A Twilight Musing  

The idea of "boasting in the Lord" (as in I Cor. 1:31) seems a bit contradictory at first, but we should note that it is quoted by Paul from an Old Testament source (Jer. 9:24) to conclude a discourse on how God uses the weak and despised things of this world to show His glorious power.  So it is that "Christ crucified [is] a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called . . . the power of God and the wisdom of God" (I Cor. 1:23-24).  So this "boasting in the Lord" is a way of exulting in what God has done in us, but with the focus on Him, not on ourselves.

"Holy boasting," then, is an antidote to human boasting. As in most cases in which God forbids a behavior, He offers a contrasting alternative that, if followed, will shed the light of God on the forbidden action and drive it out by showing it to be shabby and worthless.  So instead of fleshly boasting which spotlights our puny achievements or our pumped-up status in order to convince others that we deserve their admiration and approval, we focus on the flawless reality of what God has gloriously done, in spite of our weakness and lack of merit. 

Such "holy boasting" is particularly appropriate to our partaking of the Lord's Supper.  We "boast in the cross" (Gal. 6:14), as Paul says, so that in partaking of the Lord's Supper, we relinquish any pretense to our own righteousness and in loving wonder acknowledge Jesus' death that alone can make us righteous before God.

We are thereby released from the inherent insecurity of depending on our own efforts to be successful, which can be achieved only through the continual maintaining of an image and an illusion.  As we "boast" in what God has done with our weakness, we rejoice in the undeserved reflected glory that we share with Christ as His bride.  In embracing what He has done with our weakness, we rejoice at being crucified with Him, because that experience is the avenue to life.

Let us then glory in the cross, which is the unlikely instrument through which God has accomplished our salvation.  He has transformed the broken body and the shed blood of Christ into life eternal for us.

Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.