The Cross of Christ Part 1

The Cross of Christ.

by A. B. Simpson.

Chapter 1: The Kaleidoscope of the Cross.

"And the people stood beholding" (Luke 23: 35).

What varied thoughts and feelings moved the hearts of those who stood that day beholding the cross of Calvary! We can perceive the cruel heartlessness with which the Roman soldiers drove the nails and reared the cross, interested only in getting their share of the petty spoil for which they cast lots. We can conceive of the fiendish ferocity with which the rulers and chief priests gloated over the agony of their victim and felt themselves at last avenged. We can comprehend the heartbreak with which those loving women looked upon the helpless anguish of the One in whom they had so much believed. We can realize something of that mother's grief as she recalled the words of Simeon thirty years before, "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also." We can imagine that Peter, gazing from afar upon the tragedy, would have given worlds to have taken back that last dart with which he had pierced his Master's heart, but realized that now he should see Him no more. And we know something from the narrative of the awe and veneration with which the Roman centurion gazed upon the preternatural signs which accompanied His death and exclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of G.o.d."

And so they stood beholding. And all through the ages generations after generations have turned their eyes to that central cross as it has loomed larger and loftier above all other spectacles in the vision of the human race. Once more Christ is set forth before us, crucified among us, and faith and love once more stand beholding. As we gaze upon that scene so old and yet so ever new, it seems as if that cross appears like some vision in a kaleidoscope. With every turn that holy Scriptures as they present to us some of these varied phases of the cross of Jesus.

A Death Scene Death is always an impressive spectacle, but this was no ordinary death. Here was a man who did not need to die, but One who chose to die, One who came to die, One whose supreme mission was to die, One over whose cross each of us can write, "He died for me."

A Crucifixion This is more than an ordinary death scene for He "became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Crucifixion was adopted by the Romans as the severest form of capital punishment. It was the most agonizing and it was the most shameful of all deaths. What agony was endured as every muscle was strained to its utmost tension, as the helpless body hung by its own weight from lacerated flesh and bones, slowly dying from sheer anguish with no vital organ wounded, and as the crucible of pain burned up by slow degrees life's last powers of endurance. How pitiful was the cry of the crucified Saviour as it was foreshadowed in the prophetic Psalm: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death" (Psalm 22:14,15). And what shame was suffered as He hung there, crucified between two thieves. He was treated not only as one of them, but worse than either. His very name was blotted out of the family records at Bethlehem, and He was looked upon by men and even treated by His own Father as if He were the worst and vilest criminal that ever lived or died.

A Murder "Him ... ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." "Whom ye have delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go" (Acts 2:23; 3:13). It was a judicial a.s.sa.s.sination. He was G.o.d's martyred Lamb, and our martyred Master.

A Voluntary Sacrifice Jesus said of His own death, "The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." "I lay down my life for the sheep .... I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." He gave Himself for us. "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John 10:14,15,18). As He hung upon that cross, even death could not come till He said, "It is finished," and bowed His head, as if beckoning death to come, and "gave up the ghost." Was there ever a death like this? Human nature flees from death as the worst of all evils. But here was a Man who from the beginning to the end of His life had one supreme object--to lay down His own life for the sake of others.

A Baptism "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished" (Luke 12:50). It was ever present to His thoughts. It was ever calling Him to the cross. It was ever coloring every act and object of His life. It was ever casting its shadow over His consiousness so that He died a thousand deaths before He even approached the cross.

A Pa.s.sion "He showed himself alive after his pa.s.sion" (Acts 1:3). Literally, the word pa.s.sion means suffering. But it conveys the idea of intense suffering, suffering that involved His inner as well as His outer being, His soul and spirit as well as His rent body. It is true that "He poured out his soul unto death."

A Travail Travail is considered the severest form of human agony, and thus represents in the most emphatic light the excruciating anguish of the Saviour's death. But it speaks of more than agony. It has in it the silver lining of hope and life and promise. It is the birth pang of a new creation. "She remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." And so there was a joy even in the Saviour's agony, and already the promise came to Him, "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:10,11) A Decease They "spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31). Decease is more than death. It means an outgoing, a departure, and carries with it the idea of a future life and a continued activity. So He changed the sphere of His existence and pa.s.sed through the gates of death to a higher and more glorious ministry.

