Just like that, summer vacation has come to an end. This week the last of our children will return to school. I pray the Lord blesses them with a good year free of covid and full of learning. I know many of our children have mixed emotions about going back to school. I understand their mixed emotions. I will not pretend that I was always eager to return to school after summer vacation. I typically considered the academic aspects of school to be a necessary evil I had to endure so that I could play sports, flirt with girls, and hang out with my friends. Over the years I did eventually gain an appreciation for education. There were even a few subjects that I enjoyed. One of my favorite subjects in school was philosophy, a subject devoted to “Philia Sophia” the love of wisdom.
From the first time I heard “Cogito ergo sum”, “I think therefore I am”, I was hooked. I still have my old college philosophy textbook, “From Socrates to Sartre: the philosophic quest”. In that class I learned that Socrates was not just a character in Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure but was actually the father of western philosophy. In that class we studied the philosophies of Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Marx, and Sartre. Each of these philosophers challenged my way of thinking but none of them captured my attention like the philosopher Plato. I found Plato’s concept of the philosopher-king who would rule the immoral masses with truth and justice fascinating. However, it was Plato’s allegory of the cave that really resonated with me.
In the allegory of the cave Plato invites us to imagine a group of people imprisoned in an underground cave with a wide entrance open to the light. The group of people have been bound so that can only look at the back wall of the cave. They have never seen the light of day nor the sun that shines outside the cave. As people carry various objects past the opening, they cast a shadow on the back wall of the cave. The people bound inside the cave live all their lives seeing nothing but the shadows of reality and the sounds they hear are only echoes from the wall. Still these people cling to this reality because it is all they have ever known. Plato suggests if one of those people were freed from the cave and dragged out into the light of reality, they would at first resist because the light would be too intense, however, they would eventually come to see that the reality outside the cave was vastly superior to the shadows they saw inside the cave. Once enlightened by reality, Plato further suggests such a person might even be compelled to descend back into the cave to share their realization with the others. However, instead of welcoming the enlightened person, the people imprisoned in the cave would ridicule and reject them for they would not be able to comprehend anything beyond the shadows on the back wall of the cave.
Isn’t that awesome!? I am going to hijack Plato’s allegory of the cave and use it as an application before I put an amen on this sermon, but before I do let’s spend a few moments philosophizing with saint Paul. 40 miles from Athens, the home of both Socrates and Plato and the epicenter of philosophy, was the city of Corinth. The close proximity of Corinth to Athens heavily influenced the Corinthian way of thinking. Like their fellow Greeks in Athens, the Corinthians were philosophers, that is they were lovers of wisdom. The problem was they knew only the wisdom that came from the minds of men.
In 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 Paul presents a new philosophy to the people of Corinth and to you and me. In verse 6 Paul tells us he and his fellow Christian philosophers “speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.” The wisdom of which Paul speaks is described in the previous chapter as “the message of the cross”. What makes the message of the cross so profound is it solves creations greatest dilemma by beautifully balancing the need for punishment and the desire to pardon. On the cross the sins of all people were punished as the righteous judge condemned His one and only Son for the crimes committed by the likes of you and me. But also, on the cross the sins of all people were pardoned when the blood of that one and only Son paid the debt of our sin in full. The message of the cross is one of both punishment and pardon that accomplishes salvation for sinners like you and me. To the Corinthians Paul understandably referred to the message of the cross as God’s wisdom. To you and me the message of the cross is commonly called the gospel.
In verse 7 Paul tells us the gospel is “God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden.” Quoting the prophet Isaiah, Paul says, “as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him””[1] The gospel was not understood by the philosophers of Paul’s age, and it is not understood by the philosophers of our age because the gospel is not found in the minds of men. No matter how creative or clever a philosopher might be he will never on his own conceive the gospel.
