1Cor 3:18-20 - Tell 'em What You Told 'em

18-20 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," 20 and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."
Finally, like any good speaker, Paul, having told them what he was going to tell them - and then told them - now tells them what he told them. In other words, he has reinforced the message through repetition, and thereby signified its importance.

That message is about the contrast between worldly wisdom and right doctrine - between spiritual understanding and carnal thought - between error and foundational truth. He has spent the best part of two and a half chapters on these foundations. And he caps it off by quoting scripture, {Job 5:13,Ps 94:11} just to make sure they understand what he believes the true source of his teaching to be, and to lay down the example of the scriptures as written authority.

The wisdom of God is not folly, but it is folly to the fallen mind. And if we propagate the truth in love, we should know that we shall be regarded as fools by a great number of men. Some will tolerate us, some will be condescending, some enraged, some will ridicule - but God will use the truth, faithfully communicated, to call out his elect from among men, and to keep them in the faith. So we should gear up and not be surprised or offended when we are treated as Christ was treated for bringing the unacceptable truth to men. And neither should we change the message, water it down or play "bait and switch" with it.

The offense that men find in the gospel actually glorifies God. This is a hard truth for us to accept, but God is glorified just as much for His justice as for His mercy - just as much for His judgments unto condemnation as His grace unto salvation. One set of actions glorifies His mercy and love and the other set of actions glorifies His holiness and perfect judgment. Every sinner in hell will bring glory to God through His justice and every sinner in heaven will bring glory to God through His mercy and grace. Those who remain under condemnation do so due to their unrepented sin.

Those who are saved are saved by the grace of God alone. That is the wisdom of God. It is that truth which so offends the natural man (even the residual flesh in the saint) that he rebels against it and considers his own wisdom to be preferable. How can a man be responsible and therefore justly deserving of condemnation and hell, and yet get no credit for believing unto salvation? Only the Holy Spirit can so change a heart that it will accept this truth and bow down at the feet of the Almighty.

In the face of such reality it is always a danger that the professing believer will deceive himself and think thoughts after the mindset of the fallen world - even applying the world’s logic to detriment of spiritual truth. The world knows good and evil, as Satan promised - but it cannot know good from evil because the fallen human heart starts from evil and produces fruit accordingly. The heart and the will are corrupted. Even true saints must learn obedience to the truth as it is revealed to their hearts by the Holy Spirit from the Word. They will hear His voice at their shoulder saying, "this is the way, walk in it." That voice will not be a disembodied, audible external authoritarian enlightenment - but internal agreement with the revealed word applied to providential circumstance through a conviction that moves the renewed will.

So "if anyone thinks he is wise in this age let him become a fool..." What does "in this age" mean? Does it mean the era in which Paul lived? Or does it mean the era of the gospel in which all men will live until Jesus returns? I think it means the latter because the wisdom of the world - even in the believer, manifested as the residual echoes of learned patterns of thinking - is always worldly wisdom, regardless of the era in question. The world is always with us. It the inveterate, ubiquitous, persistent enemy of truth. It is opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So we must not suppose that the wisdom - the zeitgeist - of any particular era is actually worse or better than any other. They all oppose Christ, and the antidote for the believer is always the gospel. The commonality of the spirit of all ages reflects the true nature of our warfare, which is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers of the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. {Eph 6:12} And the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. {2Co 10:4}

We don’t concentrate on the wicked spirits themselves, but we are told about them in the same way that Gehazi was shown by Elisha what forces were arrayed on the prophet’s side in God’s battle. {2Ki 6:11-17} It is not through concentrating upon the evil forces themselves, but through trusting in God that the victory is manifested. And yet it is the knowledge that we are pitted against forces far more malevolent and far beyond our own powers to resist, let alone to overcome, that we are humbled enough to cast ourselves upon the God to Whom the victory already belongs. The battle is the Lord’s, and men are merely the means and the battlefield in and through which that war is waged.

It is God’s battle and His battle plan. It is His will that must be done. It is in obedience to His will that we are useful in the battle - a usefulness that comes from God because it begins and ends with Him. The world’s wisdom is of absolutely no use to Christians because the world of men, though not the enemy, serves the will of Satan who is the enemy. All that is in the world is potentially if not actively arrayed against God. The world system of values, the body of death that is chained to every Christian, and the devil himself are arrayed against the Lord’s people, as they were against the Lord’s Anointed. If they hated Him, they will hate us, for He is in us to do His will. But this doing of His will is only when we walk in the Spirit obedient to the revealed will of God in His Word. That is heavenly wisdom which cannot be known by fallen men, unless God regenerates them. Otherwise all efforts are futile. All wisdom is foolishness. What is not of faith is sin and what is not wrought in Christ is of no avail.