Glory in the Cross: The Heart of Salvation

The Apostle says, "God forbid that I should be interested in or glory in anything like that. I glory in nothing, I boast in nothing, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ." Well now, in other words, as we've seen, he is telling us here and reminding us that the preaching of the Cross is, after all, the very essential message of the Christian faith and of the Christian Gospel. [00:01:06]

The whole message of the New Testament is to tell us that finally what decides what we are in this world and in the world to come is our reaction to this cross. Now, this is what makes it of such tremendous importance. Our Eternal Destiny depends upon the view we take of the death of Jesus of Nazareth upon the cross on Calvary's Hill. [00:03:23]

There are only two ultimate positions with regard to the cross: it is either an offense to us, it is either something that we hate, something that we ridicule, something on which we P SC as being an insult to us, or else we glory in it. Now, the Apostle didn't merely admire the cross; he glories in it, he bursts of it. [00:04:31]

The Christian is a man who says, "I don't care what's happened, I don't care what may happen, nothing can happen, I don't care what it is, if the bombs are let off, anything you like, nothing can ever approach in significance to me what happened there on the cross on Calvary's Hill when Jesus of Nazareth died and was buried in a grave and rose again and went back to the glory Everlasting." [00:05:57]

The cross is the center of God's plan; it's the center of God's way of saving the world. That's why the Apostle puts it again to the Corinthians in that first epistle in the first chapter which I read last Sunday night: "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto us which are saved, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." [00:24:43]

The Apostle gloried in the cross, and every true Christian glories in it because it is the greatest display and exposition of the character of the Everlasting God. That's what you see when you survey this cross. You don't merely see that glorious person; you look behind it. It isn't only the son that's involved in the cross; the father is involved. [00:25:18]

The cross tells us that God hates sin. God hates it. God is the Eternal antithesis to sin. God abominates with the whole intensity of his Divine and perfect and holy nature. God not only hates sin, God can't tolerate sin. God cannot compromise with sin. That's what we want, of course. We want God to compromise with sin. [00:36:16]

The cross is necessary. Here is the problem: how can such a God possibly forgive any man? How can there be any hope of Heaven for any one of us, for we've all sinned? We are all by Nature the children of Wrath, says Paul to the Ephesians, even as others. We are all naturally God haters. [00:39:36]

The wisdom of God, look at the cross. Here is God's solution to the problem that he saw before he created the world, that man was going to sin, and yet God wants to forgive him. How can he? God, in his eternal wisdom, thought out the way and the plan. Oh, loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame. [00:40:41]

The immutability of God, which means that God doesn't change and cannot change. You see, the god of these moderns is a God not worth worshiping. He's a God who changes and accommodates, and you never know what he's going to do next. He changes every Century according to the scientific knowledge and philosophical speculation. That's not God. [00:43:14]

The most wonderful thing of all, which is the love of God to us. It's not surprising that this Apostle should say to the Romans, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do you see the love of God on the cross on Calvary's Hill? [00:43:48]

I see in that cross the harmony of all the Divine attributes. I see Holiness and love. I see mercy and Truth met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. I see all the Eternal attributes of the Everlasting God, all of them displaying themselves at the same time, no contradiction between the righteousness, the justice, and the love. [00:51:53]