We want the reader to turn aside with us for a few moments, and meditate upon those three crosses. If we mistake not, he will find a very wide field of truth opened before him in the brief but comprehensive record given at the head of this article.
1. And first of all, we must gaze at the center cross, or rather at Him who was nailed thereon—Jesus of Nazareth—that blessed One who had spent His life in labors of love, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, opening the eyes of the blind, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, drying the widow’s tears, meeting every form of human need, ever ready to drop the tear of true sympathy with every child of sorrow—whose meat and drink it was to do the will of God, and to do good to man—a holy, spotless, perfectly gracious man—the only pure untainted sheaf of human fruit ever seen in this world— “A man approved of God”—who had perfectly glorified God on this earth, and perfectly manifested Him in all His ways.
Such, then, was the one who occupied the center cross; and when we come to inquire what it was that placed Him there, we learn a threefold lesson—or rather, we should say, three profound truths are unfolded to our hearts.
In the first place, we are taught, as nothing else can teach us, what man’s heart is toward God. Nothing has ever displayed this—nothing could display it, as the cross has. If we want a perfect standard by which to measure the world—to measure the human heart—to measure sin, we must look at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot stop short of the cross, and we cannot go beyond it, if we want to know what the world is, inasmuch as it was there that the world fully uttered itself—there fallen humanity fully let itself out. When the human voice cried out, “Crucify him Crucify him!” that voice was the utterance of the human heart, declaring, as nothing else could declare, its true condition in the sight of God. When man nailed the Son of God to the cross, he placed the topstone upon the superstructure of his guilt and moral turpitude. When man preferred a robber and a murderer to Christ, he proved that he would rather have robbery and murder than light and love. The cross demonstrates this tremendous fact; and the demonstration is so clear as not to admit of the shadow of a question.
It is well to seize this point. It, most certainly, is not seen with sufficient clearness. We are very prone to judge of the world according to its treatment of ourselves. We speak of its hollowness, its faithlessness, its baseness, its deceitfulness, and such like; but we are too apt to make self the measure in all this, and hence we fall short of the real mark. In order to reach a just conclusion, we must judge by a perfect standard, and this can only be found in the cross. The cross is the only perfect measure of man—of the world—of sin. If we really want to know what the world is, we must remember that it preferred a robber to Christ, and crucified between two thieves the only perfect man that ever lived.
Such, beloved reader, is the world in which you live.
Such is its character—such its moral condition—such its true state as proved by its own deliberately planned and determinedly perpetrated act. And therefore we need not marvel at aught that we hear or see of the world’s wickedness, seeing that in crucifying the Lord of glory, it gave the strongest proof that could be given of wickedness and guilt.
It will, perhaps, be said, in reply, the world is changed. It is not now what it was in the days of Herod and Pontius Pilate. The world of the nineteenth century is very different from the world of the first. It has made progress in every way. Civilization has flung its fair mantle over the scene; and, as respects a large portion of the world, Christianity has shed its purifying and enlightening influence upon the masses; so that it would be very unwarrantable to measure the world that is by the terrible act of the world that was.
Reader, do you really believe that the world is changed? Is it really improved in the deep springs of its moral being—is it altered at its heart’s core? We readily admit all that a free gospel and an open Bible have, by the rich mercy of God, achieved here and there. We think, with grateful hearts and worshipping spirits of thousands and hundreds of thousands of precious souls converted to God. We bless the Lord, with all our hearts, for multitudes who have lived and died in the faith of Christ; and for multitudes who, at this very moment, are giving most convincing evidence of their genuine attachment to the Name, the Person, and the cause of Christ.
But, after allowing the broadest margin in which to insert all these glorious results, we return, with firm decision, to our conviction that the world is the world still, and if it had the opportunity, the act that was perpetrated in Jerusalem in the year 33, would be perpetrated in Christendom in 1873.
