The Theology of the Cross

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. GALATIANS 6:14

In April 1518, six months after the theses on indulgences, Luther travelled on foot to Heidelberg to take part in a disputation held by his own Augustinian order. His superiors hoped he would be quiet about indulgences, and he was. Instead he put forward a set of theses on something deeper: how human beings come to know God at all. Among them are a handful of sentences that have shaped Christian thought ever since. There are, Luther said, two kinds of theologians. There is the theologian of glory, and there is the theologian of the cross.

Two ways of looking for God

The theologian of glory, as Luther describes him in the Heidelberg Disputation, looks for God in power, success, wisdom and visible achievement. He reasons upward from what he can see in the world and in himself to what God must be like. He assumes that God is found at the top — in the strong, the clever, the moral, the admired. And he assumes that his own good works will carry him up towards God. He is, in the end, a man who calls good evil and evil good, because he despises the cross and loves his own works.

The theologian of the cross looks for God where God has chosen to show Himself: in suffering, weakness and shame, above all in the crucified Christ. He calls things what they actually are. He does not pretend that the cross is beautiful by the world’s standards; he admits that it is foolishness and scandal, and he finds God there precisely because it is where no one would think to look.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:18

Luther drew one of his theses from the story of Moses on the mountain, where God allowed him to see only His back and not His face. We do not see God directly, in His naked majesty. We see Him as He has chosen to be seen: hidden in the humility and shame of the cross.

And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. EXODUS 33:23

God hidden in the opposite

This is one of Luther’s deepest instincts, and it runs through all his preaching. God works by opposites. He hides His strength in weakness, His wisdom in foolishness, His life in death, His glory in shame. He makes alive by killing and exalts by humbling. We cannot see this with the eyes of reason. We can only believe it, trusting His Word against appearances.

Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. ISAIAH 45:15

His Christmas sermon on the birth of Jesus is full of it. He lingers over the stable, the cold, the lack of help for a young mother, the rich inns full of guests who never knew what was happening a few yards away. God, he says, deliberately passes by what the world admires:

“He works in opposition to these temporal things, looks with favour upon that from which the world turns, teaches that from which it flees and takes up that which it discards.”

And a little earlier in the same sermon, marvelling that the angels brought the news not to priests or princes but to shepherds, he simply exclaims, “See how utterly God overthrows that which is lofty!”

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:27

The cross and the conscience

The theology of the cross is not only about where we find God. It is also about what God does to us when He finds us. Luther believed that God must humble us before He can raise us, and that the law and suffering are His instruments. The theologian of glory thinks he can build a ladder to God out of his own works. The theologian of the cross has been brought to despair of himself, and so he is ready for grace.

Luther’s early sermon on how to contemplate Christ’s sufferings shows this clearly. He rebukes those who meditate on the passion only to feel sorry for Jesus, or to rage at Judas. The true meditation, he says, is to see that it was your sin that nailed Christ there. He tells his hearers to see to it “that you deeply believe and never doubt the least, that you are the one who thus martyred Christ. For your sins most surely did it.”

But he does not leave us there. Having been terrified by the cross, we are to look again and see there the love of God. We are to press through, he says, and “behold his friendly heart, how full of love it is toward you,” and then rise through the heart of Christ to the heart of the Father. The cross that condemns us is the same cross that saves us.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. ISAIAH 53:3

Strength in weakness

This teaching has immense comfort for the ordinary Christian life. It means that God is not absent when we are weak, poor, unsuccessful, ill or grieving. He is often closest there. It means that the church need not be impressive to be faithful. It means that the Christian can suffer without concluding that God has abandoned him. The cross was not God’s absence. It was the place where He was most present.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 CORINTHIANS 12:9

A needed caution

Like every deep truth, this one can be twisted. The theology of the cross has sometimes been used to tell the poor and the oppressed that their suffering is holy and should simply be borne, while those who caused it go unchallenged. Luther himself, as we shall see, used something like this argument against the peasants who rose against their lords in 1525. That is a misuse. The cross reveals God’s love for the lowly, not His approval of those who make them low. The same Scriptures that speak of God hidden in weakness also command justice for the weak.

Nor does the theology of the cross mean that Christians should seek suffering for its own sake, or distrust every joy. Luther was no gloomy ascetic; he loved music, beer, children and good company. The point is not that suffering is good, but that God is good in it, and that He has chosen to reveal Himself most fully in the place where we least expected Him.

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:23

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Where have you been looking for God only in success and strength? Ask Him to show you where He is at work in weakness.

2. Read the account of the crucifixion in Mark 15 slowly, and say at each stage, “My sins did this. His love bore it.”

3. Think of someone the world overlooks. Visit, write to or help them this week, remembering that God looks into the depths.

4. If you are suffering, pray 2 Corinthians 12:9 each day, asking not only for relief but for His strength in your weakness.

5. Examine whether you have ever used talk of suffering to excuse injustice. If so, repent and act.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, You chose the manger and the cross, and You hid Your glory in shame for my sake.

Forgive me for looking for You only in what the world admires, and for trusting my own works to lift me up.

Show me my sin in Your wounds, and then show me Your friendly heart, and through it the heart of the Father.

Make Your strength perfect in my weakness, and let me glory in nothing but Your cross. Amen.