The Glory of the Cross

A.C. Dixon brings out how the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is forever something that we will glory in. This is taken from Keswick's Authentic Voice edited by Herbert F. Stevenson:

"To-day we enter the Holy of Holies of our Christian faith. Three Scriptures serve as the key-texts of our study. The first is in Luke 23:33-35, 'They crucified Him . . . and the people stood beholding.' The second is I Corinthians 2:2, 'I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.' The third is Galatians 6:14, 'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.'

"The tragedy of the crucifixion is one thing; the deeper meaning of the cross is quite another. In its tragedy it is repulsive; in its deeper meaning it is the most attractive thing in all God’s universe. We may learn something from the tragedy. As we stand under the cross, and listen and look, we may love and live. As we listen we really hear the voice of the cross speaking toward God: what the cross has to say to heaven. It is the voice of prayer, 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do' [Luke 23:34]. The cross of Christ is a prayer to heaven for the forgiveness of a lost world, even for those who killed Him. If we bear any unforgiving spirit toward anybody, let us bring it into the light and heat of this prayer of our Master; and never refuse to forgive until somebody treats us worse than they treated Jesus, if we would be like Him.

"As we listen, we hear again the voice of promise, 'To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise' [Luke 23:43]. The only door to paradise, here and hereafter, is the cross of Christ. I have met people who ignored the cross, to whom it was an offence, and they mocked at the 'religion of the shambles'; but I have yet to meet one such who has deep peace and joy of soul. Paradise enters into us, and we into paradise, through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"And as we listen we hear the voice of physical need, 'I thirst' [John 19:28]. The cross of Christ is the appeal to God for the body as well as the soul. There is redemption of the body; and every need of the body—its hunger, its thirst, its infirmity—finds expression, so to speak, Godward, through Christ on the cross.

"Again, as we listen we hear the voice of the soul’s deepest need, 'My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken me?' [Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46]. That is death—separation from God; that is hell—'Depart from me.' And He 'tasted death for every man.'

"That little word 'Why?' is a dangerous word to use when we are in the furnace and on the cross; to ask God the reason for things. It often makes us stumble; but if you will follow the example of the Master, you will always be safe. 'My God! Why?' Cling to God while you ask the question, and sooner or later it will be answered. The mistake is that 'Why?' should sometimes make us turn our faces away from God in the times of our crucifixion.

"Then we hear the voice of human love, 'Woman, behold thy son! Behold thy mother!' Through the cross of Christ, about all there is in motherhood, and fatherhood, and childhood, and wifehood, has come to us. You do not find the home really where the cross has not touched. Dean Farrar points out the fact that in all the classic literature of the ancients there is not a reference to the joys of childhood, just because they had no joys; they were chattels and slaves. And there is no reference to the joy of wifehood; and an ingrate is the man who may thank God for home and all that means, and not accept Jesus Christ on the cross.

"Then, as you listen, you hear the voice of victory, 'It is finished' [John 19:30]. The work of atonement is done. 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit . . .' [Luke 23:46], the note of victory still. And it is right there where the death of the Christian, the physical death of the Christian, begins. He does not have to say, 'Why hast Thou forsaken me?' That is death; but Jesus died for him, and he can look up and say, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' The dying of the Christian is just the commending of the spirit, redeemed by the blood of Christ, into the hands of the Father.

"We might look about the cross and learn something. 'The people stood beholding' [Luke 23:35], some of the religious—priests—wagging their heads and mocking. Those who wag their heads and mock still at the cross of Jesus are sometimes the most religious.

"There was a group of women with just enough religion to make them miserable. They have come along. After faith has failed, their love holds out, and it brings them near the cross. Oh, friend, it is better to have enough faith and love to make you miserable than to have none at all; and if you will keep near the cross, in it you are near the Lord.

