The Lutheran Hour

"We Preach Christ Crucified"

#78-08
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on October 31, 2010
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: 1Corinthians 1:23-24

Beginning in July we are rebroadcasting historic sermons from previous Speakers of The Lutheran Hour on the last Sunday of each month for the rest of 2010. These messages are being aired to honor the 80-year tradition of The Lutheran Hour and in anticipation of the new Speaker’s arrival.

This month the sermon will be given by the Dr. Oswald Hoffmann.

At the close of this last session of the United States Congress, a representative introduced a bill to give the name “astronaut” to a new object not yet in existence. The latest addition to the family, whose birth has been announced as being two years off, is the satellite which scientists hope to shoot into outer space. It is expected to revolve around the earth about 200 to 300 miles above the earth’s surface, and to keep on going around for several weeks or even for months until it finally re-enters our atmosphere and is destroyed by the heat which friction will then create.

Things are happening pretty fast these days when the dreams of a decade ago become realities so quickly. People dreamed about flying for centuries, for example, before flying actually became a reality. Then it didn’t come through the flapping of wings, as some people thought it would, but rather through the application to power-driven craft of the principles which enable birds to fly by simply flapping their wings and by gliding about motionless in the sky.

All of this took a long time. Today, events move more quickly. Frederick Lewis Allen titled his book about the years 1900-1950, “The Big Change”. The biggest changes, however, have taken place since 1950, during the last five years.

There is the prospect of even bigger things to come-with “automation” in industry, for example. (Automation was a term coined by a Ford Motor Company executive in 1945 to describe the new industrial revolution in which machines are being developed to run the machines that we already have.) Chevrolet of Canada has a machine two city blocks long that completely processes motors in the assembly of automobiles. The telephone dial system, bank clearing houses, and other enterprises are in the midst of automation right now.

Who is to say how much our lives are going to be affected by these developments, as well as those in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy, which are coming al0ong a lot faster than most people recognize right now?

Things are happening so fast that it is impossible to get a grip on them before they slip away, replaced by something new and better. Is there no way to get a grip on anything in our rapidly developing civilization?

Someone has said that our world has been so quickly inoculated with Christianity that very likely it will never catch the real thing. Is there a real thing? Something you can hang on to? If so, what is it?

I want to talk to you for just a few minutes about the real thing – the one that never changes. It’s what we preach about on this program.

“We preach Christ Crucified,” St. Paul said that. He went on to say that wherever he preached Christ crucified, he was met by incredulity and skepticism. “But we preach Christ crucified,” he said, “unto the Jews,” that is to the people who took religion seriously, “a stumblingblock and unto the Greeks,” that is the people who were intellectuals, “foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,” without discrimination, “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor. 1:23-24)

It did not bother St. Paul that people could not seem to understand the simple fact of Christ’s cross, or did not even want to try to understand it. He did not modify his preaching, or water it down because of this fact. He just said, “This is what we preach. We preach Christ crucified. Take it or leave it. But when you leave it, remember what you are leaving behind and what it is going to mean to you.”

“We preach Christ crucified” – that was St. Paul’s way of saying that sin – or whatever other name you want to give to departure from God and His Law – is a costly business. It costs Somebody crucifixion. It costs us most of all – those of us who are sinners. And who of us is not a sinner?

Sin makes cowards of us all, it makes us enemies. You’ve heard a man say, “I’m in the dog house these days.” What he means to say is that he made an appointment with his wife to select wallpaper for the living room and then forgot all about it. He promised to bring home ice cream for dinner, and failed to remember his promise. He came in out of the rain and tracked mud all over the living room rug.

All too often being in the dog house is not only a matter of our having incurred the anger of somebody else, but it’s a matter, too, of our setting up a wall between them and us through our own feeling of guilt. We don’t want to give. We don’t want to admit that we were wrong. It only makes things worse to know that we were wrong.

And that’s the situation in which every man finds himself with God. The meaning of Christ’s cross is that God took the initiative to break that wall down to get us out of this spiritual dog house. This was no mere tactical maneuver on His part. He loved us. He pitied us. He determined that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of that love of His, even if it meant taking all our guilt upon Himself. God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son. All we like sheep had gone astray. We had turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Upon Him was laid the chastisement that made us whole, and with His stripes we are healed.

“We preach Christ crucified.” St. Paul said that as if there is a connection between the Cross and our sin. And there is. As St. Paul said to the Colossians: God has forgiven you all your sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over His own head to the Cross. And then, having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, He exposed them, shattered, empty, and defeated, in His final glorious triumphant act!” And that, of course, was resurrection. (Col. 2: 13-15, Translation by J.B. Phillips)

Do you have a sense of personal inadequacy? Is there the gnawing feeling at your soul that you aren’t everything that you should be? Are you constantly irritated by your business associates, your friends, members of your family? Are you bothered by temptations of one kind or another that keep coming back no matter how hard you try to dispel them?

I can’t promise you that acceptance of “Christ crucified” will solve all of your personality problems – or will solve any of them immediately. But this I say with complete confidence: making the Cross of Christ your own will change your whole outlook on life. It will bring you into a relationship of friendship with God, the kind that God wants to have with you. It will give God His chance to make you more and more the kind of person that He intended you to be. That’s pretty wonderful, considering what God has got to work with in the case of most of us.

