"What is truth?" The poet well replies, "Twas Pilate's
question put to Truth itself." There never was but one individual who could
stand forth before the world and say, "I AM THE TRUTH!" It was not Socrates,
nor Confucius, nor Mohammed; nor yet Luther, nor Calvin, nor Edwards. Yet
One there was, in whom all truth was so concentrated that he was truth
itself. It was the child of Mary and the Son of God; it was he who was
crucified on Calvary.
We may be interested in the narrative of the cross; but
what if it should turn out to be fiction? If it is a true narrative, what is
its significance, and what are the truths it embodies? Men need a religion
which satisfies their intelligence. We affirm that the cross furnishes such
a religion; that it is the religion revealed from heaven; the only religion
which possesses the attraction of truth and certainty, and in which the most
skeptical may have immovable confidence. Religion may venture to more than
chasten her faith with hope, and timidly trust that the word of the God of
truth has not deceived her. She dwells by the well-spring of life, and draws
from it the pure waters of salvation. If men may be certain of anything that
is not the mere object of sense, they may put confidence in the truth of the
cross. The topics on which it treats are grand and dreadful, as well as
inexpressibly interesting and tender; but it has nothing to do with vague
conjecture, studied mystery, profuse verbiage without meaning, or laborious
trifling without intelligence and instruction. It is not a dim uncertainty
that rests upon the views there acquired. They are clear and permanent
convictions, because they are true. God approves them; and the Holy Spirit,
the Author of truth and peace, gives them a stability and power which
delusion and error can never originate.
The NARRATIVE OF THE CROSS IS ITSELF A TRUE NARRATIVE.
This is a simple question of fact. Was there, or was there not, such a
person as Jesus Christ, who, under the reign of Tiberius Caesar, was accused
of treason and blasphemy, found guilty, and put to death? The most full and
satisfactory account of this transaction is found in the writings of the
four Evangelists; which, by the wonderful care of Divine Providence, after
having been distinctly recognized from age to age as the works of those
whose names they bear, and as the same uncorrupted works as when they came
from the pen of their authors, and after having been circulated throughout
the whole Christian world, have come down to us in all genuineness and
authenticity. Their authors were either deceived, or deceivers, or honest
and true men. They were not deceived, because the events which they
narrate never could have been the creatures of imagination. The wildest
enthusiast in the world could not have been the subject of such delusion, as
to have believed them real, when they were unreal.
Nor were they deceivers. There is every
consideration against such an hypothesis which can be furnished by the
nature of the case, by their own character and history, and by their
published writings. The events and circumstances of the crucifixion are such
as never could have been got up by artful and designing men; much less by
the illiterate fishermen of the lakes of Judea, who left their nets to
announce them to the world. To an impartial mind, their narrative carries
the evidence of its verity on the face of it. No impostor ever penned such
an account as that in the closing chapters of the four Evangelists,
furnishing, as each of them does, in the minuteness of his details, so many
continually recurring means of detecting deception if any were practiced.
While each narrator speaks for himself, and the variations in his narrative
show that each wrote independently, and without any secret collusion with
the others, each gives substantially the same account; and the seeming
inconsistencies, just enough to test the sincerity and research of the
reader, all disappear upon a careful inspection.
Men do not act without a motive. What was the motive of
the men who stood before the world as the persevering, unflinching witnesses
of the crucifixion, if they were false witnesses? Was it wealth, pleasure,
or fame? Was it the poor ambition of being the founders of a false religion,
not only at the expense of that which all impostors have ever sought, but in
the prospect of poverty, dishonor, suffering and death? Says the celebrated
Rousseau, "The history of Jesus Christ has marks of truth so palpable, so
striking, so perfectly immutable, that its inventor would excite our
admiration more than its hero." Even infidels themselves have not ventured
to take refuge in the presumption that the narrative of the cross is not a
true history. The events themselves, and the narrators of them, have been
canvassed with a severity to which no other facts and no other men have been
subjected, for more than eighteen hundred years.
It was, as we have already seen, so ordered in the wisdom
of Divine Providence, that these events did not take place in a dark and
illiterate age. If the scenes of Calvary were a fable, it is to the last
degree absurd to suppose that there was not light, and logical acumen, and
learning enough in the Augustan age of Rome, to have demonstrated them to be
fictitious. They profess to have taken place at a time and place where
strangers of distinction, as well as the entire male population of Judea,
were assembled; under the official direction of individuals whose names,
character, and history, are of sufficient notoriety to have furnished
security against everything in the form of deception. Never was greater
opportunity given to the adversaries of Christianity to disprove the
narrative, than was given at the time when the event professes to have taken
place. The first spot where the apostles were directed to make their first
public announcement of it, was in Jerusalem itself, and in the presence of
his murderers—the last place where, and the last men before whom, they would
present themselves, if their testimony were not true.