"I love to look at that sturdy Roman centurion, as strong a man, perhaps, as Roman civilization produced. He has a duty to perform; he has the papers in his pocket, and as an officer he must perform that duty. He is intellectually convinced. 'Certainly this is a righteous man' (Luke 23:47), and by-and-by, 'This is the son of a god.' But he keeps right on with the crucifixion; and I know men of clear intellect, who are intellectually convinced of the Deity of Christ, but they keep right on with the crucifixion. They do not join with those that worship and praise.

"As we look above the cross at that inscription, we learn something. It is in Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew—the language of culture, the language of power, and the language of religion. 'The place for learning is not above the cross,' says an old Puritan, 'but at the foot.' It got into the wrong place. Yet it teaches a great lesson, that what the culture of the Greek needs, and what the sturdy Roman needs, and what the religious Hebrew needs, is the cross of Jesus Christ. What your culture needs, and what your strength needs, if you have any, and what your religion needs, is the cleansing power of the precious blood.

"On the way to Damascus Paul had a vision of the glorified Christ, his first view of Him. But he never gloried in the glorified. He came back in the light of the glorified to the crucified, and said, 'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross . . .' (Galatians 6:14).

"When Leonardo de Vinci had finished his great painting of the Last Supper, he took a friend with him to criticize it, and as the friend looked at it he said, 'The most beautiful thing in your picture is the cup.' The artist took his brush and wiped out the cup. He said, 'Nothing in my picture shall attract more attention than the face of my Master.' And that was the religion of the apostle Paul. 'Nothing in my preaching, in my character, in my mission, if I can help it, shall attract more attention than the cross of Christ. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross.'

"It is the glory of the cross that we ask the Holy Spirit to help us talk about now for a few minutes. We can put it, as far as it can be put, in one word, the word 'sacrificial.' In Christ and the cross there is the glory of sacrificial love. Love sometimes just enjoys itself, and it may not be sinful under certain circumstances. That is the tendency of human love, the first tendency, it may be; but love enjoying itself is not glory. It is love giving itself in sacrifice for others that has about it the halo of glory. When you behold Christ on the cross you have seen God. God has power, God has wisdom, and 'God is love.' If you would have a clear vision of God in the glory of His love, you must see Him in Jesus Christ on the cross. He is more glorious there, even than in the power of the resurrection, important as that is; but the resurrection is just the stamp of heaven’s authority upon the gold of God’s love, that makes it coin current between earth and heaven.

"I have been interested, as I have read the Scriptures lately, in noticing how God takes it for granted that He loves us. He just expects us to read it between the lines everywhere, and see it when He does not mention it. I decided to preach a series of sermons on that little text, 'God is love.' Well, I said, 'I will take Genesis, and unfold the love of God in Genesis.' What was my astonishment to find that Genesis has not a declaration of God’s love in it! The word 'love' occurs thirteen times, but there is no reference to God’s love. There is retribution, there is righteousness, there is power, there is justice, declared; but God seems to take it for granted that we know He loves us. 'Well,' I said, 'I must get my first sermon from Exodus.' It is not in Exodus! If it is, I wish you would drop me a postcard and give me the place! 'Then,' I said, 'we will have a good time in Leviticus.' It is not in Leviticus! There is no declaration of God’s love in Leviticus. 'To be sure it is in Numbers!' It is not in Numbers. In Deuteronomy there is an unfolding of God’s love almost as in the book of John. It comes like a flash of light from heaven. 'Well,' I said, 'I will make up for lost time when I reach the New Testament. I will preach a sermon on the love of God as declared in the Gospel of Matthew.' I read it through without finding it. There is no declaration of God’s love in the Gospel of Matthew. You know it; He does not have to tell you. Everything in it whispers love, without His mentioning it, and all the more emphatically. 'Well,' I said, 'my sermon must be on Mark.' It is not in Mark! 'Well, then, I must go to Luke.' There is only one incidental reference in Luke, Ye 'Pharisees . . . pass over judgment and the love of God . . .' (11:42), just incidentally. If it overwhelms you, as it did me, it will bring you to tears—the first declaration, not intimation, and not inference, but the first declaration of God’s love in the New Testament, is John 3:16, a sunburst upon midnight, a revelation at one stroke of God Himself. 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.'

