The Cross of Christ # 2

The Cross of Christ # 2

Now if the Apostle Paul never boasted in any of these things, who in all the world, from one end to the other - who has any right to boast in them in our day? If Paul said, "God forbid that I should boast in anything whatever except the Cross," who shall dare to say, "I have something to boast of - I am a better man than Paul"?

Who is there among the readers of this paper that trusts in any goodness of his own? Who is there that is resting on his own amendments - his own morality - his own churchmanship - his own works and performances of any kind whatever? Who is there that is leaning the weight of his soul on anything whatever of his own, in the smallest possible degree? Learn I say, that you very unlike the apostle Paul. Learn that your religion is not apostolic religion.

Who is there among the readers of this paper that trusts in his religious profession for salvation? Who is there that is valuing himself on his baptism, or his attendance at the Lord's table - his church-going on Sundays, or his daily services during the week - and saying to himself, "What more do I lack?" Learn, I say, this day, that you are very unlike Paul. Your Christianity is not the Christianity of the New Testament. Paul would not boast in anything but "the Cross". Neither ought you.

Oh, let us beware of self-righteousness! Open sin kills its thousands of souls. Self-righteousness kills its tens of thousands! Go and study humility with the great apostle of the Gentiles. Go and sit with Paul at the foot of the Cross. Give up your secret pride. Cast away your vain ideas of your own goodness. Be thankful if you have grace - but never boast in it for a moment. Work for God and Christ, with heart and soul and mind and strength - but never dream for a second of placing confidence in any work of your own.

Think, you who take comfort in some fancied ideas of your own goodness - think, you who wrap up yourselves in the notion, "all must be right, if I keep to my Church," think for a moment what a sandy foundation you are building upon! Think how miserably defective your hopes and pleas will look in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment! Whatever people may say of their own goodness while they are strong and healthy, they will find but little to say of it when they are sick and dying. Whatever merit they may see in their own works here in this world, they will discover none in them when they stand before the tribunal of Christ. The light of that great day of judgment will make a wonderful difference in the appearance of all their doings. It will strip off the tinsel, shrivel up the complexion, expose the rottenness of many a deed that is now called good. Their wheat will prove nothing but chaff - their gold will be found nothing but dross. Millions of so-called good works will turn out to have been utterly defective and graceless. They passed current, and were valued among men - they will prove light and worthless in the balance of God. They will be found to have been like the whitened sepulchers of old - fair and beautiful on the outside - but full of corruption on the inside. Alas, for the man who can look forward to the day of judgment, and lean his soul in the smallest degree of his own now!

Once more I say, let us beware of self-righteousness in every possible shape and form. Some people get as much harm from their fancied virtues as others do from their sins. Rest not, rest not until your heart beats in tune with Paul's. Rest not until you can say with him, "far be it from me to boast, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!"

2. Let me explain, in the second place, what we are to understand by "the Cross of Christ." The Cross is an expression that is used in more than one meaning in the Bible. What did Paul mean when he said, "I boast in the Cross of Christ," in the Epistle to the Galatians? The Cross sometimes means that wooden cross, on which the Lord Jesus Christ was nailed and put to death on Calvary. This is what Paul had in mind, when he told the Philippians that Christ "became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross." (Phil. 2:8). This is not the Cross in which boasted. He would have shrunk with horror from the idea of boasting in a mere piece of wood. I have no doubt he would have denounced the Roman Catholic adoration of the crucifix, as profane, blasphemous, and idolatrous.

The Cross sometimes means the afflictions and trials which believers in Christ have to go through, if they follow Christ faithfully, for their religion's sake. This is the sense in which our Lord uses the word when He says, "He who takes not his cross and follows Me, cannot be My disciple." (Matt. 10;38). This also is not the sense in which Paul uses the word when he writes to the Galatians. He knew that cross well - he carried it patiently. But he is not speaking of it here.

But the Cross also means, in some places, the doctrine that Christ died for sinners upon the Cross - the atonement that He made for sinners, by His suffering for them on the Cross - the complete and perfect sacrifice for sin which He offered up, when He gave His own body to be crucified. In short, this one word, "the Cross," stands for Christ crucified, the only Saviour. This is the meaning in which Paul uses the expression, when he tells the Corinthians, "the preaching of the Cross is to those who perish foolishness." (1 Cor. 1:18). This is the meaning in which he wrote to the Galatians, "God forbid that I should boast, except in the Cross." He simply meant, "I boast in nothing but Christ crucified, as the salvation of my soul."

By the Cross of Christ the Apostle understands the all-sufficient, expiatory, and satisfactory sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, with the whole work of our redemption; in the saving knowledge of whereof he professes he will glory and boasts." 

"Touching these words, I do not find that any expositor, either ancient or modern, Popish, or Protestant, writing on this place, does expound the Cross here mentioned of the sign of the Cross - but of the profession of faith in Him who was hanged on the Cross."

Jesus Christ crucified was the joy and delight, the comfort and the peace, the hope and the confidence, the food and the medicine of Paul's soul. He did not meditate on his own goodness, and his own righteousness. He loved to think of what Christ had done, and Christ had suffered - of the death of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, the atonement of Christ, the blood of Christ, the finished work of Christ. In this he did boast. This was the sun of his soul.

This is the subject Paul loved to preach about. He was a man who went to and fro on the earth, proclaiming to sinners that the Son of God had shed His own heart's blood to save their souls. He walked up and down the world telling people that Jesus Christ had loved them, and died for their sins upon the Cross. Paul, a blaspheming, persecuting Pharisee, had been washed in Christ's blood. He could not hold his peace about it. He was never weary of telling the story of the Cross. 

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 3)