While the Apostle Paul was at Corinth the Lord spoke to him in the night by a vision: "Be not afraid, he was told, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: . . . for I have much people in this city." [Acts18:9-10] Had Paul been afraid to bring the simple gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to the city of Corinth with its Jews and with its Greeks? If so, he was afraid no longer after the vision had been given to him. "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." [I Cor. 1:20, 21]

If the Corinthians would but look at the facts as they are, and particularly as they have shown themselves to be in the course of history, they would be compelled to acknowledge the bankruptcy of the wisdom of man. What answer had Socrates, Plato and Aristotle been able to give to the deepest problems of life? Shall we say that they gave no answer? No, indeed; for they could not escape giving an answer. But the answers they had given were wrong. Their wisdom had been made foolishness with God. In the light of the narrative which Paul brought, the wisdom of the Greeks was not merely inadequate; it was sinful. Man had originally been made perfect. He had then in Adam broken the covenant that God had made with him. [Rom. 5:12] He was now a covenant-breaker and, as such, subject to the wrath of God.

Having such a view of the nature of man Paul did not merely plead for a "complete system," for recognition of the "spiritual dimension" as well as the material. He did not want merely to add the idea of the personal confrontation with Jesus Christ to that of the impersonal study of the laws of nature. In short, he did not ask for the privilege of erecting an altar to the living God, Creator of heaven and earth, next to the altars to gods that have been born of human minds. He pleaded for, and in the name of his Lord required of men, a complete reversal of their point of view in every dimension of life. The entire house of the interpretation of life had to be broken down. Many of the building blocks that they had gathered could no doubt be used, but only if the totally new architectural plan that Paul proposed were followed.

But how could Paul expect that covenant-breakers should become covenant-keepers? How could those who had worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator be expected to turn from their evil way? Would they turn as soon as it was shown to them intellectually that the wisdom of this world has been made foolishness with God? Indeed not. Their minds being darkened, they would appear to others to see while yet they did not see. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." [I Cor. 2:14] Or could they be expected to desire and will to believe that which might seem intellectually paradoxical to them? No, St. Paul did not expect that, "because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." [Rom. 8:7]

Yet the Apostle did not despair. He did not lower the requirements of the gospel in order to get men to accept it. Being truly all things to all men, sacrificing himself without limit for the sake of Jew and Gentile alike, he yet continued to insist always on the complete rejection of the "wisdom" of man and on the substitution for it of the "foolishness" of God. For this he had good reason.

He knew all the evidence was for the truth of his message. Can anyone really doubt that God, the God whom Paul preached, does exist? The eternal power and Godhead of Paul's gospel are clearly visible to all men everywhere. [Rom. 1:19] God speaks His requirements through all the facts with which man deals. He speaks to men in the works of creation and providence; He speaks also to men through their conscience. [Rom. 2:14, 15] He spoke at the beginning of history in direct supernatural fashion to Adam. All men are therefore without excuse. There is no fault in the objective revelation of God to men. It is perspicuous; no one can escape being confronted with it. There is no area of impersonal relationships where the face of God the Creator and Judge does not confront man. It is not as though the evidence shows that a god exists or that God probably exists. If such were the case then there would be some excuse for man if he did not bow before his Maker. Paul makes bold to claim that all men know deep down in their hearts that they are creatures of God and have sinned against God their Creator and their Judge.

Nor is it as though the evidence for "theism" were clear but the evidence for "Christianity" were obscure. Paul boldly asserts that men are bound to believe the facts of Christianity to be true as soon as they hear of them. When he declares the fact of the resurrection of Christ, he asserts that through it all men have been given assurance of the day of final judgment by the Son of man. [Acts 17:31]

Through Paul's gospel, then, "objective truth" stands before men as a challenge. Men cannot react neutrally towards it; they must accept it or suppress it because they do not want to believe it. Paul knows that those who cling to the "wisdom" of the world do so against their better judgment and with an evil conscience. Every fact of "theism" and every fact of "Christianity" points with accusing finger at the sinner, saying: "You are a covenant-breaker; repent and be saved!"

