this work and not others, who were just as truly believers, and that He has appointed this arrangement in His Church until the end of the world. This is so plain from God’s Word that only willful blindness can hide it from any mind.
The Apostle’s theme was “Christ crucified”. He preached Him who was crucified. The Person who was crucified was “the Son of the living God”. He was anointed by God to be the Redeemer of His people. He was revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures – in the promises, types and prophecies – in which He was held forth to the faith of the Old Testament Church. Thus Christ preached Himself: “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Lk 24:27). Thus Peter preached (Acts 2:14-40). Thus Stephen preached (Acts 7:2-53).
And thus Paul preached, as we can see from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Old Testament has not been absorbed into the New. It still is as authoritative as a rule of faith as ever. It was quoted as conclusive authority by Christ and by the Apostles. The Spirit of God did not supercede it in inspiring the New. He quotes it as of perpetual authority in matters both of faith and practice. The Apostle preached this Person, as manifested in the flesh in the fullness of time. He preached this Person, as crucified, with all the story of His life from His birth to His death, and with all that followed His death on the tree.
This theme is all-comprehensive. In it:
(1.) God’s provision is presented to us.
This is Christ Himself, the gift of God’s love, as set apart by the Father’s appointment, under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, to be and to do all that is necessary in order to God being glorified in the salvation of His people. It was on Him, on Him alone, that God laid help. Apart from Him, there is no name given under heaven whereby a sinner can be saved. I cannot think of Him as Christ without thinking of Him as “all in all” for the salvation of His people. I cannot think of Him as Christ crucified without thinking of all the work which He finished on the cross. I cannot think of that work without thinking of its bearing on all His offices as Redeemer; this is because all He did or does besides, He did and does on the ground of that work which He finished on the cross. I cannot, as I think of the cross, stop there; I rise from His cross and grave to His throne and power at the right hand of God.
Here I find complete security for the everlasting salvation of all His people, for
– I see here the conditions of the covenant of grace fulfilled.
– I see a way opened up for the Holy Ghost, by which He may come forth to do His work.
– Here I find security for the Father giving all things, with Christ, to His people. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
– When He rises from the cross to the throne, I say. “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life”.
(2.) God’s plan of salvation is unfolded to us.
Here it appears how God has secured that His name shall be glorified, His law magnified and His justice satisfied. All this is secured in Christ crucified. The work finished on the cross magnified the law. The death accomplished on the cross glorified the justice of God. Here it appears how God can be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly that believe in Jesus. Here appears how salvation flows from the grace of God, and results in His glory. There is a divine stamp on the salvation which is through Christ crucified.
Here One is presented to us as a substitute for sinners. It is Christ. Yet He is crucified. He is made a curse, but it was because He was made sin. He was made sin because He was substituted for sinners. He can act the part of substitute. He is His people’s kinsman, and yet He is their Lord. He is in the flesh, and yet He is God manifested in the flesh. He is under the law, but He is the Son of God. The law is therefore magnified and justice satisfied. And all this is through grace. Such is God’s plan of saving sinners. On the ground of that finished work, Christ may intercede and reign, the Holy Ghost may do His great and gracious work, and the Father may bless with all spiritual blessings.
(3.) God’s love is commended to us.
“God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This love was love to sinners. Any token of love would be great if bestowed on such as these. But here God commendeth His love. A divine commendation of divine love! Therefore it is infinite. It was commended when Christ the Son of God was crucified, and is commended when Christ as crucified is preached. Seek to realise who were the objects of the love; seek to realise the gift of this love – the Son – and seek to realise His death for sinners.
And how is this love presented? Is it as a universal love? How foolish to think that because it is not universal love, there is some limitation of it. Carnal reason would have it universal, not from any regard to the honour of God’s law, but from a desire for a convenient, easy hope. The sovereignty of God’s love is one of the marks of its divinity. But the objects of it are sinners. It is to this love that sinners are called. It is this love which will embrace every believer in Jesus Christ.
4. God’s glory is manifested to us.
- The glory of His majesty. It is more manifest on Calvary than on Sinai. At Sinai the earth quaked; on Calvary the Lord travailed. He who could still the sea and raise the dead hangs on the cross. No less a vindication of the divine majesty would be accepted.
- The glory of divine righteousness. A beloved Son was substituted for a beloved people, and even He was crucified for them.
- The glory of divine truth. Promise and threatening were kept, at the expense of Christ being crucified.
- The glory of divine wisdom. This appears in bringing truth and mercy to meet, and righteousness and peace to embrace each other. A work of judgement was necessary as a foundation for a work of grace – life through death, glory through shame, and blessing through the curse.
