The Surety's Cross
“The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’’ — Gal. vi. 14.
The death of the cross 1ms always been, above every other, reckoned the death of shame. The fire, the sword, the axe, the stone, the hemlock, have in their turns been used by law, as its executioners; but these have, in so many cases, been associated with honour, that death by means of them has not been reckoned either cursed or shameful. Not so the cross. Its victim, nailed in agony to the rough wood, suspended naked and torn to the gaze of multitudes, has always been reckoned a specimen of disgraced and degraded humanity; rather to be mocked than pitied. With Jew and Gentile alike, evil and not good, the curse and not the blessing, have been connected with the cross. In men’s thoughts and symbols it has been treated as synonymous with ignominy, and weakness, and crime. God had allowed this idea to root itself universally, in order that there might be provided a place of shame, lower than all others, for the great Substitute who, in the fulness of time was to take the sinner’s place, and be himself the great outcast from man and God, despised and rejected, deemed unworthy even to die within the gates of the holy city.
Not till more than four thousand years had gone by, did it begin to be rumoured that the cross was not what men thought it, the place of the curse and shame, but of strength and honour and life and blessing. Then it was that there burst upon the astonished world the bold announcement, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Greek and Roman, Jew and Gentile, prince, priest, philosopher, Rabbi, Stoic, Epicurean, Pharisee, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, North, South, East and West, looked to one another with contemptuous impatience, indignant at the audacity of a few Jews, thus affronting and defying the “public opinion” of nations and ages; assailing the faiths and unbeliefs of earth with this as their only sword; striking down the idols with this as their only hammer; and with this, as their one lever, proposing to turn the world upside down.
From that day the cross became “a power” in the earth; a power which went forth, like the light, noiselessly yet irresistibly, smiting down all religions alike, all shrines alike, all altars alike; sparing no superstition nor philosophy; neither flattering priesthood, nor succumbing to statesmanship; tolerating no error, yet refusing to draw the sword for truth; a power superhuman, yet wielded by human, not angelic hands; “the power of God unto salvation.”
140 TI3E surety’s cross.
This power remains; — in its mystery, its silence, its influence; — it remains. The cross has not become obsolete; the preaching of the cross has not ceased to be effectual. There are men among; us who would persuade us that, in this late age, the cross is out of date and out of fashion, time-worn, not time-honoured; that Golgotha witnessed only a common martyr scene; that the great sepulchre is but a Hebrew tomb; that the Christ of the future and the Christ of the past are widely different. But this shakes us not. It only leads us to clasp the cross more fervently, and to study it more profoundly, as embodying in itself that gospel which is at once the wisdom and the power of God.
The secret of its power lies in the amount of divine truth which it embodies. It is the abridgment of the Bible; the epitome of Revelation. It is pre-eminently the voice of God; and, as such, conveying his power as well as uttering his wisdom. “The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.”
Yet is the cross not without its mysteries, or, as men would say, its puzzles, its contradictions. It illuminates, y~et it darkens; it interprets, yet it confounds. It raises questions, but refuses to answer all that it has raised. It solves difficulties, but it creates them too. It locks as well as unlocks. It openeth, and no man shutteth; it shutteth, and no man openeth. It is life, yet it is death. It is honour, yet it is shame. It is wisdom, but also foolishness. It is both gain and loss; both pardon and condemnation; both strength and weakness; both joy and sorrow; both love and hatred; both medicine and poison; both hope and despair. It is grace, yet it is righteousness; it is law, yet it is deliverance from law; it is Christ’s humiliation, yet it is Christ’s exaltation; it is Satan’s victory, yet it is Satan’s defeat; it is the gate of heaven and the gate of hell.
Let us look at the cross as the divine proclamation and interpretation of the things of God; the key to his character, his word, his ways, his purposes; the clue to the intricacies of the world’s and the Church’s history.
I. It is the interpreter of man. — By means of it God has brought out to view, what is in man. In the cross man has spoken out. He has exhibited himself, and made unconscious confession of his feelings, especially in reference to God, — to his Being, his authority, his character, his law, his love. Though “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts ii. 23) were at work in the awful transaction, yet it was man who erected the cross, and nailed the Son of God to it. Permitted by God to give vent to the feelings of his heart, and placed in circumstances the least likely to call forth anything but love, he thus expressed them, in hatred of God and of his incarnate Son. Beckoning the death of the cross the worst of all, he deems it the fittest for the “Sjh of the Blessed.” Thus, the enmity of the natural heart speaks out, and man not only confesses publicly that he is a hater of God, but he takes pains to shew the intensity of his hatred. Nay, he glories in his shame, crying aloud, “Crucify him, crucify him;” “This is the heir, come let us kill him;” “Not this man, but Barabbas.” The cross thus interpreted man; drew the mask of pretended religion from his face; and exhibited a soul overflowing with the malignity of hell. You say, “I don’t hate God; I may be indifferent to him; he may not be in all my thoughts; but I don’t hate him.” Then, what does that cross mean? — Love, hatred, indifference; — which? Does love demand the death of the loved One? Does indifference crucify its objects? Look at your hands! Are they not red with blood? Whose blood is that? The blood of God’s own Son! No: neither love nor indifference shed that blood. It was hatred that did it; enmity: the enmity of the carnal mind. You say that I have no right to judge you. I am not judging you. It is yon cross that judges you, and I am asking you to judge yourselves by it. It is yon cross that interprets your purposes, and reveals the thoughts and intents of your heart. Oh, what a revelation! Man hating God; and hating most, when God is loving most! Man acting as a devil; and taking the devil’s side against God! You say, “What have I to do with that cross, and what right have you to identify me with the crucifiers?” 1 say, “Thou art the man.” Do not say, “Pilate did it, Caiaphas did it, the Jew did it, the Roman did it; I did it not.” Nay, but you did, you did. You did it in your representatives, — the civilised Koman and the religious Jew; and until you come out from the crucifying crowd, disown your representatives, and protest against the deed, you are verily guilty of that blood. But how am T. to sever myself from these crucifiers, and protest against their crime? By believing in the name of the crucified One. For all unbelief is approval of the deed and identification with the murderers. Faith is man’s protest against the deed; and the identification of himself, not only with the friends and disciples of the crucified One, but with the crucified One himself.