Paul tells us the gospel is God’s secret; the gospel has been hidden from men. Why? I took that question with me on a run earlier this week. As I laced up my shoes it occurred to me, keeping the gospel a secret hidden from men does not fit with everything we have come to know of our God. In Ezekiel 33:11 we learn that our God “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” In 1 Timothy 2:4 we learn that our God “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” From the Old Testament Prophets to the New Testament Apostles, we are told time and time again that God wants everyone to be saved. So then why is the gospel a secret that has been hidden from men? I carried that question with me for a few miles until it finally occurred to me that God is not the one who made the Gospel a secret and God is not the one who keeps it hidden. Adam and Eve turned the gospel of God into a secret when they followed the serpent into sin, and the generations that followed them, including our own generation have kept the gospel hidden beneath layers of superficial piety and unsubstantiated pride that suggest that the solution to sin can be found in the filthy rags of our righteous acts or by ignoring the plank in our own eye in order to point out the speck of sawdust in the eyes of others. By the time I was finished with my run I realized God did not make the gospel a secret and God is not the one who keeps it hidden, rather, we did and do.
When you consider Paul’s philosophy up to this point, you probably can’t help but see yourself as one of the prisoners in Plato’s cave who are content with the shadows on the wall. Thankfully, Paul isn’t done philosophizing with us just yet. In verse 10 Paul tells us “God has revealed it [the gospel] to us by his Spirit.” This is wonderful news but again, I ask, “why”? Why would God choose to share the secret of salvation with the likes of you and me? Why would God reveal the gospel to us? It cannot be that we are so much better than others. I have seen the types of things the unbelievers do; I know some unbelievers personally and I have to say they are sadly not all that different than you and me. Yes, they do shameful things, but so do we. Yes, they say horrible things to each other, but so do we. Yes, they think depraved thoughts, but so do we. In many ways, too many ways, we bear a sinfully striking resemblance to all the other prisoners in Plato’s cave. So why would God choose to share the secret of salvation with the likes of you and me? Why would God reveal the Gospel to us?
After I took off my running shoes I went into the house and presented this question to the prettiest philosopher that I know. Her answer was as simple as it was profound. “Because He loves us”. My wife’s answer is in complete agreement with Paul’s philosophy. In verse 12 Paul tells us “12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” “That we may understand what God has freely given us” is an eloquent translation of the original Greek. But I find that I prefer a more clunky translation. You see the word Paul uses to explain why God would share the secret of salvation with the like of you and me is χαρισθέντα. It is a word that is often translated with the word “grace”; it is a word that seeks to express an affection that one has for another. That is why I prefer the clunky translation of “that we may understand the love that is to us from God”. The Holy Spirit sent a philosopher like saint Paul to share the secrets of salvation with us and reveal the gospel to us because He loves us. It is as simple and as profound as that.
Now, I know I have already teased a partial application to Plato’s cave but permit me a moment to drive the application home. Before the Holy Spirit created faith in your heart you were like one of the prisoners in Plato’s cave. Sin was your chain, and you were captivated by the shadows of Satan that danced on the wall. But because God loves you, He sent someone down into the depths of the cave with the gospel in order to drag you out into the light of the one and only Son. No doubt it was painful for you to acknowledge your total depravity, confess your sin, and seek His forgiveness, but now that you are basking in the forgiveness that shines on you from the cross of Christ, would you have it any other way? Now that the secret of salvation has been shared with you and the gospel has been revealed to you would you ever want to become a slave to sin once more? Could you ever again settle for shadows on a wall?
Now that you know the message of the cross; now that the secret of salvation has been shared with you and the gospel has been revealed to you, I can think of but one reason why you might be compelled to return to the cave. And that is to free others who are still bound by the chains of sin and know nothing more than Satan’s shadows. This is a good thing to do; a God pleasing thing; a thing that we have been commissioned to do when our Savior told us to “go and make disciples of all nations”. But be warned, it is a difficult thing to do. The people inside that cave have become accustomed to the darkness of unbelief and will not easily be brought into the light. In verse 14 Paul tells us, “14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Many of the prisoners inside that cave will ridicule and reject you. But not all will. Follow the philosophy of saint Paul. Share the secret of salvation with them and reveal the gospel to them. Tell them the message of the cross where the one and only Son was punished for their sins and the blood of that one and only son purchased their pardon. Tell them how the message of the cross beautifully balances the need for punishment and the desire to pardon so that they can have salvation. The same philosophy that set you free can and will set others free.
If you fancy yourself a lover of wisdom, there are many creative and clever philosophers you can study. Plato is one of my favorites, but I must tell you he is nothing compared to the Apostle Paul. Through Paul God shares the secret of salvation with us and reveals the gospel to us. The allegory of the cave is cool, but the message of the cross is cooler. Amen
[1] Isaiah 64:4