- The glory of divine power. Even in the weakness of the flesh, Jehovah triumphs in removing all His foes and in the redemption of His people.
- The glory of divine love. There are two special matters in this manifestation of the divine glory.
- All God’s moral perfections are here revealed.
- Of each there is an infinite display. This display of the divine glory bears on all the work of salvation. The actual salvation of sinners appointed by God in the light of this manifestation of divine love is the necessary complement of their redemption. The exhibition of God’s glory on the cross requires the application of finished redemption, in order to its completion. It would be well to understand this.
Christ crucified is to be preached in His Person, office, death and life in order thus to present the provision, unfold the plan, commend the love, and manifest the glory of God. He is thus to be preached to every man. Not universal love, not universal atonement, but Christ crucified is to be preached. God commands that Christ crucified is to be preached to all. This is enough for the preacher – God commands it. Even though God’s love is not universal, and even though the hearers are spiritually blind, hostile, enslaved and dead, all are required to believe in Christ.
It must be so, for
– Christ is worthy. If so, He ought to be received. He is deserving of all trust and confidence.
– God is true. His testimony regarding Jesus Christ is true. It is also faithful. It is your duty to believe God. You need not be perplexed about your warrant to believe. Let me ask you what warrant you have for not believing? No better warrant than the suggestions of the devil and your own evil heart.
2. The preaching of the gospel can be “the saviour of life unto life” to such as are “called”.
This calling is the work of God. It is He who separates these from others. The success of the gospel is therefore in the hands of God. “The excellency of the power” is from God alone. It would be well and wise to realise this and willingly to acknowledge it, and to exercise dependence and faith accordingly.
What does this calling imply? The calling is a special work of God by which He makes the gospel effectual to some – more surely than the outward call of the gospel, which is to all.
(1.) This calling makes salvation a matter of paramount importance to a soul.
It becomes a practical question: “What must I do to be saved?” A work of conviction secures this. So long as we merely speculate about salvation and have no sense of our need of it, Christ crucified will be an object of contempt to us. We do not feel our need of a physician. We are wholehearted and at our ease. But when the Spirit works, He shuts a sinner up to Christ. Then the sinner realises that he is undone without Christ. He cannot now dispense with Christ and have hope.
(2.) This calling slays the enmity of the heart against Christ and Him crucified.
The Spirit does this by renewing the soul and by creating a new heart within him. While full of enmity, no one will ever receive Christ; the soul will remain set against Him. Until the will is renewed, Christ will be rejected.
(3.) This calling gives a spiritual knowledge of Christ.
The quickening of the soul by the Spirit of God is essential to this. There can be no right view of Christ without this. The dead in the grave must be raised to life before they can see. And it is the quickened soul that receives the excellent knowledge of Christ. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shines in the heart.
(4.) This calling brings the soul in faith to Christ.
This is a meeting with Christ in the truth. There is union to Him, and there is therefore an interest in Him. These are they to whom the gospel is made effectual for salvation. It is effectual to those who are “called” and not to any others.
3. To the called, Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God”.
Now this does not refer to what Christ is abstractly, but to what He is to those that are “called”. It refers to what “the called” esteem Christ to be, and to what they shall find Him to be.
(1.) “The power of God.”
He is so in Himself as Christ crucified, for everything is in Him which God provided for salvation. But He is so to them effectually:
– Because in Christ they have an interest in God’s provision for salvation. It is now theirs. They have this in union with Christ, and on the ground of His death.
– Because in Christ they are in contact with the power of God. In Christ they are in communication with the fullness of God. They are living members of His body and are inhabited by the Spirit of Christ.
– Because in Christ virtue reaches them through the truth. Their living souls are in contact with the Word of God and the power of the cross is reaching them, mortifying sin, abasing self, crucifying the world, and strengthening what is from God in their souls.
(2.) “The wisdom of God.”
Christ crucified is effectually “the wisdom of God” to those that are “called”:
– Because through Jesus Christ they obtain acquaintance with God in His character, grace and will.
– Because through Jesus Christ they draw nigh to God to deal with Him for salvation.
– Because they have a guarantee against being deceived by any of their foes, or by all their foes together.
My friends, if you profess to have been “called”, and to have found Jesus Christ to be “the power of God” and “the wisdom of God”, present yourselves before the world, so that through you they may judge of Christ crucified. Beware that you do not strengthen their impression that He is weakness and foolishness.