"Then we have the glory of sacrificial light. 'I am the light of the world.' Light tends to display itself, of course; but the glory of light is in its sacrifice. These beautiful mountains are sacrificed light. The sun gives off its light as upon an altar, and the light is taken up into leaf, and flower, and grass, and forest. If the sun should cease to be sacrificial, there would be no more light, and no more beauty, and no more fertility. And 'if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!' [Matthew 6:23].

"What is light? How did we get it, anyhow? Geologists tell us that during the carboniferous era the great forests took in the sunlight and wove it into fiber of branch, and trunk, and roots of the trees. Then there came convulsions, and these forests were buried out of sight, and the coal-beds were formed, imprisoned light. We dig out the coal, and we put it through a process of combustion, and the fire lets the light loose that the forest took in from the sun. That is the way the Lord Jesus becomes light: not by the Sermon on the Mount, but by Calvary; by the process of combustion on the altar, ablaze for us. Then He turns round and says, 'Ye are the light of the world' [Matthew 5:14]. I made a little sermon once, taking that text, on Christians as reflectors of light, and it was a cold sermon! Reflection is a cold process. You cannot raise a crop by moonlight; you must have it warm from the sun. It does not say, 'Ye are reflectors of light'; it says, 'Ye are the light of the world.' How do we become light? 'I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God' [Romans 12:1]. We take in from the Sun of righteousness the rays of light, as the forest took it from the sun in the heavens; and then by a process of combustion, by the sacrificial spirit on God’s altar, we are light as Jesus was light, and that is the glory of the Christian’s life.

"Then we have the glory of sacrificial truth. 'I am the truth.' Truth carries a sword; truth has to fight. The Lord said in a sense He sent a sword. 'My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you' [John 14:27]. The world gives peace by compromise or surrender, as Napoleon got it at Waterloo. The Lord Jesus Christ gives peace by victory, as Wellington got it at Waterloo. 'My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth.' When a man wants a drink of whisky, the world says, 'Get peace by going into the public house and taking it'; but Christ says, 'Get peace by conquering your thirst.' 'Not as the world giveth.' Yet the glory of Christianity is not in the sword. It is truth on the altar, truth aglow with sacrifice, truth that is willing to die, truth that refuses to defend itself, while it dies for the untruthful.

"We have also the glory of sacrificial power. Power exerts itself—and it ought at times. We must admire the omnipotent power of God, as we see it working in so many ways. But power exerting itself is not glorious, compared with power withholding itself. 'Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me twelve legions of angels?' [Matthew 26:53]. But if He had so prayed, the glory of Christ had been eclipsed. Oh, the power that held back while love worked; oh, the power that refused to exert itself while Jesus Christ went to the cross in weakness for the salvation of the weak!

"We have, again, the glory of sacrificial holiness. Now holiness is apt to cultivate itself, and none too much! It is well to cultivate it, in public and in private. Use every means possible for the promotion of holiness. But I submit that even holiness cultivating itself is not as glorious as holiness sacrificing itself on the altar for God; holiness giving itself in loving sacrifice for the salvation of others. If you will turn to a Scripture, you will have that suggested. 'Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus' (Romans 3:24-26). The cross of Christ is the declaration of the righteousness of God. Join that with Romans 5:8, 'God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' The cross of Christ is the commendation of His love, and the declaration of His righteousness; and Jesus Christ died because God is righteous as well as loving.

"That brings us to the glory of sacrificial mercy. Mercy is a species of injustice, of unrighteousness. The moment a judge begins to be merciful, he ceases to be just; and the moment he begins to be just, he ceases to be merciful. I repeat, mercy is a species of injustice; and no man can be just and merciful unless justice has somehow been satisfied. There is an official justice. The Governor of Massachusetts is permitted to set free a prisoner from the State prison on Thanksgiving Day every year. Governor Guild went down and selected the wickedest man he could find and set him free, because there were some extenuating circumstances. It was an act of mercy, but certainly not of justice.