The truth Paul brings requires response, the response of repentance; and repentance is the work of the whole man. Paul's truth is "existential." He who rejects it virtually commits suicide both intellectually and morally.

Yet Paul also knows that sin is of such a nature as to make men prefer intellectual and moral suicide to the truth of God in Christ. Repentance means the recognition of bankruptcy. It involves the suppliant's attitude--begging for mercy, for pardon, for life. It means fleeing from the city of destruction and pressing on to the celestial city even when Mr. Worldly Wise Man and all his friends are going in the other direction. It means bearing the offence of the cross. Will any of the wise of the world accept his gospel and repent?

Yes, they will. Paul is quite sure of that. He knows that God has much people in the city. He knows that he himself had been a persecutor. He remembers vividly how the Lord had appeared unto him. Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord?" [I Cor. 9:1] Now that Jesus has come into the world to save His people, His Spirit will set them free. That Spirit will take the things of Christ and give them to His people. God's work is one. God the Father so loved the world that He gave His Son that they who believe might be saved. God the Son came into the world to do the will of the Father. God the Spirit will give men hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone. The believers in Corinth were the work of the Apostle. "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." [2 Cor 3:3]

The natural man who of himself cannot discern the things of the Spirit is by that Spirit renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. [Col. 3:10] "This renovation is said to be [eis epignosin], not in knowledge, much less by knowledge, but unto knowledge, so that he knows. Knowledge is the effect of the renovation spoken of." Moreover "the knowledge here intended is not mere cognition. It is full, accurate, living, or practical knowledge; such knowledge as is eternal life, so that this word here includes what in Eph. 4:24 is expressed by righteousness and holiness."

With this assurance that the Spirit of God, who had enveloped him in heavenly light and turned him from being a persecutor to being an Apostle, can and will enable men to turn from the wisdom of the world in order to accept his gospel, Paul goes forth boldly among men everywhere. Speaking for Him who spoke to Lazarus in his tomb, Paul does not hesitate to speak to those who are dead in trespasses and sins. [Eph. 2:1] He expects that the Spirit will in sovereign mercy enable men to repent. It is God, the Spirit, who makes men do that which in their folly they would otherwise not have done. "Are not ye my work in the Lord?" If you who were enamoured of the wisdom of the world have now owned it to be foolishness, you must go forth with the same challenge that I presented unto you. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." [I Cor. 15:58]

Shall we as Christians, facing the wisdom of the world in modern form, dare to do what Paul tells those who are his work in the Lord to do? Shall we dare to be steadfast and unmovable, never doubting the objective truth of the message that we bring, never doubting that the wisdom of the world has again been made foolishness with God? Shall we have full confidence that our labour will not be in vain in the Lord? . . .

It is thus that God has made foolish the wisdom of this world in the modern day no less than He did in the day of Paul. Instead of accepting the favours of modern man, as Romanism and Arminianism do, we should challenge the wisdom of this world. It must be shown to be utterly destructive of predication in any field. It has frequently been shown to be such. It is beyond the possibility of the mind of man to bind together the ideas of pure determinism and of pure indeterminism and by means of that combination to give meaning to life. Either modern man will have to admit that he knows everything or else he will have to admit that he knows nothing. The only alternative to this is that he claims both absurdities at the same time.

Let us again remind ourselves that what has been said does not mean that Christians are in themselves wiser than are other men. What they have they have by grace. They must be "all things to all men." But it is not kindness to tell patients that need strong medicine that nothing serious is wrong with them. Christians are bound to tell men the truth about themselves; that is the only way of bringing them to recognize the mercy, the compassion, of Christ. For if men are told the truth about themselves, and if they are warned against the false remedies that establish men in their wickedness, then, by the power of the Spirit of God, they will flee to the Christ through whom alone they must be saved.