GLORYING IN THE CROSS Britt Worthan “But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Galatians 6:14
Paul had much ground for boasting his pedigree: “Hebrew of the Hebrews;” as touching the law a Pharisee (he cast them both aside that he might win Christ); his martyred-life, his list of sufferings; his revelations, caught up in the third heaven; his scholarship. But his boast was “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What is the cross in which Paul resolved to glory? Know that Paul set no store by the material cross or by the sign of the cross. The making of the sign and paying of religious reverence to a material cross are superstitions as great as the belief of witches. There is no more sanctity in the sign of the cross than in a circle, square, or any other shape. What the apostle meant was the great doctrine of the atonement offered for sin by the Son of God at Calvary. The cross is the same word as substitutionary suffering, for vicarious sacrifice, for the offering up of the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God (References: II Cor.5:19: “That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” Rom.3:25, “Whom God set forth as propitiation by His blood, through faith to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.”) Paul’s great master point was that Jesus actually suffered to vindicate the divine justice by enduring in our place the punishment due to our sins. He also meant that gospel that springs out of the cross. Paul told the people that the Son of God was made man, suffered in human form to take away human guilt and whoever rested solely on what Christ had done would be saved. This was the gospel Paul proclaimed in every place: for the Greek, the Jew, the barbarian, the Scythian, illiterate or learned, he had one theme, a bleeding Savior and a sinner looking to Him, a living Christ dying that a dying world may live. This was the “Cross” Paul gloried in. What was there in this doctrine for Paul to glory in? There is glory in the doctrine itself. “That God the offended one should give up His only begotten, that in order that justice might not be injured, at the same time His mercy might have full sweep; that the only begotten should die, that the offending ones might live” (C.H. Spurgeon). “Herein is love, not that we love God, but that God first loved us. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us” (I John 4:10 & 3:1). The fact that God descended from heaven to take on the form of man, and offer Himself a sacrifice for man, stands as a wonder of wonders in which the believer may glory as much as he will. The apostle gloried in the doctrine as a fact. How shall we prove that we glory in the cross? By trusting in it. The atonement must be our only confidence. By holding fast the doctrine when others deny it. And by spreading abroad the doctrine.
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