#215 The Offence of The Cross

Paul intends here to declare that the offence of the cross never has ceased, and never can cease. To suppose it to have ceased is folly.

The religion of Jesus is most peaceful, mild and benevolent.

Yet its history shows it to have been assailed with bitterest hate all along. It is clearly offensive to the unregenerate mind.

There is no reason to believe that it is one jot more palatable to the world than it used to be. The world and the gospel are both unchanged.

I. WHEREIN LIES THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS?

Its doctrine of atonement offends man’s pride.
Its simple teaching offends man’s wisdom, and artificial taste.
Its being a remedy for man’s ruin offends his imagined power to save himself.
Its addressing all as sinners offends the dignity of Pharisees.
Its coming as a revelation offends “modern thought.”
Its lofty holiness offends man’s love of sin.

II. HOW IS THIS OFFENCE SHOWN?

Frequently by the actual persecution of believers.
More often by slandering believers, and sneering at them as old-fashioned, foolish, weak-minded, morose, self-conceited, etc.
Often by omitting to preach the cross. Many nowadays preach a Christless, bloodless gospel.
Or by importing new meanings into orthodox terms.
Or by mixing the truth of Christ with errors.
Or by openly denying the Deity of him who died on the cross, and the substitutionary character of his sufferings.
- Indeed, there are a thousand ways of showing that the cross offends us in one respect or another.

III. WHAT THEN?

Herein is folly, that men are offended
- With that which God ordains;
- With that which must win the day;
- With the only thing which can save them;
- With that which is full of wisdom and beauty.
Herein is grace,
- That we who once were offended by the cross, now find it to be
- The one hope of our hearts,
- The great delight of our souls.
- The joyful boast of our tongues.
Herein is heart-searching.
- Perhaps we are secretly offended at the cross.
- Perhaps we give no offence to haters of the cross. Many professed Christians never cause offence to the most godless.
- Is this because they bear no testimony to the cross?
- Is this because they are not crucified to the world?
- Is this because there is no real trust in the cross, and no true knowledge of Christ?

Let us not follow those preachers who are not friends to the cross.

Let us have no fellowship with those who have no fellowship with Christ.

Preachers who have caught the spirit of the age are of the world, and the world loves its own; but we must disown them.

Let us not be distressed by the offence of the cross, even when it comes upon us with bitterest scorn.

Let us look for it and accept it as a token that we are in the right.

Annotations

There is a want in the human mind which nothing but the Atonement can satisfy, though it may be a stumbling-block to the Jew, and foolishness to the Greek. In the words of Henry Rogers: “It is adapted to human nature, as a bitter medicine may be to a patient. Those who have taken it, tried its efficacy, and recovered spiritual health, gladly proclaim its value. But to those who have not, and will not try it, it is an unpalatable potion still.”

I open an ancient book, written in opposition to Christianity by Arnobius, and I read: “Our gods are not displeased with you Christians for worshiping the Almighty God; but you maintain the deity of one who was put to death on the cross, you believe him to be yet alive, and you adore him with daily supplications.” Men showed me at Rome, in the Kircherian Museum, a square foot of the plaster of a wall of a palace not many years ago uncovered on the Palatine hill. On the poor clay was traced a cross bearing a human figure with a brute’s head. The figure was nailed to the cross, and before it a soldier was represented kneeling, and extending his hands in the Greek posture of devotion. Underneath all was scratched in rude lettering in Greek, “Alexamenos adores his God.” That representation of the central thought of Christianity was made in a jeering moment by some rude soldier in the days of Caracalla; but it blazes there now in Rome, the most majestic monument of its age in the world.—Joseph Cook.

If any part of the truth which I am bound to communicate be concealed, this is sinful artifice. The Jesuits in China, in order to remove the offence of the cross, declared that it was a falsehood invented by the Jews that Christ was crucified; but they were expelled from the empire, and this was designed, perhaps, to be held up as a warning to all missionaries that no good end is to be answered by artifice.

—Richard Cecil.

The cross is the strength of a minister. I, for one, would not be without it for the world. I should feel like a soldier without weapons, like an artist without his pencil, like a pilot without his compass, like a laborer without his tools. Let others, if they will, preach the law and morality. Let others hold forth the terrors of Hell and the joys of Heaven. Let others drench their congregations with teachings about the sacraments and the church. Give me the cross of Christ. This is the only lever which has ever turned the world upside down hitherto, and made men forsake their sins. And if this will not do it, nothing will. A man may begin preaching with a perfect knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; but he will do little or no good among his hearers unless he knows something of the cross. Never was there a minister who did much for the conversion of souls who did not dwell much on Christ crucified. Luther, Rutherford, Whitefield, M’Cheyne, were all most eminent preachers of the cross. This is the preaching that the Holy Spirit delights to bless. He loves to honor those who honor the cross.—J. C. Ryle.

My thoughts once prompt round hurtful things to twine,

What are they now, when two dread deaths are near?

The one impends, the other shakes his spear.

Painting and sculpture’s aid in vain I crave:

My one sole refuge is that love Divine,

Which from the cross stretched forth its arms to save.

Last lines written by Michael Angelo, when over eighty.