This may seem severe and sweeping; but is it true? Is the Name of Jesus one whit more agreeable to the world today, than it was when its great religious leaders cried out, “Not this man but Barabbas!” Only try it. Go and breathe that peerless and precious name amid the brilliant circles that throng the drawing rooms of the polite, the fashionable, the wealthy, and the noble of this our own day. Name Him in the saloon of a steamboat, in a railway carriage, or in a coffee room, and see if you will not very speedily be told that such a subject is out of place. Any other name, any other subject will be tolerated. You may talk folly and nonsense in the ear of the world, and you will never be told it is out of place; but talk of Jesus, and you will very soon be silenced. How often have we seen our leading thoroughfares literally blocked up by crowds of people looking at a puppet show, or listening to a ballad singer or a German band, and no policeman ever told them to move on. Let a servant of Christ stand to preach in our thoroughfares and he will be summoned before the magistrates. There is room in our public streets for the devil, but there is no room for Jesus Christ. “Not this man but Barabbas.”
We ask can any one deny these things? Have they not been witnessed in our cities and towns, times without number? And what do they prove? They prove, beyond all question, the fallacy of the notion that the world is improved. They prove that the world of the nineteenth century is the world of the first. It has, in some places, changed its dress, but not its real animus. It has doffed the robes of paganism, and donned the cloak of Christianity; but underneath that cloak may be seen all the hideous features of paganism’s darkest clays. Compare Rom. 1:29-3129Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: (Romans 1:29‑31) with 2 Tim. 4 and there you will find the very traits and lineaments of nature, in its darkest heathenism, reproduced in connection with “the form of godliness”—the grossest forms of moral pravity covered with the robe of christian profession.
No, no, reader; it is a fatal mistake to imagine that the world is improving. It is stained with the murder of the Son of God; and it proves its consent to the deed in every stage of its history, in every phase of its condition. The world is under judgment. Its sentence is passed; the awful day of its execution is rapidly approaching. The world is simply a deep, dark, rapid stream rushing onward, in an impetuous torrent, to the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. Nothing but the sword of judgment can ever settle the heavy question pending between the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and that world which murdered His Son.
Thus it is, if scripture is to be our guide. Judgment is coming. It is at the very door. Eighteen hundred years ago, the inspired apostle penned the solemn sentence that “God is ready to judge.” If He was ready then, surely He is ready now. And why tarries He? In long-suffering mercy, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Precious words! Words of exquisite tenderness and matchless grace! Words that tell out the large, loving, gracious heart of our God, and His intense desire for man’s salvation.
But judgment is coming. The awful day of vengeance is at hand; and, meanwhile, the voice of Jesus, sounding through the lips of His dear ambassadors, may be heard, on every side, calling men to flee out of the terrible vortex, and make their escape to the stronghold of God’s salvation.
2. But this leads us, in the second place to look at the cross as the expression of God’s heart toward man. If on the cross of our adorable Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we read, in characters deep, broad, and unmistakable, the true state of man’s heart Godward; in the selfsame cross, we may read, with no less clearness surely, the state of God’s heart to manward. The cross is the divinely perfect measure of both.
“The very spear that pierced thy side,
Drew forth the blood to save.”
We behold, at the cross, the marvelous meeting of enmity and love—sin and grace. Man displayed, at Calvary, the very height of his enmity against God. God, blessed forever be His name, displayed the height of His love. Hatred and love met; but loved proved victorious. God and sin met; God triumphed, sin was put away, and now, at the resurrection side of the cross, the eternal Spirit announces the glad tidings that, grace reigns through righteousness, unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. At the cross, the battle was fought and the victory won; and now the liberal hand of sovereign grace is scattering, far and wide the spoils of victory.
Reader, do you really desire to know what the heart of God is toward man? If so, go and gaze on that center cross to which Jesus Christ was nailed, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. True it is, as we have already seen, man did, with wicked hands, crucify and slay the blessed One. This is the dark side of this question. But there is a bright side also, for God is seen in it. No doubt, man fully let himself out at the cross; but God was above him. Yes, above him and above all the powers of earth and hell which were there ranged in their terrible array.
As it was, in the case of Joseph and his brethren; they told. out the enmity of their hearts in flinging him into the pit, and selling him to the Ishmaelites. Here was the dark side. But then, mark these words of Joseph: “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me; for God did send me before you to preserve life.”
