Divine Wisdom in the Absurdity of the Cross

To some people Christianity comes across as being a religion that is just plain ridiculous. For example, the famous agnostic scientist, Richard Dawkins, was interviewed on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Q&A program (9 April 2012), ridiculing the concept of the Son of God dying on a cross:

“the idea that … the only way we can be redeemed from sin is through the death of Jesus … that’s a horrible idea. It’s a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn’t think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to earth in his alter-ego as his Son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive.”

For Richard Dawkins, the idea of the Son of God dying on the cross is simply absurd.

Christians should not be surprised to find people ridiculing their religion. As Paul says in 1 Cor 1:18: “the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.” To most of the world who do not know God, the gospel, the message of Jesus going to the cross, does not make sense. “You Christians are saying that some Jewish man who was executed on a cross by the Romans some two thousand years ago is your God? Really? And what other fairy stories do you believe?”

The word of the cross might be foolishness to those who are perishing, “but to those who are being saved, to us [the word of the cross] is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18). The gospel is the key means by which God’s power can be communicated to us human beings. The power of God that brings salvation to the world is Jesus, and people can encounter Jesus in the world today primarily through the message of the Christian gospel.

But why the cross? As Richard Dawkins suggests, it does seem such a far-fetched kind of story: God, who made this universe, coming down at a certain point in human history to get beaten, whipped, spat upon, and nailed to a wooden cross. Why has God chosen to do this?

Paul’s slightly modified quotation of Isa 29:14 in 1 Cor 1:19 identifies a key reason for the idea of the Son of God dying on a cross. Through the strange but wondrous event of the cross, God is destroying the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent.

Applying Paul’s teaching to people like Richard Dawkins, we can acknowledge that Dawkins is an intelligent man in terms of human knowledge; but all his intelligence and understanding, and all of his study and degrees, become foolishness when they are used to scorn the cross of Christ.

It is important to see science and other forms of human knowledge for what they are. The origin of the word science can help us in this regard. The word science comes from the Latin word scientia, which means knowledge. Science is simply human knowledge, and all human knowledge has limitations. Despite this, the history of the Western world over the last 150 years has seen the word of God replaced with human opinion. The human brain has been set up in place of the Bible. This is why the message of the cross is absurd to the majority of people in the Western world today. The fount of knowledge is no longer the church but the laboratory.

We humans might smugly think that we know a lot—the advances in science and technology since the beginning of the twentieth century have certainly been amazing—but our knowledge can never compare with the knowledge and wisdom of the God who created and controls the universe. God knows the limitations of human thinking, and he sees our arrogance when we act as if our knowledge were unlimited or necessarily correct.

In 1 Cor 1:21, Paul teaches, in effect, that God has deliberately designed the gospel to look somewhat absurd and incredible in order to render foolish the wisdom of the wise. The gospel does sound kind of foolish: the God of universe allowing himself to be picked on by Jews and crucified by Romans. It is truly a rather weird idea; but, according to Paul, God is using the weirdness of the idea that God gave up everything and died on a cross, to prove his wisdom in comparison to human foolishness.

God decided to come into the world to die, in order to prove his wisdom and power. When a man dies, he is dead. A dead man is effectively useless and of no real value. Getting one’s self killed is ordinarily the opposite of what the wisdom of the world is used for. Wisdom and knowledge are typically used in order to keep one’s self alive for the purpose of experiencing some form of happiness or prosperity. Jesus’ death on the cross challenges this belief. Furthermore, the significance of the cross is that death by crucifixion was considered to be the most painful and shameful form of official capital punishment used by the Romans at the time.

What good is a shamefully dead god? The gospel is absurd to the world. But because the human race has used its wisdom to deny God, God in his wisdom has been pleased to turn the tables, and to show up the absurdity of human wisdom. God incarnate was dead, yes; but only for a time. Christ’s death paved the way for his resurrection. Because of Christ’s resurrection, the foolishness of God is wiser than any human wisdom, and the weakness of God stronger than any human strength.

