The Surety's Cross
“The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” — Gal. vi. 14.
III. It is the interpreter of law. — It tells us that the law is holy, and just, and good; that not one jot or tittle of it can pass away. The perfection of the law is the message from Calvary, even more awfully than from Sinai, The poioer of law, the vengeance of law, the inexorable tenacity of law, the grandeur of law, the unchangeable and infrangible sternness of law, — these are the announcements of the cross. Never was there so terrible a proclamation of law, and so vivid a commentary upon it, as from the cross of Christ. In the crosses of the two thieves there was the declaration of law, but not half so explicit as in the cross of the righteous Son of God. He who has most honoured the law is the one whom the law refuses to let go; nay, whom it compels to suffer most. All his life-time’s honour of the law seems to go for nothing. It stands him in no stead, now that he has undertaken to answer for the sinner. There is no relaxation of law in his behalf. Law, — unpitying, relentless, remorseless law, — demands from him the double debt; first,
the fulfilment of all its precepts, and then, the endurance of its penalties as if he had fulfilled not one of its statutes, but had broken them all.
Thus by the cross does God interpret the law to us; shewing us, with divine expressiveness, what it is, and what it can do. It was law that condemned the Son of God. It was law that erected the cross, and nailed the Sin- bearer to it. It was law that afflicted him and put him to grief. It was law that shed his innocent blood. Surely, of all the many illustrations and interpretations which law has received in the world’s history, there is none like this.
By the cross does God protest against all attempts to destroy or dilute, to mutilate or modify the law. Man thinks it too strict, too broad; nay, affirms that Christ came to mitigate it, and to give us a salvation founded on a modified law, and obtained by our obedience to such a law. God, in the cross of Christ, says, I do not think so. See yon cross, and my Son upon it, bearing the law’s penalty. Would I have made him to do so, had it been too strict? Did he obey too much? Did he suffer too heavily? Thus in the cross God upholds the law as well as expounds it; protesting against the idea that the gospel is just the law lowered and relaxed, so as to suit our fallen state of being; and proclaiming to us a gospel founded upon a fulfilled, an unmodified, an unchangeable law.
O man, read the divine comment on the law as given on the cross, and learn what sin is, and what righteousness is. Man, in erecting that cross, was no doubt making a mock both at law and at sin; he was refusing the love of God as well as the law of God; he was, like Cain, rejecting the sin-offering, and saying, “I need it not.” But God was exhibiting to us the reality and the darkness of sin. In the cross God was condemning sin, and shewing how different his estimate of it was from that of man. And there is nothing so fitted to convince, to overawe, to overwhelm the sinner as the sight of that cross. “They shall look on me whom they have pierced, and mourn.” It is the sight of the cross that brings a man down to the dust; that produces genuine repentance, — godly sorrow, such as law alone could not accomplish. Look, then, and be smitten to the heart by the spectacle of the Lamb of God on the tree, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; “made under the law;” enduring the curse of the law, that from that curse we might be redeemed.
IV. It interprets sin. — As the interpreter of law, it is necessarily the interpreter of sin; for as “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” so that which expounds the law must also discover sin. The cross took up the ten commandments, and on each of their “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots,” flung such a new and divine light, that sin, in all its hideousness of nature, and minuteness of detail, stood out to view, as it never did before, “the abominable thing” which Jehovah hates. Sin was on the earth before Sinai’s thunder awoke the desert and shook the camp of Israel. But it was hidden, or but dimly seen. As the war-rocket sent up at midnight shews the whole ground and camp, so did the blaze of Sinai light up the law and discover sin. There was sin upon the earth before the Christ of God died. But it was, with all the illumination of Sinai, but imperfectly known. As the lightning of heaven, more potent and penetrating than the most brilliant war-rocket, bursting down at midnight on some plain or valley, lights up the landscape, far and near, so did the heavenly glory of the cross unfold, in awful vividness and infinite detail, “the exceeding sinfulness of sin.”
It shewed that sin was no trifle which God would overlook; that the curse was no mere threat which God could depart from, when it suited him. It shewed that the standard of sin was no sliding scale, to be raised or lowered at pleasure; that the punishment of sin was no arbitrary infliction; and that its pardon was not the expression of divine indifference to its evil. It shewed that sin was no variable or uncertain thing; but fixed and precise; a thing to which God was pointing his finger and saying, I hate that, and that, and that. It shewed that the wages of sin is death; that the soul that sinneth must die; that sin and its fruits and penalties are certainties, absolute certainties, before which heaven and earth must pass away. It shewed that sin is no mere misfortune, or disease; but guilt, which must go before the Judge, and receive judicial doom at his hand. It shewed all these, when it shewed us our divine Substitute, dying the Just for the unjust; God lowering none of his demands, nor abating aught of his wrath, even in the case of his beloved Son.
The cross shewed us, moreover, that the essence of sin is hatred of God; and that man is, by nature, just what the apostle calls him, a “hater of God” (Rom. i. 30). The law had told us but the one half of this. In saying, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, it pointed to sin as the want of love. But that was all. The cross goes farther than this, and shews us sin as enmity to God, and man as a murderer of the Lord of glory. Is not this a discovery of the malignity of sin, such as had never been imagined before? 0 what must man be, when he can hate, condemn, mock, scourge, spit upon, crucify, the Christ of God, when coming to him clothed in love, and with the garments of salvation? And what must sin be, when, in order to expiate it, the Lord of glory must die upon the tree, an outcast, a criminal, a curse, before God and man, before earth and heaven!
