Reader, once more I say, beware of self-righteousness in every possible shape and form. Some people get as much harm from their fancied virtues as others do from their sins. Take heed, lest you be one. Rest not, rest not till your heart beats in tune with St. Paul’s. Rest not till you can say with him, “God forbid that I should glory in anything but the cross.”
II. Let me explain, in the second place, _what you are to understand by the cross of Christ_.
The cross is an expression that is used in more than one meaning in the Bible. What did St. Paul mean when he said, “I glory in the cross of Christ,” in the Epistle to the Galatians? This is the point I now wish to make clear.
The cross sometimes means that wooden cross, on which the Lord Jesus was nailed and put to death on Mount Calvary. This is what St. Paul had in his mind’s eye, when he told the Philippians that Christ “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil. ii. 8.) This is not the cross in which St. Paul gloried. He would have shrunk with horror from the idea of glorying in a mere piece of wood. I have no doubt he would have denounced the Roman Catholic adoration of the crucifix, as profane, blasphemous, and idolatrous.
The cross sometimes means the afflictions and trials which believers in Christ have to go through if they follow Christ faithfully, for their religion’s sake. This is the sense in which our Lord uses the word when He says, “He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, cannot be my disciple.” (Matt. x. 38.) This also is not the sense in which Paul uses the word when he writes to the Galatians. He knew that cross well. He carried it patiently. But he is not speaking of it here.
But the cross also means in some places the doctrine that Christ died for sinners upon the cross,—the atonement that He made for sinners, by His suffering for them on the cross,—the complete and perfect sacrifice for sin which He offered up, when He gave His own body to be crucified. In short this one word, “the cross,” stands for Christ crucified, the only Saviour. This is the meaning in which Paul uses the expression, when he tells the Corinthians, “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.” (1 Cor. i. 18.) This is the meaning in which he wrote to the Galatians, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross.” He simply meant, “I glory in nothing but Christ crucified, as the salvation of my soul.” { 10}