Here was the bright side. But to whom were these wondrous words of grace addressed? To broken hearts and penitent spirits, and convicted consciences. To men who had learned to say “We are verily guilty.” It is only such that can at all enter into the line of truth which is now before us. Those who have taken their true place—who have accepted the judgment of God against themselves—who truly own that the cross is the measure of their guilt—they can appreciate the cross as the expression of God’s heart of love toward them—they can enter into the glorious truth that the selfsame cross which demonstrates man’s hatred. of God, sets forth also God’s love to man. The two things ever go together. It is when we see and own our guilt, as proved in the cross, that we learn the purifying and peace-speaking power of that precious blood which cleanseth us from all sin.
Yes, beloved reader; it is only a broken heart and a contrite spirit that can truly enter into the marvelous love of God as set forth in the cross of Christ. How could Joseph ever have said, “Be not grieved with yourselves,” if he had not seen his brethren broken down in his presence? Impossible. And how can an unbroken heart, an unreached conscience, an impenitent soul enter into the value of the atoning blood of Christ, or taste the sweetness of the love of God? Utterly impossible. Joseph “spake roughly” to his brethren at the first, but the very moment those accents emanated from their broken hearts, “ We are verily guilty,” they were in a condition to understand and value the words, “ Be not grieved with yourselves.” It is when we are completely broken down in the presence of the cross, seeing it as the perfect measure of our own deep personal guilt, that we are prepared to see it as the glorious display of God’s love towards us.
And then and there we escape from a guilty world. Then and there we are rescued completely from that dark, broad, and rapid current of which we have spoken, and brought within the hallowed and peaceful circle of God’s salvation, where we can walk up and down in the very sunlight of a Father’s countenance, and breathe the pure air of the new creation. “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!”
3. And, now, one word, ere closing this branch of our subject on the cross as displaying the heart of Christ toward God. We can do little more than indicate this—point, leaving the reader to prove its suggestive power, under the immediate ministry of the Holy Ghost.
It is an unspeakable comfort to the heart, in the midst of such a world as this, to remember that God has been perfectly glorified by One, at least. There has been One on this earth whose meat and drink was to do the will of God, to glorify Him, and finish His work. In life and death, Jesus perfectly glorified God. From the manger to the cross, His heart was perfectly devoted to the one great object, namely, to accomplish the will of God, whatever that will might be. “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.” In the roll of God’s eternal counsels, it was written of the Son that, in due time, He should come into this world, and accomplish the will of the Godhead. To this He dedicated Himself with all the energies of His perfect being. From this He never swerved the breadth of a hair from first to last; and when we gaze on that center-cross which is now engaging our attention, we behold the perfect consummation of that which had filled the heart of Jesus from the very beginning, even the accomplishment of the will of God.
All this is blessedly unfolded to us in that charming passage in Phil. 2 “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Verse 5-8.
How wonderful is all this! What profound depths there are in the mystery of the cross! What lines of truth converge in it! What rays of light emanate from it! What unfoldings of heart there! The heart of man to Godward—the heart of God to manward—the heart of Christ to God! All this we have in the cross. We can gaze on that One who hung there between two thieves, a spectacle to heaven, earth, and hell, and see the perfect measure of everyone and everything in the whole universe of God. Would we know the measure of the heart of God—His love to us—His hatred of sin? we must look at the cross. Would we know the measure of the heart of man—his real condition—his hatred of all that is divinely good—his innate love of all that is thoroughly bad? we must look at the cross. Would we know what the world is—what sin is—what Satan is? we must look at the cross.
Assuredly, then, there is nothing like the cross. Well may we ponder it. It shall be our theme throughout the everlasting ages. May it be, more and more, our theme now! May the Holy Ghost so lead our souls into the living depths of the cross that we may be absorbed with the One who was nailed thereto, and thus weaned from the world that placed Him there. May the real utterance of our hearts, beloved reader, ever be, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God grant it, for Jesus Christ’s sake!
(To be continued if the Lord will.)