“THE preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” Solemn words of truth, verified in everyday life, and most abundantly so in this our age of wisdom. The word of the cross, that is, the divine truth of the cross, expressed in the Scriptures, is folly to the wise but yet unsaved man. And it is folly to him because he is above it, beyond it, too proud for it; he has progressed outside the circle of the word of truth of the gospel. The truth of God respecting Christ crucified does not suit him; he is not suited to it. But the fact of man in his pride seeing in the work of the cross but foolishness, evidences his dead spiritual condition, and the expression of his pride is but the ringing out of his eternal death-knell, for the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. To another class of men, the divine truth of the cross is the sublimest wisdom, the most glorious majesty; “To us which are saved it is the power of God.”
Thus, in the minds of different persons, the doctrine, the truth, the testimony of the cross is as wide asunder as the poles. To one reader of this page the gospel is but folly, to another it is divine wisdom. We will not blink the question, or seek to ease the issues. Every day the lines are becoming more and more distinct. Men are ranging on different sides. We must stand either for God’s wisdom or for man’s; we must be firm for the Bible truth of the cross, or give up Christianity altogether as a foolish notion.
THE PREACHING OF THE CROSS
On one side of the line, or the other, is each reader of this page. Whether we perish or are saved depends upon our regard for the cross of Christ.
God recognizes that the world has its wisdom, and that a particular age has its particular wisdom. Thus, in St. Paul’s days, the Corinthians had their philosophy, as in our own day men have theirs. Now this wisdom and the word of the cross are opposed to each other, as are darkness and light. The wisdom of the age places man on a pedestal; the word of the cross lowers man down to the dust. Human wisdom exalts humanity; the divine wisdom in the cross exalts God; and God has said: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” As men look back they are wont to smile at the wisdom of past generations; and in the future, it may be a few years hence, very much of the wisdom that produces this day’s infidelity will be the occasion of a scornful smile. It will be brought to nothing, and in the light of the truth of God it is already a thing of naught, laid low and brought to emptiness by the cross of Christ.
Looking at the purpose of God in the cross of Christ, and at Christ risen from the dead and in glory, St. Paul exclaimed: “Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world?” Where is the scientific man, the religious man, the moralist of the day? The truth of the matter is, that mere human ability no more reaches to divine mysteries than does the power of a horse to draw a load, enable it to construct a railway. And thus the Christian can but smile at the wisdom of this our age, which teaches man’s descent from the jellyfish, his cousinship to apes, and his progress towards extinction; and weep over its religiousness, which utterly omits Christ’s cross from its creed, and evolves human salvation out of fallen man’s efforts.
One thing is apparent in the wisdom of today to the simplest, and of this thing the age boasts— “the world by wisdom knew not God.” In wise old Athens, Paul, who gloried in Christ’s cross, and who had seen Him at the right hand of God, “found an altar, with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD” (Acts 17:2323For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. (Acts 17:23)), and in Christendom the wise people of this century boast in their agnosticism, in their NON-KNOWLEDGE of God. From the highest to the lowest—from the educated man, who expresses himself in elegant speech, to the unlettered, who rudely utters his notions—the fashionable wisdom of the day is NON-KNOWLEDGE of God. The Wise and the Scribe have joined hands in many a pulpit, and the Disputer of the times tells his congregation of professing Christians, that large portions of the Scriptures are fable, and that the cross of Christ is not God’s way of saving man.
There can be no doubt that, at this present hour, the truths Satan is most vigorously assailing are those that surround the cross of Christ. So-called Christian men will tolerate Christ without His cross; they will accept His life without His death. He may be a pattern for them to improve themselves by, but they reject Him as the Saviour saving by His blood.
From of old, Rome and all its offspring have made light of the cross of Christ. Crucifixes it has in abundance, pictures of dying Christ’s almost innumerable, but never such truths as these— “By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified”; “Sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Rome has the shadow, but not the substance of the truth of Christ’s cross; it has the material sign, but not the divine meaning of it, and thus over the greater portion of Christendom, and for centuries, the full truth of Christianity has been unknown.
The sacrifice, the atonement of Jesus, was perfect in itself. It stands “Once for all” (Heb. 10:1010By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)), allowing no repetition, no further dying, no mass, none other sacrifice.
The effects of that sacrifice, that atonement, upon those whom it covers are perpetual, for such persons are “Perfected forever” (Heb. 10:1414For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)).; they cannot be more safe, more set apart to God, than they are. The measure of their being set apart, or sanctified, to God is the measure of the infinite value of the sacrifice of Jesus. Even as that was made once, so are these perfected forever—that was made once for all, and it has effected a result which is everlasting.
Now, for centuries, Rome has by the mass, by her priests, and by her whole system of religion, fought against these Scriptures and their meaning. To her, and to all who are of her doctrines, whether they be called by her name, or by a Protestant title, the word of the cross, the Scripture teaching, the divine truths respecting Christ crucified, are, as was this truth to the Jews of old,
A STUMBLING BLOCK.
Over the perfect and eternal character of the sacrifice of Christ, the feet of religious pride stumble. No longer can a man bring of his works to God—no longer can he offer his penitence or his prayers to God, for God presents to him, lost and dead in sin, worthy only of judgment and of doom, the death of His Son as his salvation.
And Rome is in our hearts! Alas, it is hard—oh, so hard!—for man to trust for salvation only and entirely to
CHRIST CRUCIFIED;
to Him, made sin for us, who knew no sin; to Him, suffering the Just for the unjust; to Him, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. Man turns into himself to find the remedy he feels he requires—he is slow to believe. It is natural to man to look into himself for a sign. “The Jews seek after a sign.” Unconverted but religious man seeks after a miracle, a wonder—the smile or the tear of an image, a vision or a dream, a marvel or a mystery, an inward feeling or an experience. But God’s sign for man is His Christ crucified. “The blood shall be to you for a token,” and the reception of God’s token is faith’s satisfaction.
When a man believes what God says respecting the cross of His Son, he is saved, for “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching” (i.e., that which is preached—Christ Jesus and Him crucified) “to save them that believe.” (1 Cor. 1:2121For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21)) And when a man believes the gospel of God, he has there and then done with the system of religion—call it by what name we will—which lowers the sacrifice and the atonement of Christ to the level of the old Jewish religion, and which, by its priests “standing and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices,” treats His blood as if it were such as could “never take away sins.” (Read Heb. 10:11-1211And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (Hebrews 10:11‑12)).
In former years the brave spirits who witnessed for Christ had Rome to battle with; in our day, not only is it Rome, or Ritualism, or human religiousness, which contends against the word of the cross, but we are returning to the situation of eighteen hundred years ago, when infidelity, which scorns Christ crucified, arrays its ranks against the word of Christ’s cross. Our forefathers, who were burned in defense of the truth of the cross, who preferred death to the denial by transubstantiation of the truth of the offering of Christ being once for all, would stand amazed at the religious wisdom of the Protestant of this nineteenth century, which totally denies the atonement of Christ, and which is worse and more fatal—if that be possible—than the errors of Rome.
The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is the very center of the stronghold of the Christian faith, and thither the enemy, having gained the outworks, now addresses his forces. Let, then, the true Christian rally around the truth of Christ’s cross, for, though men reckon it weakness and foolishness, it is both the power and the wisdom of God.
By the cross, God can be just, and yet justify the sinner, and “the weakness of God is stronger than man.” By the cross, God can display His wisdom in bringing rebellious sinners into glory with Christ in heaven, and “the foolishness of God is wiser than man.”
May each of our Christian readers now, more than ever before in his lifetime, make much of the word of the cross. Let us take as the inscription for our banner for this year these words:—