How does God teach us about God’s love for us and plan for our salvation? Paul argues that Christ’s crucifixion is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” Twenty-first-century people frequently wear the cross as a piece of jewelry, and we can easily forget how scandalous Christ’s crucifixion was for the first century. The Roman government practiced crucifixion as a form of deterrence of crime and rebellion. It intentionally tortured and humiliated the accused. Thus, the cross symbolized rejection, shame, and weakness.
Conventional wisdom of any age would find human redemption through crucifixion incomprehensible. Yet, for Christians, Jesus’ crucifixion is transformative and salvific. When Jesus prepares his disciples for his crucifixion, he says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Of course, this is exactly what Jesus does in the crucifixion. Jesus lays down his life for us by being raised up on the cross. By accepting torture, humiliation, shame, and the ultimate death of the crucifixion, Jesus demonstrated the awesome and incomprehensible nature of God’s love for us. In God’s profound wisdom, we see the depth of God’s love for us through the crucifixion.
Paul links this wisdom with God’s power. By submitting to crucifixion, Jesus voluntarily relinquished divine power and prerogative in order to fully experience the human suffering of crucifixion. Jesus willingly became weak so that humans could know God’s deep love and experience God’s redemptive power. This power of God’s love can only be accessed through Christ’s self-emptying. Thus, Paul concludes, “God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”