THE CROSS IS A RADICAL THING

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