“Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” 1 Cor. iii. 18, 19.
Among the various deceptions against which St. Paul warns us, a principal one is that of a false wisdom; as in the text. The Corinthians prided themselves on their intellectual acuteness and knowledge; as if anything could equal the excellence of Christian love. Accordingly, St. Paul writing to them says, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world” (i.e. has the reputation of wisdom in the world), “let him become a fool (what the world calls a fool), that he may (really) be wise.” “For,” he proceeds (just as real wisdom is foolishness in the eyes of the world, so in turn), “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”
This warning of the Apostle against our trusting our own wisdom, may lead us, through God’s blessing, to some profitable reflections today.
The world’s wisdom is said to be foolishness in God’s sight; and the end of it error, perplexity, and then ruin. “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” Here is one especial reason why professed inquirers after truth do not find it. They seek it in a wrong way, by a vain wisdom, which leads them away from the truth, however it may seem to promise success.
Let us then inquire what is this vain wisdom, and then we shall the better see how it leads men astray.
Now, when it is said that to trust our own notions is a wrong thing and a vain wisdom, of course this is not meant of all our own notions whatever; for we must trust our own notions in one shape or other, and some notions which we form are right and true. The question, therefore, is, what is that evil trusting to ourselves, that sinful self-confidence, or self-conceit, which is called in the text the “wisdom of the world,” and is a chief cause of our going wrong in our religious inquiries?
These are the notions which we may trust without blame; viz. such as come to us by way of our Conscience, for such come from God. I mean our certainty that there is a right and a wrong, that some things ought to be done, and other things not done; that we have duties, the neglect of which brings remorse; and further, that God is good, wise, powerful, and righteous, and that we should try to obey Him. All these notions, and a multitude of others like these, come by natural conscience, i.e. they are impressed on all our minds from our earliest years without our trouble. They do not proceed from the mere exercise of our minds, though it is true they are strengthened and formed thereby. They proceed from God, whether within us or without us; and though we cannot trust them so implicitly as we can trust the Bible, because the truths of the Bible are actually preserved in writing, and so cannot be lost or altered, still, as far as we have reason to think them true, we may rely in them, and make much of them, without incurring the sin of self-confidence. These notions which we obtain without our exertion will never make us proud or conceited, because they are ever attended with a sense of sin and guilt, from the remembrance that we have at times transgressed and injured them. To trust them is not the false wisdom of the world, or foolishness, because they come from the All-wise God. And far from leading a man into error, they will, if obeyed, of a certainty lead him to a firm belief in Scripture; in which he will find all those vague conjectures and imperfect notions about truth, which his own heart taught him, abundantly sanctioned, completed, and illustrated.
Such then are the opinions and feelings of which a man is not proud. What are those of which he is likely to be proud? those which he obtains, not by nature, but by his own industry, ability, and research; those which he possesses and others not. Every one is in danger of valuing himself for what he does; and hence truths (or fancied truths) which a man has obtained for himself after much thought and labour, such he is apt to make much of, and to rely upon; and this is the source of that vain wisdom of which the Apostle speaks in the text.
Now (I say) this confidence in our own reasoning powers not only leads to pride, but to “foolishness” also, and destructive error, because it will oppose itself to Scripture. A man who fancies he can find out truth by himself, disdains revelation. He who thinks he has found it out, is impatient of revelation. He fears it will interfere with his own imaginary discoveries, he is unwilling to consult it; and when it does interfere, then he is angry. We hear much of this proud rejection of the truth in the Epistle from which the text is taken. The Jews felt anger, and the Greeks disdain, at the Christian doctrine. “The Jews required a sign (according to their preconceived notions concerning the Messiah’s coming), and the Greeks seek after wisdom (some subtle train of reasoning), but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness.” [1 Cor. i. 22, 23.] In another place the Apostle says of the misled Christians of Corinth, “Now ye are full” of your own notions, “now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us;” [1 Cor. iv. 8.] i.e. you have prided yourselves on a wisdom, “without,” separate from, the truth of Apostolic doctrine. Confidence, then, in our own reasoning powers leads to (what St. Paul calls) foolishness, by causing in our hearts an indifference towards, or a distaste for Scripture information.