1—ON MAN’S PART.
1. It was a refusal, and the end of all remedial measures, by the rejection of Christ.
2. The close, therefore, of the moral government of God, as established under the law.
3. Man taking the place of the betrayer and murderer of Christ.
4. The outlet of human enmity against God.
5. The closing up of all relations with God, by death.
6. The proof of the world’s rebellion.
7. The new center on which the issue of all things must be tried in righteousness.
8. God forced at the cross into the place of Judge. The act of man has done this.
2—ON SATAN’S PART.
1. The masterpiece of the devil’s craft, to get Christ out of the world, and put an end to Him.
2. The concentration of the usurper’s hate against God and man.
3. The heading up of earthly revolt under its ringleader, the prince of this world.
4. The crisis of the ways of God with the devil.
5. The measure and, limit of Satan’s power, except to deceive the nations, and head up all things for the Antichrist.
3. —ON CHRIST’S PART.
1. The place where He glorified God, when He offered Himself up, through the eternal Spirit.
2. The place where He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
3. By the blood of His cross He made peace.
4. The cross was the measure of His perfect obedience unto death.
5. It was there that He brought mercy and truth together, and righteousness and peace kissed each other.
6. It cleared the way of all the obstructions to God’s coming back in grace and blessing to sinners.
7. The place of the Son of Man’s glory; for it was He who wrought this for God and men, and for the overthrow of Satan.
8. The fire of God’s holiness fed there upon the fat of the sacrifice.
9. It was there the righteous judgment of God spent itself upon Christ as the sin-offering.
4. —ON GOD’S PART.
1. The inlet of divine love to the world.
2. The wisdom of God, and the power of God to salvation, to everyone that believeth.
3. The declaration that God is just, and the justifier of the ungodly, who believeth in Jesus.
4. Righteousness has there a new claim on God, by which grace can reign unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
5. There God condemned sin in the flesh, and by death brought it down to death, and left it in ashes.
6. It is the new meeting place between God and the believer, where sin and death and judgment are no more.
7. On the cross Christ gave up the ghost, and correspondingly God rent the veil that hid Him.
8. There by the death of His Son, God reconciles us to Himself.
5. —THE CROSS BETWEEN JEW AND GENTILE.
1. It was there that man was reconciled to his fellow, and Jew and Gentile made one.
2. It broke down the middle wall of partition; Christ having abolished in His flesh the enmity.
3. He made in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace.
4. He reconciled both unto God, in one body.
5. Them which were afar off, and them that were nigh, have (both) through Him access by one Spirit unto the Father.
6. —THE CROSS AND THE LAW OF COMMANDMENTS.
1. There the handwriting of ordinances, that was against us, was blotted out.
2. He took all that was contrary to us out of the way, nailing it to His cross, and triumphing over them in it.
3. The shadows of things to come were superseded, and the body is of Christ.
7. —THE CROSS OF CHRIST TO A DISCIPLE AND HIS LORD.
1. It is the only way by which he can follow Christ.
2. It is the power by which he denies himself, and goes after Him who made the path.
8. —THE CROSS OF CHRIST BETWEEN THE BELIEVER AND THE WORLD.
1. It is that by which he is separated from the world, by its own crucifixion to him.
2. He maintains by his own death to the world, his part with the Christ whom the, world rejected, and becomes a living witness in it to the fact of the judgment of God to be poured out upon the world which did it. B.