Why the cross is not popular

To the first century Christians in Corinth, Paul wrote: “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing…we preach Christ crucified: a stumblingblock to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 23-25).

At the 1988 IFES European Conference on Evangelism in Wurzburg, Germany, beneath a vast banner, “The love of Christ moves us”, John Stott spoke on Paul's preaching on the cross of Christ in Corinth, and the objections to his message—intellectual, religious, personal, moral and political—to an audience of 1,000 students from across the continent. He described the first-century Corinthians as “typical” and added that the world in which we live today is just as hostile to the gospel:

We are fooling ourselves if we imagine that we can ever make the authentic gospel popular...It's too simple in an age of rationalism; too narrow in an age of pluralism; too humiliating in an age of self-confidence; too demanding in an age of permissiveness; and too unpatriotic in an age of blind nationalism... What are we going to share with our friends? The authentic gospel or a gospel that has been corrupted in order to suit human pride?

Let’s look at these five points:

Too simple in an age of rationalism. Though there is much about the cross we will never fully understand in this life, its basic message is simple enough for a small child to understand: Jesus loved me so much he was willing to die for my sins. He rose from the dead, and if I acknowledge my need, ask for his forgiveness and invite him into my life as my Lord and Saviour, then he will not only forgive me and become my friend and companion through life, but will one day welcome me into his forever kingdom. The simplicity lies in the fact that I don’t have to “do” anything to become a recipient of God’s grace. God has done it all. My pride tells me that I should have to do something difficult to earn such a wonderful gift. However, the New Testament declares that there is nothing I can do, and until I am prepared to acknowledge that fact I am not likely to receive it. Like a climber who is thrown a rope while clinging desperately to some protrusion from a cliff face, all I can do is to reach out and take the help offered. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Though there is a place for exploring the truth of the gospel from an intellectual perspective, I need to be humble enough to acknowledge that God knows a bit more than I do. Peter Kreeft, in Making Sense Out of Suffering, describes God’s way of saving humanity as follows:

That God should step right into Satan’s trap, Satan’s world, Satan’s game, the jaws of death on the cross; that he should give Satan the opportunity to cherish forever, in dark, satanic glee, the terrible words from God to God, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”—this was something “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (I Corinthians 2:9). That God should take alienation away from man by inserting alienation into the very heart of God; that he should conquer evil by allowing it its supreme, unthinkable triumph, deicide, the introduction of death into the life of God, the God of life, the Immortal One; that he should destroy the power of evil by allowing it to destroy him—this is “the foolishness of God [that] is wiser than men, and the weakness of God [that] is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

It is interesting that the Greek word for “foolishness” that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 1:18 and 23 to describe the view which many hold of the gospel is "môria", from which comes our word “moron”. You must be a moron to believe that one criminally executed, and between two bandits at that, is the Saviour of the world! Our intellectual and moral pride can keep us from accepting God’s free gift of salvation. To just repent and believe is too simple.

Too narrow in an age of pluralism. If it is true that Jesus really was God present in the flesh, the second person in the divine Trinity, and that the main purpose of his coming was to die for my sins so that I might be reconciled to God, then it is pure logic to suppose that he is the one to whom I should go for that reconciliation. Because of who he is and what he has done, he had every right to make the statement, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The early Christians also had every right to say, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). They were merely stating the truth. However, in this postmodern age, when the greatest virtue is tolerance of every view, this is far to narrow! I explore this theme further in the booklet What Is Truth and Does It Matter? Of course, if you don’t believe that we are sinners in need of forgiveness, then maybe there are other ways of finding God. This brings us to our next point, which, I suspect, for most people who don’t like the idea that salvation is by means of the cross, is the heart of the problem.

Too humiliating in an age of self-confidence. Celsus, writing in the second century, was a formidable critic of the Christian faith. For him it was a contemptible religion and he regarded the death of its saviour its most pitiful expression. He mocked the Christian notion of the “tree of life” and “resurrection of the dead” as complete fables. “What drunken old women, telling stories to lull a small child to sleep would not be ashamed of muttering such preposterous things?” The cross in the twenty-first century is no more popular for obvious reasons. The cross, as it is presented to us in the New Testament, makes it clear that we are all guilty before God. It brings into the light of day the depths of human sin and the consequences of our pride and disobedience. The cross also makes clear that God does not like sin very much! God’s purity and holiness are such that nothing tainted with evil can live in his presence. Paul tells us that the righteousness and wrath of God are revealed in the gospel (Romans 1:17, 18).