“Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
I’d like to give some thought this morning to the phrase “rulers of this age” that appears twice in the passage above. It might be a little more interesting than it looks.
The Rulers of This Age
The gospel writers name the “rulers of
this age” responsible for crucifying the Lord of glory. They describe for us
the human chain of custody involved. Historians can tell us with a fair degree of accuracy which years these men
ruled. Josephus says Pontius Pilate governed the Roman province of Judaea from
AD26/27 through 36/37. Herod Antipas was tetrarch from 4 BC through AD39. Joseph ben Caiaphas was high priest from
The apostle Paul didn’t write his first letter to Corinth until somewhere between AD53 and 57, fifteen to twenty years after the last of these three men no longer ruled. By that time, the vast majority of the Jewish elders who handed the Lord Jesus over to Pilate in the first place had surely passed away or ceased to “eld”; back then, the word “elders” always meant older men, as we ought to use it today.
Verse Six vs. Verse Eight
So then, no matter whom Paul holds responsible for the crucifixion of Christ in verse 8 — Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas or even the Jewish elders at the time — the “rulers of this age” he mentions in verse 6 as possessing a certain kind of wisdom cannot possibly be the same men he describes as “rulers of this age” in verse 8. The rulers of this age who crucified the Lord of glory had already passed away when Paul wrote his letter. They weren’t “doomed to pass away”, they were long gone.
Think about it. If Paul is referring to human rule, he’s lumping together two very different groups of rulers, one set directly and personally responsible for the crucifixion, the other set in power during the mid-fifties AD and destined to “pass away”. And if he’s comparing the “wisdom” or understanding of two different groups of men, as he seems to be, then he’s saying that the human “rulers of this age” are basically all of the same sort. A type of strategic continuum characterizes human rule, Paul may be saying, that is to be contrasted with God’s secret and hidden wisdom.
Chaos and Disorder
Frankly, if the human rulers in power when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians thought the same way as those of the previous generation, we can probably say with a fair bit of authority that had they ruled thirty years earlier, they would have done exactly the same things to the Lord Jesus as those who ruled at the time. For that matter, the present day “rulers of this age” would probably have done the same thing too. Does that seem unlikely? Not really. Not to me, at any rate.
I also don’t really think that’s what Paul is saying, do you? Precisely the same worldly and corrupt wisdom does not characterize all human rulers across time, though it certainly characterizes many. We have good rulers, bad rulers, average rulers and everything else in between, and even among the evil rulers we might mention, there exist a variety of quite distinct evils. Always have, probably always will until the Lord returns. Human “wisdom” is not of a definable, anti-God sort that we might easily describe. It’s beyond classification. Human wisdom is a jumble of agendas, concepts and ideologies that each fail in different ways, and that often cancel one another out. It’s chaos and disorder.
Invisible Rulers
Alternatively, perhaps we should consider the possibility that Paul is not talking about human rulers at all. Perhaps the rulers of this age who ruled in AD55 were the same entities who ruled in AD30. Perhaps they are the same entities that rule this age today. That actually makes a whole lot more sense to me than if Paul was referring to Pilate, Herod or other mere human beings.
Scripture certainly teaches us that these spiritual entities, plural, exist. Satan may be the “god of this age”, but he’s got plenty of help. It is these rulers and their spiritual agents against whom we wrestle.
Moreover, if we are talking about the same “rulers” Paul mentions in Ephesians 6 — the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, the real powers behind human rule — it’s not unreasonable to suggest they just might have some kind of master plan or at bare minimum some way of operating with which they are all in basic agreement.
A Greater Danger
That’s a much more terrifying prospect than being up against any mere man or combination of men, even across time. These are beings of greater cunning and guile than any human mind, not in the least subject to the physical distractions or the process of aging that so frequently derail the plans of the cleverest human conquerors. Eventually, we all run out of time. They don’t.
Moreover, the wisdom of such beings, the “wisdom of this age” that we might contrast with God’s wisdom, is indeed of a particular stripe. There is a consistency to it and an ongoing strategy to it. Oh, of course these will fail utterly in the end. We should not worry about that. But a conspiracy of powerful, evil spirit beings in the heavenlies would explain a lot of social evils that span generation after generation, and which we could not reasonably attribute to any one set of specific human beings.
The Thing They Did Not Understand
But the wisdom of this age has a blind spot. The wisdom of this age cannot conceive of anyone actually in the form of God not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped. That’s exactly what it wants, and wants desperately. Such wisdom cannot conceive of willingly and voluntarily taking the form of a servant; the wisdom of this age begins and ends in wanting to ascend, to exalt self to the highest place in the universe. It cannot conceive of washing another’s feet or in humility counting others more significant than oneself. Such wisdom cannot possibly conceive that the greatest victory in the cosmos might be won through deliberately submitting to what appears to be its greatest defeat.
Oh, the powers and principalities can certainly read about it. They know where to find Philippians in their Bibles, I’m quite sure. But though they read these precious words ten times or a hundred times or a thousand times, they do not get it. They cannot relate to it. It’s a mystery they will never solve.
Christ and Him Crucified
That’s why Paul determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified when he went to Corinth, and it’s why he encouraged the Corinthians to behave the same way to each other. The humility of Christ is the blind spot of the rulers of this age, and his willingness to take the low place is their eternal undoing.
Why ought we to be humble? Well, firstly, because the Lord Jesus was, and we are to be like him. He’s our example in everything. Secondly, because humility still works. The rulers of this age still have the same blind spot. Humility is their kryptonite.
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