THE Cross of Christ is the heart and center of all the believer’s hopes and feelings. The right understanding of it settles every question. Any departure from a saving and practical view of the Cross must bring darkness upon the soul, and hinder our joy, peace, and holy walk; Christ is our peace (Eph. 2:1414For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; (Ephesians 2:14)), “having made peace through the blood of His Cross” (Col. 1:2020And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)). Well then might Paul say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:1414But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Galatians 6:14)). The Cross had broken his connection with the world, and he could boldly affirm, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”
Paul was jealous, lest anything should come in to weaken or prejudice the full force of the Cross over the consciences of Saints. He would have it to be unrivalled and alone, unmixed, full and free; the only ground of a believer’s hope, his only rule of practice. Satan was early in the field, seeking to weaken and destroy the simplicity and power of the Cross. Paul’s labors were abundant in seeking to defend the Churches against his wiles.
‘The Cross! the Cross! oh, that’s our gain!
Because, on that the Lamb was slain,’
will be our eternal song; the foundation and the depth of our everlasting joy and praise. It is there we have learned all we know of God, and none beside the redeemed can sing their song of praise, or know, experimentally, the vastness of its import.
The Corinthians seem to have strangely departed from the Cross. Although, through mercy, they were neither enemies nor deniers of it; yet they were holding certain elements, and had adopted certain practices which were contrary to the Cross. In this chapter, Paul seeks to set them right as to New Testament principles, to recover them from foreign elements, and to re-plant, as it were, the Cross in their midst. Divisions and contentions had sprung up amongst them, and disturbed their harmony; owing to every one of them saying, “I am of Paul: and I of Apollos: and I of Cephas: and I of Christ.” To set aside this uplifting of man, and the making Christ the head of a party, of a few, and not the whole, Paul proposed three questions— “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or, were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” Are not these questions deeply important for our times also? If rightly understood, they would unite the saints around the Cross, for an undivided Christ admits not of a divided body. If due preference were given to the Cross, a thousand elements of division would be abandoned; fathers, young men, and babes, would at once meet around the Cross, on one common level, to hail together their common salvation. If Christ is not divided, should His Church be so? If Paul was not crucified for us, why be called after any other name, badge, or distinction, save that name which is common to all? If we were baptized in Jesus’ name, why take another? What distinctions do Christian people require? Is it not that they, are not separated from one another, though they are from the world? Such were Paul’s searching questions, thrown in amongst Corinthian divisions and failures,—the type of ours. Men would be wise in their own conceits; these conceits the Cross sets aside. It makes him, who knows its power, foolish in the eyes of men; “for the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness.” Carnal wisdom, that seeks credit amongst men, says, “I am of Paul,” &c. “The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” Paul, like his Master, would not pander to human pride. He boldly tells the Corinthans, that, “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, and things despised, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence........That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:27, 3127But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; (1 Corinthians 1:27)
31That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:31)). The Cross makes Jesus everything, and all beside nothing.
From this feeble outline, we may at once see where the Cross of Christ would place us. God will not tolerate the admixture of things that differ. Christ and his Cross must be everything or nothing. It separates us, root and branch, from the world, its ways, its philosophy (so called), and all its rudiments and pretensions, and leaves no room for the pride of the human heart. From thence, God in Christ shines forth as all in all. Let the Saints fully hold this, and they will soon be united together, if not in worship, at least in love. At the Cross we learn our emptiness and our folly. There we find God’s gracious and abundant supply for all our need. There we see everything for us, and nothing against us. It is true, we see there displayed the holiness and the severity of God, as One intolerant of sin; but there we also find, that that which measures our iniquity, also puts it away. There we see the floods of God’s anger poured forth on the devoted head of His Son; and now that these water-floods are assuaged, like Noah’s dove, we pluck away our olive-branch to flourish for ever in the courts above. Would that our eyes, like the Cherubim of old, were ever fixed upon the mercy-seat of our God! Would that our hopes, our practice, ever found their character and their depth at the Cross of Christ! Would that there were that heart in us that turned aside from all it condemns! Lord, ever grant to thy children to know all that this wondrous Cross imparts, and so to be ashamed of all besides, that they shall ever be able to say, “God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen!