Page 5 - Good News March 2005 paper
P. 5
The cross of
Christ is the
m o s t r e v o -
lutionary thing
ever to appear
among men.
The cross in
Roman times
knew no com-
p r o m i s e ; i t
never made
concessions.
It won all its
arguments by
k i l l i n g i t s
opponents and
silencing them
for good. lt spared not Christ, ends also the "old life" of every one of His true
but slew Him the same as the followers. It destroys the old pattern, the Adam
rest. He was alive when they pattern, in the believer's life, and brings it to an
hung Him on that cross and end. Only then can the God who raised Christ from
completely dead when they the dead raise the believer so that a new life
took Him down six hours later. begins. This, and nothing less, is true Christianity.
After Christ was risen from the We cannot help but recognize the sharp
dead the apostles went out to divergence of this conception from that held by
preach His message, and what the rank and file of evangelicals today. But we dare
they preached was the cross. not qualify our position. The cross stands high
Wherever they went into the above the opinions of men, and to that cross all
wide world they carried the opinions must come at last for judgment. A
message of the cross, and the shallow and worldly Christian leadership would
same revolutionary power modify the cross to please the entertainment-mad
went with them. The radicaI saintlings, who ever desire to have their fun – even
message of the cross trans- in the very sanctuary. But to do so is to court
formed Saul of Tarsus. It spiritual disaster, and risk the anger of the Lamb
changed him from a persecutor turned Lion.
of Christians to a tender We must do something about the cross, and we
believer and an apostle of the can only do one of two things – flee from it or die
faith. lts power changed bad upon it! If we are so foolhardy as to flee, we shall
men into good. It shook off the by that act put away the faith of our fathers and
long bondage of paganism and make of Christianity something
altered completely the whole other than it is. We shall have left
moral and mental outlook of the only the empty language of
Western world. salvation. The power will depart
All this it did and continued to with our departure from the true
do as long as it was permitted to cross. If we are wise we will do
remain what it had been what Jesus did: "Who for the joy
originally, a cross that means that was set before Him endured
death! Its power departed when the cross, despising its
it was changed from an shame...”
instrument of death into a thing To do this is to submit the whole
of beauty. Men made of it a pattern of our lives to be
symbol, and hung it around destroyed and built again in the
their necks as an ornament, or power of an endless life. We
made its outline before their shall find that it is more than
faces as a magic sign to ward poetry, more than sweet
off evil. As such it became at hymnody and elevated feeling.
best a weak emblem, and at The cross will cut into our lives
worst a fetish. Today the where it hurts worst, sparing
outward symbol is revered by neither us nor our carefully
millions who know absolutely cultivated reputations. It will
nothing about its real power. defeat us and bring our selfish
The real cross effects its ends lives to an end. Only then can we
by destroying one established rise in fullness of life to establish
pattern (the victim's), and a pattern of living wholly new
creating another (its own). It and free and full of good works.
always has its way! It wins by The changed attitude toward the
defeating its opponent and cross that we see in modern
imposing its will upon him. It orthodoxy, does not prove that
always dominates. It never God has changed, or that Christ
compromises, never dickers has eased up on His demand
nor confers, never surrenders a that we carry the cross; it means
point for the sake of peace. It rather that current Christianity
cares not for peace: it cares has moved away trom the
only to end its opposition as standards of the New Testament.
fast as possible. With perfect Indeed! So far have we moved,
knowledge of all this Christ that it may take nothing short of
said, "lf any man will come after a new "reformation" to restore
Me, let him deny himself, and the cross to its rightful place in
take up his cross, and follow the theology and life of the
Me." So the cross not only Church. (From: "The Root of
brought Christ's life to an end, it Righteousness" by A.W.Tozer)
