The Great Inversion: Your Cosmic Inheritance Text: 1 Corinthians 3:18-23
Introduction: Two Kinds of Wisdom
We live in an age that is drowning in information and starving for wisdom. Our culture prides itself on its intellectual achievements, its technological prowess, and its sophisticated philosophies. It has built universities, laboratories, and libraries, all monuments to human reason. And yet, for all its accumulated knowledge, it is an age of profound foolishness. It is an age that cannot define a woman, that thinks a man can have a baby, and that believes a society can be built on the shifting sands of individual feelings. It is, in short, an age that has declared war on reality, and is losing badly.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, confronts a similar problem. Corinth was a city that celebrated worldly wisdom. It was a hub of commerce, culture, and philosophy. The Corinthians were enamored with eloquent speakers, with clever arguments, and with the celebrity status of their favorite teachers. This worldly wisdom had seeped into the church, causing divisions, arrogance, and spiritual immaturity. They were creating factions, little fan clubs, around Paul, Apollos, and Peter, treating them like rival philosophical schools. They were boasting in men.
Paul’s response is not to offer a better, more clever human wisdom. He does not try to out-argue the Sophists on their own terms. Instead, he detonates the entire foundation of their thinking. He tells them that the wisdom they so admire, the wisdom of this age, is not just insufficient; it is foolishness in the sight of God. And the wisdom of God, centered in the cross of a crucified Messiah, appears as utter foolishness to the world. There is an unbridgeable chasm, a great inversion, between the way God thinks and the way the world thinks. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot blend the two. You must choose which kind of fool you will be: a fool for the world, or a fool for Christ.
In our text today, Paul lays out this great inversion with stark clarity. He calls us to a radical self-reassessment, a complete repudiation of worldly metrics for success and wisdom. And in exchange for this apparent foolishness, he reveals the staggering truth of our inheritance in Christ. We are called to give up boasting in the servants in order to realize we own the entire estate.
The Text
Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS”; and again, “THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.” So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
(1 Corinthians 3:18-23 LSB)
The Path to True Wisdom (v. 18)
Paul begins with a stern warning against the most dangerous kind of deception: self-deception.
"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise." (1 Corinthians 3:18)
The first person you have to evangelize every morning is yourself. The heart is an idol factory, and one of the chief idols it manufactures is the image of "me, the wise one." Paul says if you think you are wise "in this age," by the standards of this passing world system, then you are playing the fool in the grandest sense. The wisdom of this age is the operating system of fallen humanity. It is the logic of Babel, the philosophy of the serpent, the consensus of the rebellion. It is man-centered, autonomous, and God-denying at its root.
To obtain true, biblical wisdom, you must undergo a complete paradigm shift. "He must become foolish." This is not a call to intellectual suicide. The Christian faith is not irrational; it is a higher rationality, grounded in the divine Logos. Rather, it is a call to repentance at the level of our intellectual pride. It means we must be willing to look like idiots to the world. We must embrace the scandal of the cross, which is the centerpiece of God's wisdom. We must believe in a virgin birth, a bodily resurrection, and a coming judgment. We must believe that a man dying on a Roman gibbet two thousand years ago is the hinge of all history and the only hope for mankind. To the gatekeepers of worldly wisdom, this is absurd.
But this is God's ordained path. You must descend into the foolishness of the Gospel in order to ascend to true wisdom. You have to be willing to have your academic credentials mocked, your arguments dismissed as simplistic, and your faith labeled as a crutch. You must renounce your intellectual autonomy and submit your mind to the authority of Jesus Christ, as revealed in His Word. The entrance to God's university is through the door of humility, and the first course is Foolishness 101.
God's Verdict on Worldly Wisdom (v. 19-20)
Paul then explains why this intellectual repentance is necessary. It is because God has already passed His final judgment on the world's vaunted wisdom.
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, 'He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS'; and again, 'THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.'" (1 Corinthians 3:19-20 LSB)
The world’s wisdom is not just different from God’s; it is the polar opposite. It is not a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill. It is fundamentally corrupt because it begins from the wrong starting point: autonomous man. Any system of thought that does not begin with "In the beginning, God..." will inevitably end in absurdity and vanity. It is an attempt to explain the painting without reference to the painter. It is an effort to understand the laws of the universe while denying the Lawgiver.
Paul supports this with two quotations from the Old Testament, from Job and the Psalms. First, from Job 5:13, God "catches the wise in their craftiness." The picture is of a hunter getting caught in his own trap. Man, in his intellectual pride, thinks he can outsmart God. He builds intricate philosophical systems to explain away his accountability. He devises clever evolutionary narratives to escape the reality of a Creator. But God, in His providence, uses their own cleverness to undo them. Their very logic, when followed consistently, eats itself. The atheist must borrow from God's created order of logic and reason in order to argue against Him. He is a man sawing off the branch he is sitting on.
Second, from Psalm 94:11, "THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS." The Hebrew word here for useless or futile is hebel, the same word that echoes throughout Ecclesiastes. It means vapor, a puff of smoke, vanity. All the brilliant thoughts, the celebrated philosophies, the grand ideologies of men who reject Christ, are ultimately weightless. They are insubstantial. They cannot bear the weight of reality. They provide no ultimate meaning, no lasting hope, and no salvation from sin and death. Before the throne of God, the collected works of Marx, Nietzsche, and Sartre are less than a puff of smoke.
The Folly of Boasting in Men (v. 21)
Given God's verdict, Paul draws the necessary, practical conclusion for the Corinthians and for us.
"So then let no one boast in men." (Genesis 3:21 LSB)
This gets to the heart of the Corinthian problem. Their factionalism ("I am of Paul," "I am of Apollos") was a symptom of a deeper disease: they were glorying in human instruments rather than in the God who uses them. They were acting like children on a playground arguing over whose dad is stronger, instead of rejoicing that they all belong to the same Father.
To boast in men is to get things backwards. It is to praise the mailman for the letter, or the waiter for the meal. Paul, Apollos, and Peter were simply servants, gardeners, builders. They were instruments, and the glory belongs to the one who wields the instrument. When we elevate a pastor, an author, or a theologian to a place of ultimate allegiance, we are engaging in a subtle form of idolatry. We are shrinking our God and inflating His servants. This not only dishonors God, but it also impoverishes us. It makes us sectarian, tribal, and small-minded. It leads to jealousy and strife, as it did in Corinth. The Christian world is littered with the wreckage of ministries built on the cult of personality.
The cure for this is to see that all faithful teachers are gifts from Christ to His church. They don't belong to a faction; they belong to the whole body. And you don't have to choose between them. You can learn from Paul's theological depth, Apollos's rhetorical skill, and Peter's pastoral heart. They are all yours.
Your Cosmic Inheritance (v. 21-23)
Paul then unleashes one of the most breathtaking statements in all of Scripture, revealing the true status of the believer.
"For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God." (1 Corinthians 3:21-23 LSB)
Stop boasting in men, because you own them. And not just them. You own everything. This is the great inversion. The world thinks we are fools who have given everything up. The truth is we are kings who have inherited everything. Paul’s list is all-encompassing. The teachers belong to you, to serve you. The "world," this created order, is not our enemy; it is our Father's house, and we are the heirs. This is not just some spiritualized, ethereal blessing. This includes the land, the earth, the stuff of creation. It is the restoration of the dominion mandate given to Adam.
"Life" is yours; your life is hidden with Christ in God. "Death" is yours; it is no longer a dreaded enemy but a conquered servant, a dark chariot that comes to carry you into the presence of the King. "Things present" are yours; every circumstance, every trial, every blessing is being worked together for your good by a sovereign God. And "things to come" are yours; the future is not a terrifying unknown, but a guaranteed inheritance, secured by the resurrection of Christ. The entire sweep of history is bending toward the triumph of His kingdom, and you are a joint-heir.
But this magnificent ownership is not autonomous. It is grounded in a glorious chain of possession. Notice the structure: "all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God."
Our ownership is a delegated ownership. We possess all things because we are possessed by Christ. We were bought with a price, the precious blood of the Son of God. We are not our own. Our identity, our security, and our inheritance are all found in our union with Him. Because we are in Him, and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, we share in His reign. We are not little, independent kings. We are viceroys, ruling on behalf of the great King.
And this chain goes all the way to the top. "And Christ belongs to God." This speaks of the beautiful, functional submission of the Son to the Father within the economy of redemption. As the God-man, our Mediator, Christ joyfully does the will of His Father. This is the ultimate foundation of reality. All things flow from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit, to us. And all glory flows back from us, through the Son, to the Father.
Conclusion: Live Like Heirs
So what does this mean for us? It means we must stop thinking like impoverished orphans and start living like the heirs of God. It means we must stop squabbling over our favorite teachers and start feasting on the riches of the whole counsel of God. It means we must stop being intimidated by the "wisdom" of this dying age and start living with the quiet confidence of those who know the end of the story.
When the world calls you a fool for believing the Bible, you can smile, knowing that its wisdom is a puff of smoke. When you face trials in the present, you can stand firm, knowing that "things present" are yours, tools in the hand of your Father for your sanctification. When you contemplate the future, you need not fear, because "things to come" are your guaranteed inheritance.
The world boasts in its celebrities, its experts, its politicians. But these are all men. They are dust. We do not boast in men. We boast in the Lord, who owns all men. And because we belong to Him, we have been given everything. So let us live like it. Let us live with the courage, the joy, and the expansive vision of those who know that all things are ours, because we are Christ's, and Christ is God's.