He Is Risen! April Fools'?
Sometimes our holidays work out beautifully to highlight a truth we already know. Like when my birthday falls on Mother’s Day, or when Christmas falls on a Sunday. But this year? This year sees Resurrection Sunday falling on April Fools’ Day and apparently this lineup hasn’t happened since 1945. Whether we realize it or not, it is one of the most profound and fitting match-ups that we could have hoped for. Even more surprising is that the Apostle Paul was way ahead of his time when he shared the same sentiments.
There are ultimately two types of people in the world: Those who are reconciled to God and those who are not. Paul knew that he, like all Christians, are ambassadors for Christ on the earth who have a ministry of reconciliation.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Cor 5:17–20) (emphasis mine).
As Paul said, this way of reconciliation is in Christ alone. Left to ourselves, just the way we are, we stand condemned as sinners and enemies of God, thus actively under His wrath.
The apostle John brings this complete reality of God’s wrath—and His opportunity for deliverance from it—into plain view:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him . . . Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (3:16–17, 36) (emphasis mine).
The entire ministry of the apostles could be summed up in their representation of, and teaching of, the only way of salvation through the Son of God—none other than Jesus of Nazareth. John stated plainly in the last statement of his narrative that “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31).
Thousands of years later, He is still the way. To compromise this truth is to forfeit the only way to be forgiven of sin and reconciled to God. In effect, it ensures you stay damned to Hell. Suffice it to say that the apostles wrote and wrote in order to make sure that the church maintained its faithfulness to the Gospel that saves.
They also wrote about the particular points of God’s method of salvation that were fundamental to faith being a saving one. It is not enough to believe in God’s existence, or even in the life and ministry of Christ’s earthly work, for as James pointed out, “even the demons believe—and shudder!” (2:19).
Paul summarized it best in his letter to the Romans: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom 10:9–10).
The context here, as always, involves repentance from sin and obeying the Gospel, e.g. “they have not all obeyed the gospel” (vs. 16). This is not a legalistic form of obedience, rather it is identifying that act of faith as obedience because of the call to repent and believe. That particular call is not a suggestion, but a command. Is this obedient faith, then, a work that we perform to merit salvation? By no means. Faith is a gift—a free gift of God.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8–9).
In summary, then, the gift of faith is one that assumes repentance from sin, which results in one calling upon the name of the Lord for forgiveness of their sin, believing in the substitutionary death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
With all of this said, Paul knows how many react to this Gospel message: “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing” (1 Cor 1:18).
To those who remain in unbelief of the clear Gospel message, the whole thing is simply chalked up to foolishness. “But,” says Paul, “to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (vs. 18).
Those who are saved know better. And having once been one of those who were hardened we look not upon the unbelieving world with scorn, but with grief and a sense of urgency for their soul that remains in peril of judgment.
Paul goes on to contrast the “foolishness” of the powerful Gospel message.
“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (vv. 20–21).
In other words, in God’s true wisdom, He did not provide a way to be saved through the world’s “wisdom,” rather it was through what the world regards as foolishness that God made a way for men and women to be saved.
There is no misunderstanding in that the very definitions of wisdom and foolishness that the world has are at complete odds with God's definitions. Indeed, God has already said that "the fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Ps 14:1). This is the actual fool; The height of all folly.
Paul continues: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (vv. 22–23).
One need not look further than the hairpin turn the Jews made from hailing Jesus in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem to then shouting “crucify him!” less than a day later to wonder how Jesus was a stumbling block. He was not the Roman-conquering deliverer they were expecting. This was not the messiah they were looking for. Cleansing the temple upon his arrival to Jerusalem confirmed that.
The Apostle Peter makes all too clear that the Jews “stumble because they disobey the word” (1 Pet 2:8).
The Gentiles—the non-Jews—in seeking for worldly philosophies that salve their minds cannot fathom the thought of a suffering servant being the vehicle for deliverance from anything. To them it is utter foolishness.
This was on full display when Paul was preaching in the middle of the Areopagus in Athens where nothing but new ideas were peddled. Acts 17:21 tells us that "all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new."
After Paul's message, notice the reaction of the majority; the "wise" philosophers: "Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed" (vv. 32–33).
“But to those who are called,” Paul says with some satisfaction as he continues writing 1 Corinthians, “both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (vs. 24). That is, as he said in verse 18, “to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (vs. 25).
To paraphrase: For the “foolishness” of God is wiser than men and the “weakness” of God is stronger than men. There is no comparison. God is not actually foolish or weak and the world is not actually wise or strong.
We now let Paul speak for himself in length:
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (vv. 26–31).
We can then say with Paul, “We are fools for Christ's sake” (4:10). “If we are beside ourselves, it is for God” (2 Cor 5:13).
Brothers and sisters, are you willing to be ridiculed and derided for believing what is “foolish” according to the world? Too many have drifted into heresy for courting the goodwill of the unbelieving world and the false spiritualists. Do not make shipwreck of your faith. Do not be bewitched, but persevere in the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints and pray for an increase of a sense of urgency to evangelize those around us who remain under the wrath of God and have not experienced the freedom from sin’s slavery.
This Easter, may we rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in a way that convicts the world of their own need of reconciliation. May our reverent worship of Him be a powerful tool in itself.
“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Cor 15:19–20).
In Christ Alone,
Ben