"Judge Kerr, of North Carolina, sat on the Bench and heard the case of a thief who had stolen. He recognized that thief as a man whom he had known in boyhood. They had gone to the village school together; they had played on the green together, fished and hunted together. After the case was tried, and the man was found guilty, Judge Kerr pronounced sentence upon him. He was either to go to prison or pay a fine, I think it was of £20. When the sentence had been pronounced, Judge Kerr looked into his face and said, 'My friend, you may not recognise me, but I recognise you. I am John Kerr that played with you on the village green, and I am going to pay your fine for you.' He took out his check and wrote the amount, £20, and let his friend go free; and the man went out wiping his eyes, with a broken heart. Judge Kerr was just, and yet the justifier of that man by keeping the law. He could be merciful because he was just. If God begins to be merciful without the satisfaction of His justice, He loses the throne of His righteousness. The glory of the cross is that there is sacrificial mercy linked with justice, so that God can be 'just, and the justifier of him that believeth.'

"Then there is the glory of sacrificial life and beauty. Stand with me at the door of the hospital in Brooklyn, New York. There comes a working man in his Sunday clothes, red-cheeked, vigorous, and athletic. With a quick step he enters the hospital, to spend the day with his only boy, sick in the hospital. You admire that man’s vigor, the beauty of his life. After three or four hours you see him come out of the hospital, supported on each side by a nurse. He looks as pale, almost, as if he were dead. Why? The doctor said, 'There is just one thing that can cure your boy, and that is fresh blood in his veins. If you are willing to give some of the blood out of your healthy body, I will assure you that the boy will get well.' That rugged working man bared his arm, and said, 'Take it all, if need be, that the boy may go home to his mother!' He gave up the blood of his body for the life of his child. I say that that man, pale and emaciated, hanging on the arms of the nurses, was more beautiful than before—not vigorous life showing itself in strength, but sacrificial life giving itself for others. That is the beauty of patriotic life, philanthropic life, Christian life, that gives itself for others. I would like to paint it if I could, and put it on my study wall.

"Two little girls in a Western State, overtaken in a blizzard and blinded, lost their way. Father and mother looked for them all day and all night, and next evening at four o’clock they were found, frozen to death. The elder child, about eleven years of age, had taken off her outer coat and wrapped it round her little sister, and then had taken off the undercoat and wrapped it round her, and then put her arms round her and tried to keep her warm, forgetful of herself. Oh, the beauty of it! first the repulsion of it, and then the beauty of it. And Jesus Christ on the cross is the most beautiful picture in the most repulsive frame that this world ever saw. In its tragedy it is repulsive; in its deeper meaning it is attractive.

"That brings us to light on three or four Scriptures. We can just barely mention them. 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me' [John 12:32]. There is the magnetism of sacrificial love, and light, and truth, and holiness, and all the attributes of God and perfect man. 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw,' draw for forgiveness, draw for cleansing, draw for transformation. There is something in one, when he begins to feel himself guilty, that draws him toward the One that can pardon. There is something in one who feels himself defiled that draws him toward the fountain that can cleanse. There is something in one who feels himself weak, that draws him toward protecting power. 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw.'

"Then that Scripture in John 12:24, 'Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' Those cultured Greeks came wanting to see Jesus. Philip told Andrew about it, and then they two took them to Jesus for an introduction. What did our Lord say? 'I am glad to see you; I am glad to have you see me'? Not a word of it. He said, 'Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. Philip, Andrew, if your Greek friends see me now, they will not see Jesus at all. They will see the perfect man, the incarnate God, but they will not see Jesus. The only way to behold Jesus is to see me in the process of dying. Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. I have come to this world to save the lost, and it is by the power of death that I can multiply myself.' You can keep the wheat in the barn, protected from weather and weevil, but you will have no crop. You can sow it out in the field, and harrow it in, and go ten days from now, and it is not worth a sixpence. It seems to have been lost. Its value is lost, but it has died with a view to the harvest. 'Except a grain of wheat . . . die, it abideth alone.'