The cross, then, was the public declaration of man’s hatred of God, man’s rejection of his Son, and man’s avowal of his belief that he needs no Saviour. If any one, then, denies the ungodliness of humanity, and pleads for the native goodness of the race, I ask, what means yon cross? Of what is it the revealer and interpreter? Of hatred or of love? Of good or of evil? Besides, in this rejection of the Son of God, we have also man’s estimate of him. He had been for thirty years despised and rejected; he had been valued and sold for thirty pieces of silver; a robber had been preferred to him; but at the cross, this estimate comes out more awfully; and there we see how man undervalued his person, his life, his blood, his word, his whole errand from the Father. “Whatthinkye of Christ?” was God’s question. Man’s answer was, The cross! Was not that as explicit as it was appalling?”
As the cross reveals man’s depravity, so does it exhibit his foolishness. His condemnation of him, in whom God delighted, shews this. His erection of the cross shews it still more. As if he could set at nought Jehovah, and clear the earth of him who had come down as the Doer of his will! His attempt to cast shame upon the Lord of glory is like a child’s effort to blot out or discolour the sun. And as his erection of the cross was the revelation of his folly, so has been his subsequent estimate of it, and of the gospel which has issued from it. He sees in it no wisdom, but enly foolishness; and this ascription of foolishness to the cross is but the more decided proof of his own foolishness. He stumbles at this stumbling-stone. The cross is an offence to him, and the preaching of it folly.
My friend, what is that cross to you? Is it folly or wisdom? Do you see, in the way of salvation which it reveals, the excellency of wTisdom, as well as the excellency of power and love? Has the cross, interpreted to you by the Holy Ghost, revealed your own heart as a hell of darkness and evil? Have you accepted its exposition of your character, and welcomed it also as salvation for the lost, — reconciliation between you and God?
IT. It is the interpreter of God. — That “the Word was made flesh” is a blessed fact, fraught with grace to us. But incarnation is not the whole of the Bible; no, not half of it. It is not at Bethlehem, but at Golgotha, that we get the full interpretation of
God’s character. “Unto us a child is born” is the dawn; “It is finished” is the noon. The cross carries out and completes what the cradle began.
It is as the God of grace that the cross reveals him. It is love, free-love, that shines out in its fulness there. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” (1 John iii. 16). It is as “the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,” that he shews himself. Nor could any demonstration of the sincerity of the divine love equal this. It is love stronger than shame, and suffering, and death; love immeasurable; love unquenchable. Truly, “God is love.” In his treatment of the Son of God, man was putting that love to the test. In the cross he was putting it to the extremest test to which love could be put. But it stands them all. Man’s most terrible tests but draw it forth the more copiously, and give it new opportunities of displaying its riches. What more extreme test can man ask, or God give, than this?
But righteousness as well as grace is here. The God who spared not his own Son is “the righteous Lord who loveth righteousness,” and who “will by no means clear the guilty.” We learn God’s righteous character in many ways. We learn it from its dealings with righteousness, as in the case of all unfallen ones; we learn it still more fully from its dealings with sin, as in our fallen world; but we learn it, most of all, from its dealings with both of these at once, and in the same person, on the cross of
K ‘Christ. For here is the righteous Son of God bearing the unrighteousness of men. How shall God both reward and punish at once; reward the righteous one, yet punish the substitute of the unrighteous? Surely righteousness will deal mildly with sin, when found laid on one so righteous, and so beloved for his righteousness? It will mitigate the penalty, and spare the beloved one? No; it does not. It will not admit of the principle that sin is less sin, or less punishable, in such circumstances. Even when found lying on the most righteous and the most beloved of all, upon the very highest person in the universe, it must be dealt with as sin, and punished as truly as when found upon the common sinner. There must be no exemption, and no mitigation. How terrible is the righteousness of God, as interpreted by the cross of Christ! How infinitely holy, how gloriously perfect, how inexorably just, is the God who gave his Son! His love is no weakness, no good nature, no easy indifference to wrong and right. It is righteous love; and, as such, the cross proclaims it with loud and most unambiguous utterance. All the divine perfections are seen here in harmonious glory, mercy and truth, grace and justice; the perfection of holiness combined with the perfection of love. A righteous Judge and a righteous pardon! Righteousness forgiving, saving, justifying, glorifying; taking the side of law in condemning i in, yet taking the side of love in delivering the sinner himself.
0 wondrous, glorious cross! Blessed interpreter of God to us! Scene of the great self-manifestation, the great revelation of the mind and heart of God! 0 cross of Christ, tell us more and more of this grace of God! Preach reconciliation to the alien, pardon to the guilty, assurance of God’s free yet holy love to the dark and suspicious soul! Speak to our hearts; speak to our consciences; pour in light; break our bonds; heal our wounds; — all by means of thy interpretation of the divine character, thy revelation of the righteous love of God!