Three Crucifixions

Paul vigorously rebuked those who went aside from the doctrine of the Cross. Verses 12, 13.

When we rebuke others, we must take care to go right ourselves; hence he says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross.”

Our own resolute adherence to truth, when practically carried out, is a very powerful argument against opponents.

Paul rises to warmth when he thinks of the opponents of the cross. He no sooner touches the subject than he glows and burns.

Yet he has his reasons, and states them clearly and forcibly in the latter words of the text.

Here are three crucifixions:—

I. CHRIST CRUCIFIED: “The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

He mentions the atoning death of Jesus in the plainest and most obnoxious terms. The cross was shameful as the gallows tree.

Yet with the clearest contrast as to the person enduring it; for to him he gives his full honors in the glorious title—“our Lord Jesus Christ.”

He refers to the doctrine of free justification and full atonement by the death of Jesus upon the cross.

In this he gloried so as to glory in nothing else, for he viewed it—

1. As a display of the divine character. “God was in Christ”: 2 Corinthians 5:19.

2. As the manifestation of the love of the Savior. John 15:13.

3. As the putting away of sin by atonement. Hebrews 9:26.

4. As the breathing of hope, peace, and joy to the desponding soul.

5. As the great means of touching hearts and changing lives.

6. As depriving death of terror, seeing Jesus died.

7. As ensuring Heaven to all believers.

   • In any one of these points of view the cross is a pillar of light, flaming with unutterable glory.

II. THE WORLD CRUCIFIED: “The world is crucified unto me.”

As the result of seeing all things in the light of the Cross, he saw the world to be like a felon executed upon a cross.

1. Its character condemned. John 12:31.

2. Its judgment contemned. Who cares for the opinion of a gibbeted felon?

3. Its teachings despised. What authority can it have?

4. Its pleasures, honors, treasures, rejected.

5. Its pursuits, maxims, and spirit cast out.

6. Its threatenings and blandishments made nothing of.

7. Itself soon to pass away, its glory and its fashion fading.

III. THE BELIEVER CRUCIFIED: “And I unto the world.”

To the world Paul was no better than a man crucified.

If faithful, a Christian may expect to be treated as only fit to be put to a shameful death.

He will probably find—

1. Himself at first bullied, threatened, and ridiculed.

2. His name and honor held in small repute because of his association with the godly poor.

3. His actions and motives misrepresented.

4. Himself despised as a sort of madman, or of doubtful intellect.

5. His teaching described as exploded, dying out, etc.

6. His ways and habits reckoned to be Puritanic and hypocritical.

7. Himself given up as irreclaimable, and therefore dead to society.

Let us glory in the cross, because it gibbets the world’s glory, and honor, and power.

Let us glory in the cross when men take from us all other glory.

Memoranda

It is a subject of rejoicing and glorying that we have such a Savior. The world looked upon him with contempt; and the cross was a stumbling-block to the Jew, and folly to the Greek. But to the Christian that cross is the subject of glorying. It is so because—(1) of the love of him who suffered there; (2) of the purity and holiness of his character, for the innocent died there for the guilty; (3) of the honor there put on the law of God by his dying to maintain it unsullied; (4) of the reconciliation there made for sin, accomplishing what could be done by no other oblation, and by no power of man; (5) of the pardon there procured for the guilty; (6) of the fact that through it we become dead to the world, and are made alive unto God; (7) of the support and consolation which go from that cross to sustain us in trial; and (8) of the fact that it procured for us admission into Heaven, a title to the world of glory. All is glory around the cross. It was a glorious Savior who died; it was glorious love that led him to die; it was a glorious object to redeem a world; and it is unspeakable glory to which he will raise lost and ruined sinners by his death. Oh, who would not glory in such a Savior!—Albert Barnes.

If you have not yet found out that Christ crucified is the foundation of the whole volume, you have hitherto read your Bible to very little profit. Your religion is a Heaven without a sun, an arch without a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without spring or weights, a lamp without oil. It will not comfort you; it will not deliver your soul from hell.—J. C. Ryle.

Do not be satisfied with so many others only to know the cross in its power to atone. The glory of the cross is, that it was not only to Jesus the path to life, but that each moment it can become to us the power that destroys sin and death, and keeps us in the power of the eternal life. Learn from your Savior the holy are of using it for this. Faith in the power of the cross and its victory will day by day make dead the deeds of the body, the lusts of the flesh. This faith will teach you to count the cross, with its continual death to self, all your glory. Because you regard the cross not as one who is still on the way to crucifixion, with the prospect of a painful death, but as one to whom the crucifixion is past, who already lives in Christ, and now only bears the cross as the blessed instrument through which the body of sin is done away (Romans 6:6, R. V.). The banner under which complete victory over sin and the world is to be won is the cross.—Andrew Murray.

When Ignatius, pastor of the church at Antioch, was condemned by the emperor Trajan to suffer death at Rome, he was apprehensive that the Christians there, out of their great affection for him, might endeavor to prevent his martyrdom; and therefore wrote a letter from Smyrna to the Roman Christians, which he sent on before him, wherein he earnestly besought them to take no measures for the continuance of his life; and, among other things, said, “I long for death,” adding as a reason why he was desirous of thus testifying his love to Christ, “My love is crucified.”

Love makes the cross easy, amiable, admirable, delicious.

Brethren, the cross of Christ is your crown, the reproach of Christ your riches; the shame of Christ your glory.—Joseph Alleine, written from “The Common Prison.”