"You are not having any converts? Are you dying? Is the sacrificial heart of Christ beating in your heart? The Church of Jesus Christ is not being multiplied as it should; the harvest is not great. What is the matter? Have we reached the principle and incarnated it into our lives, of the cross of Jesus? That Scripture, then, has deeper meaning, 'If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me' [Luke 9:23]. Live the sacrificial life, be upon your Calvary, crucified with your Lord, and the grains of wheat will be multiplied. But if we spend our time protecting ourselves, and strengthening the remains, and looking after the ninety and nine while the one wanders off into the desert and mountains of death, we will wither, we will cease almost to exist, the candlestick will be removed. If we would multiply, let the glory of the cross fill our hearts and master our lives.

"Just one word more. 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing' (Revelation 5:12). Let us step inside the gates ajar, and look and listen. As we look, we see a throne, and in the midst of the throne 'the Lamb, as it had been slain.' The throne of heaven is occupied by the slain Lamb, risen from the dead. Heaven is ruled by the sacrificial principle of the cross of Christ. If John should meet James on the streets of glory and ask, 'How much do you think Paul is worth?' James would not think of gold, for they pave the streets with it up there! He would not think of banknotes and wealth of earth. He would just think, 'How much is Paul like Jesus Christ on the cross?' His worth is in proportion to the similarity between him and Jesus Christ on the cross. 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.' When we adopt heaven’s standard of worth, and live up to it, you need not go to heaven; it has come to you. You need not have golden streets to walk on; and can tramp the cobblestones of London in a London fog with heaven in your soul. 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.' The coronation of Jesus Christ as Lamb of God makes heaven here and hereafter.

"I heard in my boyhood the story of your noble Queen Victoria. It is familiar, doubtless, to every Englishman, but it stirred my childish heart. She sat, in her Coronation week, in the Royal box, while Handel’s Messiah was being played. The lady-in-waiting went to her and said, 'Everyone in the room, when they reach the "Hallelujah Chorus", will rise and stand till the music ceases, except the Queen.' It is the Royal etiquette that the Queen should keep her seat. The music continued, sweeter and fuller, sweet enough for heaven, I think. When the 'Hallelujah Chorus' was reached, the people rose and stood with bowed heads. It was noticed that the Queen was deeply moved. Her lip quivered, her eyes filled with tears, her body trembled, until they came to that burst of melody, 'King of kings and Lord of lords.' Then, in spite of Royal etiquette, the young Queen stood up, and with bowed head remained standing until the music ceased. A nobler, queenlier thing she never did.

"I heard that when Canon, afterwards Dean, Farrar was acting as chaplain to the Queen, he visited her when she was ill. She had been reading a pamphlet or book about the Second Coming of the Lord, and she said, 'Chaplain, what do you think about the Second Coming of the Lord?' I do not know his reply, but as he left he said, 'Your Majesty, why have you asked me that question?' 'Oh,' she said, 'I wish He would come while I am alive, for nothing would give me more pleasure than with my own hands to give Him the crown of Great Britain and India!' In her young womanhood, with life before her, she crowned Jesus King of kings and Lord of lords; and now in her old age, with gray hairs and many cares that she has borne, she wants to give Him every crown that God has given her.

"One of the most thrilling moments we ever felt was in a convention of the Christian Endeavourers, when Dr. Clark, the President, rose with a piece of yellow paper fluttering in his hand, and said, before about 20,000 young people, 'I have a telegram from Japan.' There was silence in which you could hear your heart beat. He stood there and read it—just three little words, 'Make Jesus King!' We were silent, and then applause after applause burst forth, and the people wept as they looked into each other’s faces. To a Japanese that means something, 'Make Jesus Mikado!'

"Tomorrow we will have something to say about the Coronation, but while we are waiting for the Coronation to come, let us crown Him here. While He tarries in the coming in glory, let Him come in grace. Let us enthrone Christ the Lamb of God in our hearts and lives, and heaven is begun."