Fill the Hand: A Hebrew Idiom of Ordination and Consecration

To fill the hand is an interesting Hebrew idiom. Overall, it occurs about twenty times in the Hebrew Bible. It is most often connected with the consecration of the Levitical priests. In Exod 28:41, God instructs Moses: “you shall anoint [Aaron and his sons], and fill their hand, and consecrate them, and they shall function as priests for me.” See also Exod 29:9, 33, 35; Lev 8:33; 16:32; 21:10; Num 3:3. The expression is also used of the illegal ordination of priests. Micah the Ephraimite filled the hand of one of his sons, and the hand of the infamous Levite, to be priests (Judg 17:5, 12). See also 1 Kgs 13:33; 2 Chr 13:9.

The expression typically has the Piel of מלא with יד as its object. It is usually understood as an idiom that means to consecrate or to ordain, but what is the connection between filling the hand and ordination? The root מלא in the Piel means to fill. The word יד, which means hand, can have the extended meaning of power. The idiom seemingly communicates, therefore, the idea of conferring power or authority. To fill the hand of a person is to complete the power of that person in the sense of authorizing that person for a particular task.

There is a concrete example of this expression in the Scriptures which seems to illuminate this idiom. In 2 Kgs 9:24, we are told that “Jehu filled his hand in the bow.” In other words, Jehu put his strength into the bow to draw it back strongly for a powerful shot aimed at King Joram. Here to fill the hand means to transfer power. This seems to confirm the idea that filling the hand of someone to be priest means to authorize, hence to ordain as priest.

However, the expression can also be used of ordinary people who consecrate themselves in the service of God. David is recorded as using the expression in 1 Chr 29:5 to encourage the people to give freewill offerings to the Lord to be used in the the building of the temple. Here the people are effectively called upon to fill their own hands in the service of God! A similar idea is found in 2 Chr 29:31 where the people fill their hands by joining with Hezekiah in renewing the covenant before God. And finally, the expression can also be used of objects dedicated for the worship of God. The priests in Ezekiel’s vision of the eschatological temple would offer sacrifices to purify and to fill the hand of the altar of the temple (Ezek 43:26).

There is one particular use of this expression that deserves to be mentioned. After the sin of the golden calf, Moses proclaimed: “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me!” (Exod 32:26). When the sons of Levi gathered around him, Moses told them to take their swords and to execute judgment upon the people. He also encouraged them at this time: “Fill your hands today to Yahweh, yes, every man against his son and against his brother!” (Exod 32:29). Having understood the logic behind the idiom, Moses’ use of the expression at this juncture surely appears to be a case of deliberate double entendre. The Levites were to consecrate themselves to God by unleashing the power of their hands against their rebellious countrymen.

The Saving Power of the Gospel in Romans 1:16

Romans 1:16-17 states the fundamental theme of the book of Romans that undergirds the rest of Paul's teaching in this epistle. In v. 16 Paul states that he was not ashamed of the gospel. Implied within this statement is that Paul’s opponents, the Christian Judaizers, were ashamed of the gospel. By insisting on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses as part of the gospel (such as we see in Acts 15:1, 5), the Judaizers were effectively trying to make the gospel kosher by Judaizing it, by trying to force Jesus and the gospel into the traditional framework of the Mosaic covenant. Their motivation in doing this was to try and make Christianity look acceptable to orthodox Jewish sensibilities. The Judaizers compromised the gospel in the face of social pressure.

But Paul (after his conversion) would have none of that. He was not ashamed of the gospel, because he understood that it is the powerful word of God that brings the fullness of salvation “to everyone who believes, both to the Jew first and to the Greek.” This verse contains the first use in Romans of the pan-ethnic all (translated here as everyone), which is derived from the phrase all the nations in Rom 1:5.

Paul understood that the gospel has a pan-ethnic relevance and application. By making the point that the gospel brings salvation to everyone who believes, Paul was opposing the position of the Judaizers, whose understanding of the gospel limited salvation to one nation (i.e., the nation of Israel), whose national boundary was marked by circumcision, and whose way of life was the law of Moses. Paul understood that the gospel had opened the door of salvation to all nations. This was a truth of which he was not ashamed, a truth that he was prepared to defend no matter what the personal cost.