It’s pretty wonderful all around, that God sent His Son, and that He died to bring us back to God. It was the glory and the wonder of it which caused St. Paul to say to all of us:

“Christ did not send me to see how many I could baptize, but to proclaim the Gospel. And I have not done this by the persuasiveness of clever words, for I have no desire to rob the Cross of its power. The preaching of the Cross is, I know, nonsense to those who are involved in this dying world, but to us who are being saved from that death, it is nothing less than the power of God. It is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. And the prudence of the prudent will I reject. For consider, what have the philosopher, the writer, and the critic of this world to show for all of their wisdom? Has not God made the wisdom of this world look foolish? For it was after the world in its wisdom had failed to know God, that He in His Wisdom chose to save all who would believe by the ‘simple-mindedness’ of the Gospel message. For the Jews ask for miraculous proofs and the Greeks, an intellectual panacea, but all we preach is Christ crucified – a stumblingblock to the Jews and sheer nonsense to the Gentiles, but for those who are called, whether Jews or Gentiles, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for October 31, 2010
Title:Christ Alone

Announcer: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus responds to questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer.

Klaus: Hi, Mark.

Announcer: I have with me today a letter from a person who’s been hit hard by the law, and perhaps needs a clearer understanding of the Gospel.

Klaus: OK.

Announcer: Our listener writes, “I hear you say Jesus is the only One we can depend on to save us when we’re spiritually drowning in our sin. But, if that’s true, what happens to people of other faiths… there’s a lot of them. If what you’re saying is true, a lot of men, women, and children are headed in the wrong direction. That means millions of people are lost… going nowhere at the end of their lives. Is this the Lutheran idea of Christianity or is it shared by other denominations as well? What happens to all those millions of people?

Klaus: Tough letter. Tough questions. Let me see what I can do to answer. First, the individual should know that this teaching is not unique to Lutheranism. It has been the belief of Christianity since the beginning. It has been our doctrine because the Bible teaches it. It says, “Whoever believes on Jesus will not perish, but have everlasting life.” It tells us, “Jesus is the only Name under heaven which can save us.”

Announcer: And, Jesus Himself said no one comes to the Father except through Him.

Klaus: Salvation by faith alone in Christ alone is a fundamental part of the faith.

Announcer: So, the next question is, what happens to all those who don’t believe this?

Klaus: OK. Let’s expand our answer. God’s Word teaches that all of humanity is sinful. Because of that sin, we deserve punishment and hell.

Announcer: That’s God’s law and it demands justice for sin.

Klaus: But there is also God’s Gospel of grace. Without any merit or worthiness in us, God sent His Son to take our place, to be our Substitute. Now, all who believe in Jesus as their Savior are no longer under the condemnation of the law. Jesus has taken our sins upon Himself. Now, if we believe that truth, we are saved.

Announcer: And, that’s the Gospel. God’s Son died and rose again for us so we might live.

Klaus: Which takes us to the lady’s question about, “What happens to those who don’t believe?”

Announcer: Which is a very hard question.

Klaus: Well, perhaps not. God has absolutely no desire to send anyone to hell. If He had, all He had to do was sit tight and let us be born, live, die, and go to hell. Rather than letting that happen, He sacrificed His only Son.

Announcer: In fact the Bible clearly says, “God would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Klaus: Exactly. And that wasn’t just a wish on God’s part. It called for action, and He took that action.

Announcer: And He offers salvation to everyone.

Klaus: No charge. No cost. Salvation’s a gift… an absolutely free gift.

Announcer: And the Lord Jesus invites us to tell others about this gift. To tell others about what He has done for them because “Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the Word of God.”

Klaus: Mark, the last thing Jesus said before He ascended into heaven was, “Go– teach, preach, and baptize.” He asked us to share that salvation story with sinners around the world–which is the whole purpose of this broadcast. For more than eighty years now, we’ve been telling people, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”

Announcer: And, the Lord wants to make sure everybody has the opportunity to hear that message.

Klaus: And so do a lot of people who keep this broadcast going with their donations. This isn’t a fund raiser. But the fact that individuals have contributed to help save other souls… well, that shows that even as Jesus cares about the lost, so do we.

Announcer: Now, if people turn their backs on Jesus, we can’t help that. We can’t force someone to believe. But we want everyone to have the opportunity to hear how much the Lord loves them and cares for them.

Klaus: Yeah, and He really, really doesn’t want to see anybody die eternally.

Announcer: You know, when I think of all the questions we’ve answered on this program over the years, this has to be, perhaps, one of the most profound and really hits to the heart of the matter.

Klaus: It most certainly hits to the heart of what this broadcast is about. And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you, our listeners who have kept this broadcast on the air–bringing a changeless Christ to a changing world.

Announcer: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.

Music selection for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC

“How Firm a Foundation” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.

“Salvation Unto Us Has Come” by Hugo Distler. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC

“Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” by Helmut Walcha. From Cramer & Resch at Kramer Chapel by Craig Cramer and Richard Resch (© 2001 Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne) Henry Litolff’s Verlag/C.F. Peters Corporation

“Salvation Unto Us Has Come” from The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House)