18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God...22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom;
23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,
24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.......
30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
31 so that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD."...
1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,
4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
The God of glory, with all of His Omnipotent wonder, creates the universe out of nothing, causes the mountains to tremble and the oceans to stir. He upholds all things by the power of His word. He has the authority to cast people in the lake of fire, and no purpose of His can ever be withheld. There is nothing that He has decreed that will not come to pass. No scheme of man or of devils will ever prevail over the purpose of the Immutable, Unchangeable God. Clouds in thick darkness surround Him, and righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. He has parted the Red Sea, and causes desolations on the earth. He is an awe-inspiring God; a dreadful God. One so full of burning Holiness and righteous indignation, that it is indeed a fearful thing to fall into His hands. Yet though these wonders are all majestic displays of His power, the culmination of His Omnipotence is found in the preaching of Christ crucified.
The use of the word "power" here in 1 Corinthians denotes that of "ability". God's ability displayed in the cross is distinct in the fact that it is through the cross and only through the cross that the salvation and wisdom of God is found. However, we must understand that God is speaking here of more that just an event. It is not in the event of the cross that the power of God is manifested, but it is in the person who accomplished the event- Jesus. Through the incarnation, the God-become-flesh poured out His holy life to obedience to the Father. He then offered that life as a propitiation for sin, and afterward, rose again from the dead, setting the people of God back into a right relationship with the Father. Here is where the power of God is expressed in the event of the cross: That God first placed us in His Son, who Paul says has become for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. The cross is the power of God because what Jesus accomplished there was the totality of Christianity. The substitutionary death of Jesus not only means that He took the wrath of God upon Himself so that we could go free, but that through the cross, He accomplished our redemption from start to finish.
Through His substitutionary death, He has also become our wisdom. We no longer have to operate in accordance to carnality and worldly wisdom, for now the very wisdom of God has become ours through Jesus. This means that no longer must I bend and yield to the common sense of the world, but I must accept the fact that I have died with Christ, so that the Wisdom of God Himself- Jesus, can express the divine discernment through me.
The substitutionary death of Jesus also provided for the people of God righteousness. Through our identification with the death of Jesus, God has done away with our carnal virtue, and wants to replace them with the virtues of the Son of God. As Christians, we can still have carnal virtues. Carnal virtues are those things in which we establish our own selves as being loving, kind, patient, nice, etc. The reason they are carnal is because the have their root in the sinful nature and not in the life of the Son of God. Carnal virtues are a weak substitute. The reason being is that they will always carry with them some bias or some breaking point. The carnal virtue of love will always have something or someone that will not be treated with truth. Carnal patience will always have an event that will bring it to its end. Carnal kindness will not be extended to all, especially to those who are one's enemies. However, the virtues of the Son of God know no limitation, because they are perfect and eternal in their duration. When Jesus is expressing His love through me, I will see people as equal. His patience will bear up under any circumstance and situation, and His kindness will be extended to all, even the undeserving. This is what God has provided for us through the atonement.
Next, His substitutionary death has provided for us sanctification- being made into the holy image of the Lord. Sanctification is not a process where we receive the Spirit of God so that He can rehabilitate us. He does not give the Spirit as a crutch that we can use to help us walk. God never honors trying, He honors surrender. God does not want to rehabilitate us, He wants to do away with us so that the life of Jesus can be made manifest through us. As long as we are in the way, we are trying to carry out sanctification on our own means and along our own terms, and we will forever remain impotent in the realm of spiritual progress. Christian sanctification is the process in which the foundation is "not I but Christ". God united us in the death of Christ so that He could get rid of our sinful disposition and nature- our selfish self-centeredness- and manifest the life of His Son through us. The reason God gave us His Spirit is not to rehabilitate us, but to put to death the deeds of the body, so that He and He alone can glorify Jesus through us. The process of sanctification is both started, carried out, and completed by Christ. He is the one who has become our holiness for us. We need to surrender and let Christ live through us, and stop trying to use the Spirit to rehabilitate us.
Finally, the cornerstone of apostolic preaching is now made manifest to us. It is the preaching of the cross in the Spirit and power of God. Wherever there is any sort of preaching, whether it is gospel preaching, righteousness preaching, or sanctification preaching, if it has any other foundation and premise than the substitutionary death of Jesus, it will not be accompanied by the Spirit and power of God. The reason being is that Paul has stated in the previous verses that the preaching of the cross is where the power of God is manifested. Therefore, if we want the Spirit and power of God operating in our lives and in our preaching, it must all be centered on the cross. Sanctification, righteousness, and wisdom preached on any other way will not have the anointing of God, and the practice of it in the lives of those who hear will not be blessed with the power and Spirit of God to bring about true sanctification, righteousness, and wisdom. All other preaching is carnal and worldly in its wisdom. If you ever hear someone tell you that sanctification and righteous living can be obtained any other way than through the death of Jesus and Him living His life through you, avoid such teaching. In obeying such worldly wisdom, you will forfeit the working of the Spirit, who only operates in and through the cross of Christ (Rm. 8:1-2).