The Attraction of the Cross # 3

The Attraction of the Cross # 3

The divinity of Christ's person, as constituting the value of His atoning sacrifice, appears to me to be an essential part of this system of truth. While the hope of a guilty world can rest nowhere else than on an atonement, that in its turn, can be supported by nothing short of the Rock of Ages - and hence it is that these two are so often exhibited in the Word of God in close connection with each other. It was He "who was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, that humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross." It was He "who was before all things, and by whom all things are held together, who made peace through the blood of the Cross." It was He "who was the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person, and who upholds all things by the word of His power, that by Himself purged our sins." It should not be overlooked,k how closely connected with the divinity of Christ, and how dependent upon it, is the success of the cause of missions. This cause with all which it involves, is supported by the power of Jesus. "The pleasure of the Lord is in His hand." "The government is upon His shoulders." "The Father has made him to be head over all things to His church." "All power in heaven and earth is given to Him." Do we, then, depend for success upon the energies of a mere creature? Is it an arm of flesh alone that we must look to for support and conquest? Then, indeed, may we sound the "signal of retreat" to our missionaries, dissolve our society, and abandon the field of conflict to satan. But we have not so learned Christ; we believe Him to be the omnipotent and the omniscient God. In Him we trust, and shall not be ashamed.

Essential to the doctrine of the Cross is the gratuitous manner in which its blessings are bestowed. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." "It is by faith that it might be by grace." Leave out the justification of the soul by faith alone, and you send to the heathen but a lying resemblance of the Cross. And to complete the scriptural view of this sublime compendium of truth, it is necessary we should include its moral tendency and design as respects the heart and conduct of those by whom it is received. "I am crucified," said the Apostle, "with Christ," earnestly desiring, "that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings; being made conformable unto His death."

It is not one of these, but all of them combined, which form the doctrine of the Cross. Take any of them away and the arch is destroyed, all the rest sink together to the dust, a mass of splendid ruins, a heap of crumbling fragments. Without the atonement, the fact of the crucifixion appears to me, a dark unintelligible inexplicable spot upon the page of revelation, connecting nothing, supporting nothing, explaining nothing. The atonement without the deity of Christ, lacks both the impress and the value to secure for it confidence; and acceptance of the atonement and the deity of Christ, without the justification of the soul by faith, leaves the system without any link which can connect it with the experience of the sinner; while all together would be of no avail in his salvation, unless they secured his sanctification.

2. I shall now illustrate the various POWERS OF ATTRACTION which the doctrine of the Cross exerts. The stupendous fact of the Cross, arrests and fixes the attention. The human mind, especially in its cruder states, where there is such a preponderance of "imagination" over "reason", is much more easily and powerfully wrought upon by a narration of facts than a statement of principles. And the whole fabric of Christianity, both as to doctrine and duties, is founded upon a fact; and that fact, drawn out into details more touching and tender than can be found in any real history or in any romance. The life and the death of the "man of sorrows," unites to all the sobriety and power of truth - the fascination of fiction. The veiled splendor of His deity, occasionally bursting through its thin disguise, and irradiating the gloom of His poverty; the extremity of His sufferings, and the heart-affecting meekness with which He bore them; the perfection of His virtues, together with the unrelenting cruelty of His enemies; the mysterious combination of glory and humility in His person and life; the garden of Gethsemane; the scenes of Pilate's hall, and the mount of Calvary - give a magic power to the story of the Cross!

But when we thus know that this was the incarnation and crucifixion of the Son of God for a world of sinners - we arrive at the pinnacle of all that is marvelous, and interesting, and sublime! History in its most extraordinary narrations, and imagination in its loftiest flights, are both left infinitely behind. When with devout contemplation we have been engaged in surveying this stupendous fact, we feel, in turning away to other objects, just as the man does who has been gazing upon the unclouded sun, so dazzled with excess or light, as to perceive no other object, whatever its magnitude or splendor. We no longer wonder at the researches of the prophets, nor feel any surprise that the angels should leave every fountain of celestial knowledge to look upon the Cross.

~John Angell James~

(continued with # 4)