What are its uses and applications, by the Spirit in Scripture?
The cross seems to me to be used in scripture as especially connected with shame and disgrace. The cross was in itself a cruel and a disgraceful heathen mode of death-kept, even by them, for the very vilest. It seemed to say-This is a wretch, who has no feelings to be considered, and whose sufferings may be protracted so as to scare others from committing what he has done. By the Jews seeking it for Jesus, it was saying, either " We are not Jews," or "He is no Jew;" for then, if a sinner, he should have been stoned -and in it they were saying that He was not their king (as you will see in John 19), nor their prophet much less Son of God; as done by the Gentiles also, it was the denial of His being the Son of God from whose hand the Gentiles had received their kingly power. (See Dan. 2) The cross is used in scripture as the thing which, in one word, tells what is the present result among men of serving God; of being a disciple; of becoming one; and this not only at the hands of the world, but of the professing world. The cross of Jesus proved this as to Jerusalem and its law; while at the same time it told of His thorough self-renunciation, perfectness of obedience, and of the estimate the world had of God:-Jew and Gentile would crucify His Son. The priests of His temple, they would seek it for Him; Pontius Pilate would rather yield it to them, though he knew Jesus was innocent, than have it said himself was not Caesar's friend. It was God's way of telling what He felt about man's sin; about the old man in each of us; about carnality, self-righteousness, and human wisdom; about there being no ground of justification or means of purification, in whole or in part, in us; no door open by which a new life could come in to us; of making the Jew and Gentile shake hands; of stripping all of boasting, specially from the Jew, the., &c. In so many different connections is the cross presented. May the believer pass and repass through the testimony of scripture about it, and learn to use the cross of Jesus for the purposes for which it is given and made known to him!
Death was the penalty of sin. Death, therefore, when Christ undertook to endure the penalty, was all that we should have looked for; but His blood was needful for atonement also. Perhaps those who had understanding then would have thought, " The Father loves Him, and therefore you will see His death will be one of peculiar ease: how it will be we know not, but perhaps the veins will open outwardly of their own accord, and that quiet stupor pass over Him which comes in bleeding to death, and He will, gently fall asleep, without a struggle or a groan." But this was not God's way. For He came not only to endure the penalty and to give the blood in atonement, but to be the standard by which God might measure the world and the flesh in man. And in the cross we see the effects on Him of His really drinking that cup of trembling to the dregs which was our doom. The poisonous draft could not take that effect on His pure human and perfectly divine person which it would on our impure human and only mortal persons. But O what an effect it did take! for it cut off all intercourse between Him and God. The whole vital energy of the relationship between the creature and the Creator was drained, and the relationship severed; and even that Holy Thing had no refuge left to Him save in the relationship between Himself and God in deity: these two things seem expressed thus:-
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" -" FATHER, into thy hands I commend my Spirit." And why was this? Because He had presented Himself as the Lamb, and was looked upon as already filleted and garlanded for the sacrifice with the wreaths of our sins and follies. How plain is it then that God can hold no intercourse with sin I He saw it laid lightly, only as by imputation on Jesus, and He hid His face from Him, and would not look upon Him. O how He has told out here His hatred to sin, and the unmendableness of the sinner, in himself, as such; and the impossibility of any one whatever treating with Him until all his sins have been forgiven him, and all his iniquities been covered!
PASSAGES TO BE CONSIDERED.
1. There is no SERVICE to Christ which is without a cross (Matt. 10:38; compare vers. 32-42); -For
2. The disciple is the DISCIPLE of the cross (Matt. 16:24; compare Mark 10:21 and Luke 9:23);-
3. People who may think of becoming disciples, as well as disciples, ought to know the cross is the disciple's present portion (Mark 8:34);-
4. and such is the cross, as that it is a hard thing, and to nature impossible, to, become a disciple (Luke 14:27, read the chapter);
5. Jesus knew that Jerusalem would give Him up to the Gentiles to crucify, and told the twelve so (Matt. 20:18, 19);-For,
6. Jerusalem, that place so highly favored for religious privileges, had a way of its own; and if God's way did not bend to it, it would murder and crucify His messengers (Matt. 23:34);-And,
7. first and foremost among them the Son of man Himself should suffer on the cross (Matt. 26:2, &c.);-
8. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, each describe the scene of the cross;-
9. Jerusalem might not be scandalized by the bodies remaining on the cross on the sabbath-day; for it was a high day! (John 19:31-33);-
10. Interest in the crucified One led the angels to honor several, &c. (Matt. 28:5);-
11. The cross on earth the contrast of the glory of the Lord in heaven (Acts 2:23, 24); -
12. And that place of honor in heaven was one sought for in grace toward man even as the cross was endured for man (Acts 4:10-12);
13. The cross is God's sentence against the old man in us 'atom. vi. 5-7);-
14. The cross is God's sentence against all that is carnal in the church (1 Cor. 1);-
15. Even as it is the sentence of God against all that is carnal in the world (1 Cor. 2:2);-
16. The cross was, in Jesus, the proof of how He had emptied Himself-" being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (2 Cor. 13:4);-
17. The cross was that to which the Jews (Peter and Paul among them) had to flee from Moses' law, for justification, purification, and the power of a new life (Gal. 2:20); -
18. The cross, therefore, strongly condemns any one who, having heard of it, would in any way share the honor of salvation between Jesus who died on it and self (Gal. 3:1); -
19. Offensive as the cross is, it was Paul's only testimony for justification or purification (Gal. 5:11-24); -
20. The cross, therefore, by itself, as giving nothing but shame to nature, will not do for popular preachers; yet it is the Christian's only stay (Gal. 6:14-16);-
21. The cross is the power of union to Jew and Gentile, as throwing a shade over the ordinances of the one, and the intellectual pride of the other (Eph. 2:16);-
22. The cross was the measure of the obedience in humiliation of the Son of God (Phil. 2:8-13); -
23. The cross, therefore, is the sine qua non of a true Christian-in other words, " no cross, no Christian" (Phil. 3:17-20);-
24. The cross is God's estimate of everything great and noble in the world which He will reconcile to Himself (Col. 1:20);-
25. Especially thus connected with the Jew under Moses' law (Col. 2:14);-26, The cross was the measure of the Lord's willingness to endure (Heb. 12:2);-
27. The cross was the world's and earth's estimate of the value of the Son; What is the religion of the earth!!! (Rev. 11:8.)