Glorying in 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

Among the shorter books drawn from Lloyd-Jones’s preaching is a series of sermons on a single verse, Galatians 6:14, published under the plain title The Cross. It is one of the best places to begin reading him. In it the physician turns from diagnosis to remedy, and the remedy is the one thing Paul says he will boast of. Everything Lloyd-Jones taught about sin, wrath and justification converged here. The cross was not one doctrine among many. It was the centre that held them all together.

Why Paul gloried in it

Lloyd-Jones began by noting how strange Paul’s statement is. The cross, in the ancient world, was the most shameful of deaths, reserved for slaves and criminals. No educated man would have mentioned it in polite company. And Paul, a man of learning and pedigree, says it is the only thing he will glory in. Why?

He answered, in effect, that Paul had seen what the cross really was. To the Jew it was a stumbling block and to the Greek foolishness, because both judged it by appearances. Paul judged it by revelation, and saw in it the wisdom and power of God.

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:23–24

What the cross reveals

Lloyd-Jones was insistent that the cross must be understood, not merely felt. It is possible to be moved by the sufferings of Christ as one is moved by any noble death, and to miss entirely what was happening. The cross is not first a revelation of human cruelty, nor even chiefly an example of self-sacrifice, though it is both. It is God dealing with sin.

He drew out several things the cross reveals. It reveals the true character of the world, which, when God came among it in the person of His Son, took Him and nailed Him to a tree. It reveals the terrible seriousness of sin, which could be dealt with at no smaller cost. It reveals the justice of God, who would not simply overlook sin but punished it in the person of the Substitute. And above all it reveals the love of God, who did not spare His own Son.

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? ROMANS 8:32

Lloyd-Jones taught what the Reformers and the Puritans taught before him: that Christ died in the place of sinners, bearing the penalty of their sin, and so turned away the wrath of God from them. He believed that every attempt to explain the cross without substitution ends by explaining it away. If Christ did not bear our punishment, why did He have to die at all?

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 1 PETER 2:24

The world crucified to me

But Galatians 6:14 does not stop at the cross as the ground of forgiveness. Paul goes on: by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Lloyd-Jones gave careful attention to these words, because they show that the cross changes not only a man’s standing but his whole outlook.

The man who has truly seen the cross can never look at the world in the same way again. He has seen what the world did to the Son of God. He has seen the world’s wisdom exposed as folly, its values as empty, its judgement as false. The world has lost its power to charm him. And equally, he is crucified to the world: it no longer regards him as one of its own. He has become a stranger in it.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 JOHN 2:15

This, for Lloyd-Jones, was the real cure for worldliness. Not a list of prohibitions, but a sight of the cross. The Christian who is still captivated by the world has not yet looked at Calvary long enough.

The cross and pride

He also saw the cross as the great destroyer of human pride. At the foot of the cross all distinctions are levelled. The learned and the ignorant, the moral and the immoral, the religious and the profane stand together as sinners who can be saved only by the death of Another. No one can boast there, except in the cross itself.

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:2

It is worth noticing that this was the note on which he chose to preach, in an age that was increasingly embarrassed by the cross and anxious to present Christianity as a programme of moral and social improvement. He believed that the church which loses the cross has lost its reason for existing. It may still do much good work; it will no longer be able to save anyone.

Where care is needed

The reader should not take from this chapter the idea that the cross is merely a doctrine to be defended. Lloyd-Jones defended it vigorously, but he preached it first of all as a message to be received and a sight to be wondered at. He would also want the reader to see that the doctrine of substitution is not an abstraction. It is personal: He loved me, and gave Himself for me. A cross that is understood but never adored has not yet been understood.

The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. GALATIANS 2:20

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask what you are tempted to glory in: your abilities, your reputation, your family, your service. Name it before God.

2. Spend a quiet half-hour this week reading the account of the crucifixion in one Gospel, asking at every step what it reveals about sin and about God.

3. Explain to a friend, in plain words, why Christ had to die. If you find you cannot, study Romans 3:21–26 and 1 Peter 2:24 until you can.

4. Identify one way in which the world still has a hold on your affections. Set the cross against it in prayer.

5. Sing or read a hymn about the cross slowly, meaning every line.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, You bore my sins in Your own body on the tree. You took my place and my punishment. I cannot understand such love; I can only receive it.

Forbid that I should glory in anything but Your cross. Strip away my pride and every false boast.

Let the world be crucified to me, and me to the world, so that its charms have no more power over me.

Keep me always near the cross, wondering, grateful and glad. Amen.