4. The two-fold result of preaching Christ crucified to those not called.
The Jew and the Greek represent all who are not “called” – the Jew in his pride and prejudice, and the Greek in his pride and prejudice. The former is proud of his self-righteousness and prejudiced by his worldly spirit, and the latter is proud of his learning and prejudiced by his worldly spirit. To both the aspect of the cross was unattractive, the former regarding it as offensive, and the latter as foolish.
(1.) To the Jews, who “require a sign”, it is “a stumbling block”.
The Jew, cleaving to the law, proud of his ancestry, clinging to the traditions of the fathers, and desiring a temporal prince of power and renown, was offended. Was it a wonder? Jesus of Nazareth, the Man of Sorrows, whom Jew and Gentile combined to despise and crucify, was the Messiah presented to him. Unconscious of his need of salvation, and cleaving to the world as his portion, was it a wonder though he despised the Crucified One? In the interests of his pride and worldliness, and to excuse his unbelief, the Jew asks for a sign, some proof, to his senses, that Jesus’ claims are well-founded. Keeping his head high and straining his eyes for something to strike his superstitiousness, he overlooks Christ crucified, stumbles on that stone, and is snared and broken. He falls to his ruin on this stumbling block.
(2). To the Greeks, who “seek after wisdom”, it is “foolishness”.
The Greek seeks after wisdom, something to amuse a vain mind, something to gratify his love of speculation, something that will harmonise with his preconceptions of the wise and the good, something he will account the greatest good. But looking in the light of history on the Crucified One, how foolish to him it seemed that one crucified as an alleged malefactor should be the great prophet to unfold the wisdom of the Highest. He thinks there can be nothing in the gospel that is wonderful or true or good, because he cannot see it. The amount of wisdom he has only serves to lock up his mind in the darkness of utter ignorance, and in so far as his heart is concerned, there is nothing to gratify it in the object presented in the gospel.
Pride, ignorance and idolatry combine against the claims of Christ in every unrenewed soul, and to all these, Christ crucified is but a stumbling block and foolishness. And in this respect, it is still as it was. Why do you not accept Christ? It is just because you are given to thinking that you can do without Him, because you are ignorant of Him, and because you prefer the things of this world. And, poor souls, how will you do without Him? How awful to think of even this being “the savour of death unto death” to you!
Application.
1. Here is a lesson for preachers.
The Apostle preached Christ crucified. This was his theme. It should be the theme of every preacher. If he who professes to preach ignores the doctrine of the cross, he has no message from God to sinners. His gospel, whatever it is, cannot be “the gospel of peace”, and cannot be the means of bringing men to walk in the ways of the Lord. It is only in connection with the preaching of Christ crucified that the Spirit comes to quicken the soul dead in sin, to beget in it the life that is life indeed.
2. Here is good news for sinners.
- Redemption for sinners. This was the purpose of Christ’s death, and it meets the case of sinners perfectly. I cannot say to you it was intended for you all, but I can say that it is suitable to you all.
- A Covenant Head who has sealed the Covenant with His blood. All that was required of Him as Head is now finished. He has now all that the promise of the Father involved. He has this for all who receive Him. And all this is received by all who receive Him by faith. Surely there is enough here to meet all your needs! All that is required for your preservation, guidance, health, peace, joy and eternal life is His for sinners, because He was crucified, and it is in Him brought nigh to you, when He is preached to you.
- A Saviour altogether worthy of your confidence, in whom that redemption and fullness are to be found. He is one who kept His promise at the cost of His precious blood. He is one who so loved sinners as to give His precious life as a ransom for them. What higher commendation of His love could He ever give? This is a love which waits to embrace. Your question should not be, Has He loved me? but, Shall His love embrace me if I come? The answer is, Yes, with infinite delight. O sinner, why do you avoid Him?
- God waiting to be gracious. It will be to the praise of His glory to bless you. The very love that gave Christ to death is willing and is free to bestow all needed grace on you. Do not be afraid to come to God through the rent flesh and the heart blood of His Christ, His lamb. And by all His faithfulness in His promise to His Son, He is engaged to bless you, even you, if you come.
- The Spirit coming to be gracious. I cannot say that He will come to all to whom the gospel comes, but I can say that He will come to whoever He wills. I cannot say that you may cast yourself on His love apart from Christ, but I can say that Christ has the Spirit in order to convince the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgement, and that you may cast yourself on the Anointed One for the anointing. What glad tidings of great joy these are to sinners!
Man may break his word, and continue to be man still; but God could not be God if He were not faithful and true, because faithfulness is essential to His very nature and being.
It is easy with God to wrest a weapon out of the devil’s hand and turn it against him and his kingdom.