A Planting "If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Romans 6:5). This figure has an added charm in the beautiful conjunction of the Easter season and the Spring when all nature is alive with ill.u.s.trations and types of the new creation. The figure of planting is very different from that of burying. It is not a graveplot, but a garden. You do not drop the lifeless remains of some loved one into the gloomy grave; you simply put away a living seed with the confidence that it will bloom forth in beauty in shoot and bud and blossom and fruit. And so the death of Christ was just a glorious planting, and every time we die with Him, we are just making a great investment, from which we are going to reap some day a hundredfold. Let us not be afraid to let the "corn of wheat fall into the ground and die," for "if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

A Lifting Up "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up" (John 3:14). "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he" (John 8:28). "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32). The cross of Christ is intended for the eyes of the whole world. Let us lift Him up by our testimony, by our love, and in our adoring praise and wors.h.i.+p until all the world shall stand beholding.

An Offering The idea of an offering is something that pleases G.o.d. In Christ He beheld for the first time with perfect satisfaction the consecration of a human life. Even if no sinner had ever been saved it still would have been an offering well pleasing to G.o.d, "for a sweet smelling savor."

A Sacrifice A sacrifice is different from an offering. It carries with it the idea of sin to be expiated, of subst.i.tution for the guilty, of atonement for the transgressions of men. So Christ died for sinners that they might not die, and suffered "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to G.o.d" (1 Peter 3:18).

A Great Victory On the cross He met Satan and overthrew him. "Having spoiled princ.i.p.alities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (the cross) (Col. 2:15). And so we are said to overcome by the blood of the Lamb.

An Example "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow in his steps... who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness" (1Peter 2:21,23,24). The crucifixion was a great object lesson of submission, gentleness, meekness and self surrender. "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7). Christ's death is much more than this; but let us not forget this also amid the suffering and trial through which we follow Him.

A Ransom Christ's death was the meeting of the conditions of that great covenant which the Father had made with His Son ages before, promising eternal life to all for whom He should pay this costly price. And now the price has been paid, the redemption accomplished, and the heirs of the covenant may come and claim as much as that blood is worth.

A Reconciliation At Christ's cross G.o.d and the sinner can meet while Christ stands between reaching out one pierced hand to the Father and pleading, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," and the other to sinners and beseeching, "Be ye reconciled to G.o.d."

A Revelation "G.o.d commendeth his love toward us" not by talking about it, but by doing something which proves it and commends it as no words could ever have done, "in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

A Pledge of the New Creation Christ's cross is the pledge of the new creation, for there old humanity died in the person of the seed of the woman, and new humanity was born in the person of the second Adam. And now, as we identify ourselves with Him we are counted dead with Him to the curse of the law, to the dominion of the carnal nature, to the very center of our physical being and to the extent of the future resurrection itself. The reason I am justified is that the old sinner is dead with Christ, and I am no longer he, or liable for his sins. The reason I have victory over the power of sin is that in Christ I am dead to sin and I need no longer fear it or obey it. The reason I claim my healing in His name is that He has borne the liabilities of my body, and I can lay them over on Him who died for them. And by the same reason I am already antic.i.p.ating the coming resurrection and triumphing over the fear and power of death. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are pa.s.sed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of G.o.d, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 5:17,18).

An Inspiration "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:14,15).

I've got a word in my heart like a fire, That will not let me be; Jesus the Son of G.o.d, who loved And gave Himself for me.

If He'd loved and died for some one else; For Peter or blessed Paul; If He'd loved and died for men like these; One wouldn't have wondered at all.

But 'twas for me that Jesus died, For me and a world of men; Just as sinful, and just as slow To give back His love again.

Did'st Thou love and die for a man like me?

Then, Master, I will take More thought for the peris.h.i.+ng souls I meet If it's only for Thy sake.

Identification The cross of Christ demands from each of us identification. It is of no use to us unless we make it our own and enter into His death and resurrection. "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto G.o.d through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:11).

When Jesus died on Calvary, I, too, was there 'Twas in my place He stood for me And now accepted, even as He His righteousness I share.

Chapter 2: Under the Shadow of the Cross.

"This do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19).

This inscription placed by the hands of the Master over the Feast of Love might well be made the watchword of our whole Christian life. The Lord's Supper is a sort of microcosm, or miniature, of the believer's life, and over every moment, every word and every action we may well inscribe, "Do this in remembrance of me." After good Archbishop Darboy had been murdered by the Paris Communists, they found upon the walls of his dungeon the sketch of a rude cross, with these four words marking its extreme dimensions: height, depth, length, breadth. To his devout spirit the cross seemed to measure the love of G.o.d and the grace of Christ in its height and depth and length and breadth.

The arms of that cross are wide enough to cover every need and every experience of our daily lives. Its foundations are deeper than our deepest sorrows, and our loftiest heights of rapture can never reach above its heavenly alt.i.tude. It is G.o.d's measure not only of His love, but of our lives.

The medieval saints used to erect, in the center of the market square of every town, a simple cross, so that it came to be known as the Market Cross; and it may still be seen in many of the older towns of Europe. The simple and beautiful idea was that the cross should dominate all the business of earthly life, and that all transactions, interests and concerns should ever be under that shadow of the cross.

"Under the shadow of the cross" --how much this phrase suggests of sweetness, sacredness and practical consecration. Perhaps you are wearing a gilded cross upon your bosom, dear sister. Does the heart that throbs beneath it beat true to its holy meaning? Are the words that come from that throat, whose necklace is clasped by the symbol of His gentleness and suffering, in keeping with the cross you love to wear?

Are the habiliments of your person and the habits of your life suggestive of Him whose only marks of honor were the thorn rents, the spear gash and the blood drops of agony on Calvary?

Let us contemplate the cross in its practical relation to our actual Christian life.

Refuge for the Sinner When the sinner comes to the deep and awful sense of his guilt and peril, what refuge can he find apart from the cross of Calvary? "Thus far did I come, laden with my sin," wrote Bunyan, telling the story of the sinner's refuge. Then as the strings broke and the burdens rolled away, there came the joyful song of praise, "Blest Cross! Blest Sepulcher! blest rather be The Man that there was put to shame for me."

Refuge for the Tempted When temptation comes and the newborn soul has found its first stumbling stone, what can bring deliverance and victory but the cross of Calvary? And oh, what new light comes as the soul begins to fully realize that Christ has purchased for it not merely a brief reprieve or a new probation, but a complete and everlasting vindication. Our sins have not only been forgiven, but obliterated; in fact, they have ceased to be our sins and have been a.s.sumed by the great Sin Bearer, and we are henceforth as free from liability for them as if we had never sinned! In the death of Calvary we have died, and we stand before the judgment and the high court of heaven in the position of those who have paid the full penalty for sin already and who, looking up in the face of heaven, can say, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of G.o.d's elect? It is G.o.d that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of G.o.d" (Romans 8:33,34).

Salvation from the Effects of Sin Sometimes our past comes back again like great ocean billows threatening to overwhelm us. It is then tat the cross rises as a mighty barrier and breakwater, even as rocks resist the billows around their sh.o.r.es, and we find that instead of reaping the harvest of our evil sowing, there is One that has reaped the wretched issue for us and we are free. We do not have to pa.s.s through the processes of natural law or pay the full penalty which sin exacts in the present life; but we may claim complete deliverance from the wreck of body and brain, and from temporal conditions which might justly have been our heritage, and go forth into a life as glorious and free as if we had just dropped from heaven, the new creation of infinite love.

Sanctification through the Cross When we come to the great conflict with inbred sin we find once more that the cross has made provision not only for our justification but also for our sanctification. We do not have to fight alone the demon of depravity in our own hearts or slowly build up out of the wreckage of the past a holy character. But we find that the old man, as well as the old deeds, was crucified with Him, and that it is our privilege to lay off the nature of self and sin and put on the very nature and life of Christ Himself "who of G.o.d is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30). And as the process of grace goes deeper and reveals to us yet undiscovered depths of corruption, we shall find that the cross is deeper still and that with every new revelation we may continue to put off" the old man with his deeds and...put on the new man" in a loftier resurrection life, as step by step we come to "know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellows.h.i.+p of his suffering, being mane conformable unto his death" (Phil. 3:10).

Healing through the Cross Still further we slowly learn that the shadow of that cross touches our mortal frame, that our very bodies have been redeemed, that our liability to sickness because of sin has been canceled by His death, that we may lay over our sicknesses and infirmities upon Him who bore them, and that we may take His resurrection life for every physical need of this mortal frame. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastis.e.m.e.nt of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" (Isa. 53:5).

Fellows.h.i.+p with His Cross Much of our life contains suffering and trial and the shadow of the cross is also here. Looking upon our trials as unmeaning accidents, the blow of fate, the luck of evil fortune, or the cruel wrongs of men and women is so different from taking them from our Father's hand as the cup of His loving discipline and as the fellows.h.i.+p of our Saviour's cross! How we have striven sometimes with some tremendous sorrow, and have refused to bow our head as it grew darker and more dreadful and as the iron of despair entered our nerveless soul. Then at last a sweet message from the heart of G.o.d the Comforter has breathed the prayer of faith and submission, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" How the clouds melted away, and like a benediction there have fallen upon our hearts the precious words, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). And again the echo has fallen upon our ears, "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy" (2 Peter 4:12,13). Ah, but you say, "People caused my sufferings." Well, did not people cause His? And that is the very thing which makes your fellows.h.i.+p with His cross complete. But again I hear you say, "Yes, but I am innocent of the things they say; I am misrepresented, lied about and persecuted." Was not that the very glory of His cross? Are you going to throw back on Him the burden which He has left for you to share? Yes, it is true that we may "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ... for his body's sake, which is the church" (Col. 1:24). You can never share the wrath of G.o.d for sin; that H bore alone. But He has left for you to carry with Him, "the fellows.h.i.+p of his sufferings." An old legend tells us that when He met Simon Peter fleeing from Rome to escape the fiery wrath of Nero, He asked him, "Whither goest thou?" Peter frankly answered and told of his flight, and then asked in turn, "Lord, whither goest Thou?" The answer came, "I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time, because My disciple Peter has run away from his cross." It is no wonder that Peter turned back from his flight and hastened with downward head to follow his dying Lord. Let us also return and follow the Crucified.

Must Jesus bear the cross alone?

And all the world go free?

No, there's a cross for every one, And there's a cross for me.

But it will cease to be a cross when we are sweetly conscious that He is bearing the other end, and that we are suffering with Him now and shall yet be glorified together. Beloved, surely we may say, as we think of all these things, "G.o.d forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14).

The cross, it takes our guilt away, It holds the fainting spirit up; It cheers with hope the gloomy day And sweetens every bitter cup.

The balm of life, the cure of woe, The measure and the pledge of love, The sinner's refuge here below, The angels' theme in heaven above.

Our Att.i.tude to Others through the Cross The cross is also practical and powerful in its influence upon our ministry for others, our relation to the world and our work for G.o.d. How differently we would think, speak and judge concerning our fellow Christians if we lived more under the shadow of the cross. A Christian lady once asked, "How can I be delivered from the spirit of censorious judging and sever speaking of the faults of others?" In that moment came to me a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing the sins of others and taking them upon Himself. For us then to put our hands upon them is really to crucify Him afresh and demand that He should suffer again for the things that He has already borne. The revelation was so unspeakably vivid that it came almost like a shock and whatever effect this truth may have had upon the heart and life of the friend in question, the writer will never forget the awful light in which it seemed to place the sin of uncharitableness, censoriousness and evil speaking. Is not this covered by such texts as this, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" "Who shall lay anything to the charge of G.o.d's elect?... Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died." Beloved, let us think and speak and love henceforth under the shadow of the cross.

Our Att.i.tude to the World through the Cross The apostle declares that through the cross he has been crucified unto the world and the world unto him. Is this true of us? Do we look upon this world as the enemy that murdered our Lord? Can we join hands with it in its Christless pleasures and G.o.dless ambitions any more than a sister could dance with the ruffian that had murdered her brother? The world crucified our Christ and to us henceforth it must be recognized as our foe. Indeed, by the death of Christ we have died to the world and are counted as men that have pa.s.sed out of it and then come back to it in a second life as G.o.d's sent ones, commissioned to represent the Master her. We cannot do this if we stoop to the world's level. It is from our heavenly place of ident.i.ty with Him that we may expect to lift it to the higher level.

The cross in the market place! Oh, what a difference it would make if the cross of Calvary dominated all our business dealings, all our social amus.e.m.e.nts, all our pleasures and all our plans! Avarice would not dare claim its graft. Pleasure would blush in its mad revel before that vision of Him who came not to seek enjoyment or gain, but rather to lay down His rights and give up His very life, not only as an example of righteousness, but as a sacrifice of love.

The Cross--the Inspiration of Zeal and Sacrifice And oh, how poor our sacrifices and services for our Master and our fellowmen appear under the shadow of the cross! "He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:15). The cross is the only inspiration of true benevolence, sacrifice and zeal for the salvation of men and the salvation of the world. If its mark has been placed upon us, then we are not our own; we are bought with a price, and all we are and have belongs to Him, and the great sacrifice is little to give to Him. A contemporary journal stated that during the last winter of the war in Manchuria the j.a.panese emperor, learning of the sufferings of his soldiers from the awful rigors of the Russian winter, was so distressed that he refused to allow the fires to be lighted in his palace and he spent that winter in fellows.h.i.+p with the sufferings of his heroic army. Such was the spirit of Jesus when our race was in peril. Heaven could be to Him no longer heaven, but down from the seats of glory He hastened to share our sin and save our world. Oh, surely, we might watch with Him one hour, and count it joy to share the fellows.h.i.+p of His love by sacrifice and service for the salvation of men!

Are we doing this? Has the cross put its mark upon our ministry, upon our gifts, upon our personal labors for Him and for the peris.h.i.+ng around us and the heathen in more distant lands? Well may we cry when we think of such love: Oh, for a pa.s.sionate pa.s.sion for souls!

Oh, for the pity that yearns!

Oh, for the love that loves unto death!

Oh, for the fire that burns!

No Cross, No Crown What significance will the cross have in connection with the crown? Beloved, if anything is true, this is true, that there will be nothing in heaven that does not have the mark of the cross upon it and has not pa.s.sed through death and resurrection. Even the very earth and heavens must pa.s.s away, and a new heaven and a new earth emerge. There shall be no joy, there shall be no glory, there shall be no crown for us there that did not come from some surrender, some sacrifice, some renunciation, some crucifixion here. G.o.d help us, therefore, to stamp upon all our life below and our crown above the pa.s.sion sign of the cross.

Chapter 3: The Brand of the Cross.

"From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal. 6:17) The word marks in this text is translated by Rotherham, "brand marks." The world describes a mark that has been branded into the flesh, and suggests the idea of the cruel practice of certain nations in branding political offenders in the face with a badge of dishonor which never could be erased. The Greek word literally means "a stigma," and suggests a mark of reproach and shame. The apostle says that he bears in his body to branded scar which identifies him with Christ and His cross. The kind of mark which he refers to is made plain by the verse almost immediately preceding, "G.o.d forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14). It is the cross of Christ which is the object at once of His shame and His glory. Let us look first at the marks of the Lord Jesus, and then at their reproduction in His followers.

The Cross Marks of Christ He was always overshadowed by the cross which at last He bore on Calvary. His life was a life of humiliation and suffering from the manger to the tomb. His birth was under a shadow of dishonor and shame. The shadow that fell upon the virgin mother could not be removed from her child, and even to this day only faith in a supernatural incarnation can explain away that reproach.

His childhood was overshadowed by sorrow. Soon after His birth, He was pursued by Herod with relentless hate. He spent His early childhood as an exile in the eland of Egypt, which had always been a.s.sociated in the history of His people as the house of bondage.

His early manhood was spent in toil and poverty and He was known all His later life as "the carpenter's son." A modern painter represents Him as under the shadow of the cross even in the early days at Nazareth; as He returns from a day of toil with arms outstretched with weariness, the setting sun flings the shadow of His figure across the pathway, suggestive of a dark cross.

His life was one of poverty and humiliation. He had nowhere to lay His head, and when He died His body was laid even in a borrowed tomb.

He was rejected and despised by the people among whom He labored. "He came unto his won, and his own received hem not" (John 1:11). His work was, humanly speaking, a complete failure, and when He left the world He had but a handful of followers who had remained true to His teachings and person.

His very friends and companions were of the humblest cla.s.s, rude fishermen and common people without culture and, indeed, often without the ability to appreciate their blessed Master. Coming from the society of heaven, how H must have felt the strange difference of these rude a.s.sociates; and yet, never once did He complain or even intimate the difference.

The spirit of His life was ever chastened and humble. The veil of modesty covered all His acts and att.i.tudes. He never boasted or vaunted Himself. "He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets." (Matt. 12:19), was the prophetic picture which He so literally fulfilled. He sought no splendid pageants, asked no earthly honors; and the only time that He did a.s.sume the prerogatives of a king, He rode upon the foal of an a.s.s and entered Jerusalem in triumph as the King of meekness rather than of pride.

Perhaps the severest strain of all His life was the repression of Himself. Knowing that he was Almighty and Divine, He yet held back the exercise of His supernatural powers. Knowing that with one withering glance He could have stricken His enemies and laid them lifeless at His feet, He restrained His power. Knowing that He could have summoned all the angels of heaven to His defense, He surrendered Himself to His captors in helplessness and defenselessness. He even surrendered the exercise of His own will, and drew from His Heavenly Father the very grace and power which He needed from day to day, the same as any sinful man who lives by faith and prayer. "I can of mine own self do nothing," He said. "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me" (John 6:57). He took the same place of dependence that the humblest believer takes today and in all things lived a life of self-renunciation.

At last the climax came in the supreme trial of the judgment hall and the cruel cross. When He became obedient unto death, a death of shame and unparalleled humiliations, insults and agonies completed His life sacrifices for the salvation of His people. What words can ever describe, what tongue can ever tell the weight, the sharpness, the agony of that cruel cross, the fierceness of His fight with the powers of darkness and the depths of woe when even His Father's face was averted and He bore for us the h.e.l.l that sin deserved.

After His resurrection, He still bore the marks of the cross. The few glimpses that we find of the risen Christ are all marked by the same touches of gentleness, selfabnegation and remembered suffering. The very evidences that He gave them that He was the same Jesus were the marks of the spear and the nails; and in His manifestations to them, especially in that memorable scene at Emmaus, we see the same gentle, un.o.btrusive Christ, walking with them by the way unrecognized and then quietly vanis.h.i.+ng our of their sight when at last they knew him. And even on the throne to which He has now ascended, the same cross marks still remain amid the glories of the heavenly world. John beheld Him as "a limb as it had been slain." The Christ of heaven still bears the old marks of the cross as His highest glory and His everlasting memorial. Such are the marks of the Lord Jesus, and all who claim to be His followers and His ministers may well imitate them. The men who claim to be His apostles and amba.s.sadors, and who come to us with the sound of trumpets, the bl.u.s.ter of earthly pageants and the pompous and egotistical boastings of pride and vainglory, are false prophets and wretched counterfeits of the Christ of Calvary and can deceive only the blind and ignorant dupes who know nothing of the real Christ.

These were the marks of the Master, and they will be worn by His servants, too.

The Cross Marks of the Christian "The servant is not greater than his lord" (John 13:16). The tests of the Master must be applied to His followers. We may not preach a crucified Saviour without being also crucified men and women. It is not enough to wear an ornamental cross as a pretty decoration. The cross that Paul speaks about was burned into his very flesh, was branded into his being; and only the Holy Ghost can burn the true cross into our innermost life.

We are saved by identification with Christ in His death. We are justified because we have already died with Him and have thus been made free from sin. G.o.d does not whitewash people when He saves them. He has really visited their sins upon their great Subst.i.tute, the Lord Jesus Christ, and every believer was counted as in Him when He died; and so His death is our death and it puts us in the same position before the law of the supreme Judge as if we had already been executed and punished for our own guilty, as if the judgment for us was already past. Therefore, it is true of every believer, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on hem that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is pa.s.sed from death unto life" (John 5:24). The cross, therefore, is the very standpoint of the believer's salvation, and we shall never cease to echo the song of heaven. "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive ... honor, and glory, and blessing" (Rev. 5:12). We are sanctified by dying with Christ to sin. When He hung on Calvary, He not only made a settlement for our acts of sin, but He bore with Him on that cross our sinful self; and by faith we reckon ourselves as actually crucified with Him there to the whole life of sin. It is our privilege, therefore, to identify ourselves with Christ in His death so fully that we may lay over our sinful nature upon Him and utterly die to it, and then receive from Him a life all new, divine and pure. Henceforth we may say, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). Sanctification is not the cleansing of the old life, but the crucifying of that life and subst.i.tuting for it the very life of Christ Himself, the Holy and Perfect One.

We must keep sanctified by dead reckoning. And dead reckoning is just the reckoning of ourselves as "dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto G.o.d through Jesus Christ" (Rom. 6:11). This is not merely a feeling or experience, but a counting upon Him as life and drawing from Him as breath from the air around us.

Our spiritual life is perfected by the constant recognition of the cross and by our unceasing application of it to all our life and being. We must live by the cross and must pa.s.s from death to death and life to life by constant fellows.h.i.+p with His sufferings and conformity unto His death, until at last we shall "attain unto the resurrection of the dead" (Phil. 3:11).

Now this principle of death and resurrection underlies all nature as well as the Bible. The autumn leaves with their rich crimson are just a parable of nature's dying to make way for the resurrection of the coming spring. Pick up an acorn in the forest, and in its heart, as you break the sh.e.l.l, you will find a crimson hairline as the cross mark of its hidden life. When it bursts through the ground in the spring, the first opening leaf is red, the color of the cross, and when the leaf dies and falls in autumn it wraps itself in the same crimson hue.

But all this is but a stepping stone of the life that follows. Look at the structure and growth of a flower. First, the calyx or flower cup tightly clasps the enfolding petals, refusing to let go. But gradually these fingers relax, these folds unclasp, and the petals burst open in all their fragrance and beauty. But still the calyx holds them tightly as if it would never let go, but hour by hour, as the flower-life advances, those petals have to be relinquished from the grasp, and in a little while the blossom floats away on the summer winds and seems to perish. "The flower fadeth," the beauty of nature dies. But observe that after death comes a richer life. Behind the flower you will notice a seed pod. It also is held for a time by the grasp of another cup. But as the seeds ripen, even they must let go this grasp, and gradually the seed pod relaxes and at length bursts open and the seeds are scattered and sink into the ground and die. But from the buried seed comes forth a new resurrection of plants and trees and flowers and fruits. The whole process is one of dying and living, one life giving place to a higher, and all moving steadily on to the reproduction of the plant and the stage of fruit bearing. So marked is this principle in the natural world that botanists tell us that when a flower gives too much attention to the blossom and develops into a double flower, which is the most beautiful form of the bloom, it becomes barren and fruitless. Nature puts its ban upon self life even in a flower. It must die and pa.s.s away if it would bear much fruit. A beautiful double petunia is no good; but a single-petalled blossom has in it the life of another generation. And so our spiritual life must pa.s.s down to deeper deaths and on and up to the higher experiences of life, or we shall lose even what we have. We cannot cling to the sweetest spiritual experiences, the fondest object of our highest joy, without ceasing to grow and ceasing to bear that fruit which is the very nature of our salvation.

The Principle of Death in Our Deeper Life We must learn not only to give up our wrongs, but even our rights. It is little that we should turn from sin; if we are to follow Christ and His consecration, we must turn from the things that are not sinful and learn the great lesson of self-renunciation even in rightful things. The everlasting ideal is He who though in the form of G.o.d, thought it not a thing to be eagerly grasped that He should be equal with G.o.d, but emptied Himself and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. There are many things which are not wrong for you to keep and to hold as your own, but in keeping them, He would lose and you would lose much more.

We have the cross mark upon our affections and friends.h.i.+ps. Thus Abraham gave us his Isaac, and received him back with a new touch of love as G.o.d's Isaac. We shall find that most of the lives that counted much for G.o.d had somewhere in them a great renunciation, where the dearest idol was laid upon Moriah's altar and from that hour there was new fruit and power.

Our prayers must often have the mark of the cross upon them. We ask and we receive the promise and a.s.surance of the answer; and then we must often see that answer apparently buried and forgotten, and long after come forth, to our amazement and surprise, multiplied with blessings that have grown out of the very delay and seeming denial.

So the life of our body which we may claim from Him must be marked with the cross. It is only after the strength of nature fails us that the strength of G.o.d can come in. And even then the answer is sometimes not given until we have first surrendered it to Him and have been willing to give up even life itself and have learned to seek the Blesser rather than the blessing. Then often G.o.d reveals Himself to us as a Healer, as He could not do until we were wholly abandoned to His will.

Our religious experiences must have the mark of the cross upon them. We must not cling even to our peace and joy and spiritual comfort. Sometimes, the flower must fade that the fruit may be more abundant, and that we may learn to walk by faith and not by sight.

Our service for G.o.d often must be buried before it can bring forth much fruit. And so G.o.d sometimes calls us to a work and makes it appear to fail in its early stages, until we cry in discouragement, "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought." Then it comes forth Phoenix-like from the flames, and blossoms and buds until it fills the face of the world with fruit. So G.o.d writes the mark of the cross on everything, until by and by, the very grave, may be the pa.s.sport to a better resurrection and death will be swallowed up in victory. In fact, we believe that the universe itself has yet to pa.s.s through its dissolution and come forth in the glory of a final resurrection so that the marks of the Lord Jesus may, as last, be written upon the very earth and heaven, and so that the universe to its furthest bounds may re-echo the great redemption song: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." Beloved, have you the marks of the Lord Jesus? These sacrifices to which He sometimes calls us are just great investments that He is asking us to make and that He will refund to us with acc.u.mulated interest in the age to come. Good Richard Cecil once asked his little daughter, as she sat upon his knee, with a cl.u.s.ter of pretty gla.s.s beads around her neck, if she truly loved him, and if she loved him enough to take those beads and fling them into the fire. She looked in his face with wonder and grief; she could hardly believe that he meant such sacrifice. But his steady gaze convinced her that he was in earnest, and with trembling, reluctant steps she tottered to the grate, and clinging to them with reluctant fingers, at last dropped them into the fire, and then flinging herself into his arms, she sobbed herself to stillness in the bewilderment and perplexity of her renunciation. He let her learn her lesson fully, but a few days later, on her birthday, she found upon her dressing case a little package, and on opening it she found inside a cl.u.s.ter of real pearls strung upon a necklace and bearing her name with her father's love. She had scarcely time to grasp the beautiful present as she flew to his presence and throwing herself in his arms, she said, "Oh, Papa, I am so sorry that I did not understand." Some day, beloved, in His arms, you will understand. He does not always explain it now. He lets the cross have all its sharpness. He lets the weary years go by; but oh, some day we will understand and be so glad that we were permitted to bear with Him and for Him the "brand marks of the Lord Jesus."

Chapter 4: The Uplift of the Cross.

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32).

A story is told of a medieval saint who asked his attendants to lift him from his death bed and place him on a cross. As he lay there and breathed out his life, he kept repeating with glowing eye and s.h.i.+ning face the simple words, "It lifts me up, it lifts me up."