The Divine Mystery and Glory of the Cross

We are met together this morning in order that we may look together at and consider the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross on Calvary's Hill, and I propose to do that with you this morning in terms of these words which I've just read to you out of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. [00:25:52]

The Apostle at once gives us the answer to that question, and the answer is that there is an element of mystery in it. We speak, he says, the wisdom of God in a mystery. It's a hidden wisdom, and that is why the cross divides people into these two groups. [00:19:00]

There is of necessity, according to this statement of the Apostle, a hidden element in the cross. In other words, as you stand and look at the cross, you have to start by realizing that it isn't simply what it appears to be. There is a man dying upon a tree. [00:45:52]

The World by wisdom knew not God. They were trying to find God, but they couldn't. Wisdom means human ability, human understanding, philosophy, thought, meditation, an attempt to discover and to arrive at the truth. But here the Apostle reminds us that this hidden element in the cross, this mystery that's at the very heart and center of the Cross, is something that a man can never arrive at just by searching and investigation. [00:56:48]

The first thing is that we find that the cross turns out to be something almost exactly opposite of what we'd always thought. We look at it again, and we see it with new eyes, and we not only see something that we've never seen before, we see something that amazes us and astounds us. [00:53:04]

The Lord Of Glory, crucified. The Creator and sustainer of the universe, the one in whom and by whom all things consist, expiring and dying. Ah, this is a mystery, My Friends. By looking at him, you can't see him veiled in flesh, the godhead. [01:01:28]

The wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our Glory. What was happening on the cross? Men putting the Son of God to death, of course, I agree that's a fact, that's history. But my friend, haven't you seen what's at the back of it? [00:48:08]

The cross is not an afterthought. There are men who comment on the Bible and say, and there's a very popular Bible that says this, that God sent his son into this world to establish his kingdom, but because he was not received by the Jews, this other thing came in as an afterthought. What a lie, what a denial of the scriptures. [00:51:36]

The wisdom of God in a mystery, God reconciling his own Justice and his own love, God bringing together his righteousness and his mercy, and he did it by laying on on him the iniquity of us all. He solved it. He's taken him, his only son, and he's taken my sins and put them upon him. [00:58:56]

The wisdom of God and the power of God, thus having dealt with sin and having punished it, God, I say, can look upon us and smile upon us and receive us and forgive us and bless us and adopt us into his family. The wisdom of God, the Eternal problem solved. [01:00:40]

The Son of God came down and went to the Cross, humbled himself. Why? That we might be exalted. He laid aside his glory. Why? That he might give us something of his own Glory. He did it all unto our Glory. Well, there it is. Have you seen it? [01:03:48]

The glory of the Holy Spirit, the spirit who enabled him while he was here in the days of his flesh to live and to work Miracles and to endure the strain, the eternal spirit through whom he died, gave himself, the spirit that was actively raising him from the grave. [01:05:20]