V. It interprets the gospel. — That good news were on their way to us, was evident from the moment that Mary brought forth her first-born, and, by divine premonition, called his name “Jesus.” Good will to men was then proclaimed. But the Substitute had then only commence’1 Hs mission of grace. Step by step the good news uulded themselves, as he passed over our earth, doing the deeds and speaking the words of love. But not till the cross is erected, and the blood is shed, and the life is taken, do we fully learn how it is that his work is so precious, and that the tidings concerning it furnish so glorious a gospel. The gospel is good news concerning a divine Sin-bearer; concerning that death which is everlasting life to us; concerning that blood which purges the conscience from dead works, cleansing sin, and reconciling us to God. The cross is reconciliation between us and God, and that is good news. The cross is the bruising of the heel of the woman’s seed, and the bruising of the serpent’s head; and that is good news. The cross is the adjustment of every question raised by law and righteousness, by God or by conscience; — the righteous and honourable settlement of every claim that can be made against the sinner. And that is good news. The cross is the appointed meeting-place between the sinner and God, where the ambassadors of peace take their stand, beseeching the wanderer to turn and live, the rebel to be reconciled to God! There the covenant of reconciliation was sealed; there peace was made; there the debt was paid; there the ransom was given. And are not these glad tidings of great
joy?
VI. It interprets service. — We are redeemed that we may obey. We are set free that we may serve, — even as God spoke to Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” But the cross defines the service, and shews us its nature. It is the ser-
154 the surety’s cross.
vice of love and liberty; yet it is also the service of reproach, and shame, and tribulation. We are crucified with Christ! And this brings out our position as saints. We are crucified followers of a crucified Lord. We are crucified to the world, and the world to us, by the cross of Christ. But besides this, we have to take up our cross, and bear it. It is not his cross we bear. None but he could bear it. It is a cross of our own; calling us to self-denial, flesh-denial, and world-denial; pointing out to us a path of humiliation, trial, toil, weakness, reproach, such as our Master trod. Yes; it is a cross of our own that we are to bear; not, indeed, of our own making or seeking, — for self-made, selfsought crosses are evil, not good, — but still a cross of our own. There is a personal cross for each, which we are to take up and bear; a cross which is the true badge of discipleship, the genuine mark of authentic service. What he bore for us is done; it cannot be borne over again; the cross of Christ is not for any but himself to carry. But as he had a cross to bear for us, so have we a cross to bear for him, and “for his body’s sake, which is the Church.”
“Follow me,” he says; and we cannot but yield to the almighty voice. He draws us out of the world, and we follow him. He leads us in at the strait gate, and we follow him. He guides us along the narrow way, and we follow hi in, our cross upon our shoulder and the crown before our eye. Smoothness, and brightness, and greenness, are not the features of the narrow way; but rather thorns and briars, darkness and dust, and ruggedness, all along; fightings without, and fears within. The road to the Kingdom is not so pleasant, and comfortable, and easy, and flowery, as many dream. It is not a bright sunny avenue of palms. It is not paved with triumph, though it is to end in victory. The termination is glory, honour, and immortality; but on the way there is the thorn in the flesh, the sackcloth, and the cross. Recompence yonder; but labour here! Rest yonder; but weariness here! Joy and security yonder; but here endurance and watchfulness, — the race, the battle, the burden, the stumbling-block, and ofttimes the heavy heart.
In entering Christ’s service, let us, then, count the cost. In following him, let us not shrink from the cross. It was his badge of service for us; let us accept it as ours for him.
To the world the cross is an offence and a stumbling-block. It is so in two ways. It makes those, who have taken it up, objects of dislike to others; and it is itself an object of dislike to these others. Thus while it unites the saints, it divides them from the world. It is the banner round which the former rally and gather; it is the mark against which the arrows of the latter are turned.
For there are “enemies of the cross of Christ,” and enemies of Christ himself. Of them the apostle says, “their end is destruction.” Thus the cross is both life and death, salvation and destruction. It is the golden sceptre; it is the iron rod. It is the
Shepherd’s staff of love; it is the Avenger’s sword of fire. It is the tree of life and cup of blessing; it is the cup of the wine of the wrath of God.
0 enemy of the cross of Christ, know your awful doom. Do not take refuge in fancied neutrality; reasoning with yourself that because you are not a scoffer, nor a profligate, you are not an enemy. Remember that it is written, “He that is not for me is against me;” and that, “The friendship of the world is enmity with God.” That cross shall be a witness against you, in the day when the crucified One returns as Judge and King. The early Christians had a tradition among themselves, that the cross was to be the sign of his coming; appearing in the heavens, as the herald of his advent. Whether this is to be the case or not, the cross in that day will be the object of terror to its enemies. They would not be saved by it, and they shall perish by it. They would not take its pardon; they must bear its condemnation. The love, which it so long proclaimed, shall then be turned into wrath. The glorious light beaming forth from it, to light them to the kingdom of light, shall then become darkness; their sun shall set, no more to rise; their night shall begin, — the long, eternal night that has no dawn in prospect, and no star to break its gloom.