1 Corinthians 1:18

“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

The for announces the proof of the assertion (1 Corinthians 1:17): that to preach the gospel as a word of wisdom would be to destroy its very essence.

The antithesis of the words foolishness and power is regarded by Rückert and Meyer as inexact, because the opposite of foolishness is wisdom, not force. But these commentators have failed to see that the term wisdom would here have expressed too much or too little: too much for those who reject the gospel, and in whose eyes it can be nothing else than folly; too little for those who are disposed to receive it, and who need to find in it something better than a wisdom enlightening them. As sin is a fact, salvation must be laid hold of above all as a fact, not as a system. It is an act wrought by the arm of God, telling with power on the conscience and on the heart of the sinner: this alone can rescue from ruin a world which is perishing under the curse and in the corruption of sin. The two datives: τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις, to them that perish, and τοῖς σωζομένοις, for those who are saved, have not an exactly similar meaning; the former indicating a simple subjective appreciation, the latter including besides an effective relation, the idea of an effect produced. The participles are in the present, not as anticipating a final, eternal result (Meyer), or as containing the idea of a Divine predestination (Rückert), but as expressing two acts which are passing into fulfilment at the very time when Paul mentions them. In fact, perdition and salvation gradually come to their consummation in man simultaneously with the knowledge which he receives of the gospel.

The addition of the pronoun ἡμῖν, to us, is due to the fact that the letter is intended to be read to the believers in full assembly.

This way of treating human wisdom taken by God in the gospel is the fulfilment of threatenings already pronounced against it in the prophetic writings: