These foregoing failures of Jesus to show himself a strong Messiah were bad enough in their eyes, but when he ended up dying ignominiously on a torture stake it made him totally unacceptable! Hence, at 1 Corinthians 1:25 the apostle Paul showed that the Jews viewed “Christ impaled” as “a weak thing of God,” and were completely stumbled. On this The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 10, p. 29, comments:

“Jewish religious hopes in the days of Paul were based on apocalyptic expectation of a dramatic, catastrophic deliverance from Roman oppressors: they looked for a deliverer who would make the nation supreme among the nations of the world. Part of their deep disappointment in Jesus in the days of his flesh is directly traceable to his refusal to give to the nation military leadership, after the style of the Maccabees. In Paul’s day Palestine was like a banked fire. Rome procurators were able to extinguish the licking flames of sporadic, local insurrection; but the banked fire was a different matter. Had Jesus at the height of his popularity but given the word, thousands of swords would have leaped from their scabbards, and Rome might have been hard put to it to contain the eruption of the pent-up religious idealism and fanatical nationalism of the Jews. To a people whose imagination and spirit were fired by such ideas and such apocalyptic hopes the sign of a ‘Christ crucified’ was an unspeakable offense. To them the word of the cross was an utterly repellent thing. They would have none of it.”

15. How was “Christ impaled” viewed by those perishing and by those saved, and what fact remains true despite the scoffers’ taunts?

¹⁵ Paul is determined to stress the ransom provision of Jehovah as the only means of salvation. The Jews may want signs and the Greeks may crave wisdom, but Paul will preach “Christ impaled,” though it stumble Jews and seem like folly to Greeks​—“however, to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because a foolish thing of God is wiser than men, and a weak thing of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor. 1:22-25) Let Jews and Greeks view “Christ impaled” as weak and foolish; it is still far stronger and wiser than Jewish traditions and Greek philosophies.