Hence the Jews, while they denied the resurrection of
Christ, never thought of calling in question his crucifixion; but gloried in
it, and triumphantly adhered to the imprecation, "His blood be on us, and on
our children!" Nor have enlightened pagans withheld from it their testimony.
Suetonius, Tacitus and Pliny, all record it, as a matter of acknowledged
history, and, as impartial historians, deemed it an event too important to
suppress; while Celsus, Porphyry and Julian, learned and inveterate infidels
as they were, confirm the testimony. Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, as
was his official duty to do, sent an account of the crucifixion to the
emperor Tiberius, and that account was deposited in the archives of the
empire. The annals of the pagan world, to this day, preserve this great
fact, as well as the miraculous events that attended it, and also a minute
account of the Savior's character and miracles. There is abundant evidence
of the truth of the scriptural narrative of the crucifixion, independently
of the Scriptures themselves; so that "if the narrative of the Evangelists
were now lost, all the material facts connected with that memorable scene
might be collected from pagan historians, and Jewish and other anti-christian
writers."
The question naturally presents itself, How far does
this fact avail in proving the truth of that system of religion which is
contained in the Holy Scriptures? Here several thoughts deserve
consideration. Human reason has never been able to satisfy itself with a
religion of its own inventing. It has had every opportunity of doing so,
which the most learned age, and the finest minds could furnish; and the
result of the experiment has been the grossest darkness, the most foolish
absurdities, and the greatest corruption of morals. The proof of this
observation is in the history of the past. If you look to Egypt, the cradle
of science and the arts; if to Greece, whose genius and literature still
constitute the acknowledged standard of taste; if to Rome, the garlands of
whose philosophers are still green upon its grave; you see that "the world
by wisdom knew not God," and that "professing themselves to be wise, they
became fools."
If there is a God, infinitely great and good, the Creator
and Governor of men, it is reasonable to suppose he would give them a
revelation of his will. Men have indeed no right to demand such a
revelation, nor may they complain if it be denied. Yet from what they know
of God in his works and in his providence, were it not reasonable to hope
for it? We know there was a sort of vague, undefinable impression on the
minds of many of the heathen, of some approaching day of light, and that
this anticipation became very general as the time for the Messiah's advent
drew near. And dim as these hopes were, they were not in vain. This floating
anticipation became settled, and was realized when—"in the fullness of time,
God sent forth his Son," and this vision of a golden age became a present
reality when he expired on the cross.
If the narrative of the cross be a true narrative, the
religion that is based upon it is the true religion. Its claims rest upon
the truth of this narrative. If there ever were such a person as Jesus of
Nazareth—one possessing his unblemished character, imbued with the wisdom
expressed in his public and private discourses, working the miracles which
he wrought, living the life he led, and dying the death he died—then is
Christianity most certainly true. On this basis the apostles themselves rest
this sacred structure. "I have delivered unto you, FIRST OF ALL, that CHRIST
DIED for our sins according to the Scriptures." This is the sure "corner
stone" which is laid in Zion; the Rock on which God builds his church.
Let us look at this thought for a few moments, and
inspect some of its bearings. The death of Christ is indubitable witness to
the truth of the Old Testament. If this fact be demonstrated, the truth of
the Old Testament Scriptures is clearly proved, the Divine mission of Moses
and the prophets is confirmed, and the verity of their writings
substantiated. To see the force of this remark, we have only to suppose that
the crucifixion of Christ had never taken place. In such an event, we must
give up the Old Testament Scriptures; we must regard them as erroneous, and
look upon them as an uninspired volume. A dark and heavy night would rest
upon the whole system of religion which they reveal. They would present an
explicable volume, containing many things above the reach of created wisdom,
and at the same time unmeaning types and false prophecies. The death of
Christ sheds the only light upon them, that they are capable of receiving,
and furnishes the only solution of what must otherwise have remained
impenetrably mysterious. They would have remained a sealed book had not "the
Lion of the tribe of Judah" been worthy "to open the book, and loose the
seven seals thereof."
The cross alone solves the mystery of the animal
sacrifices of the patriarchal age, and of that bloody ceremony which God
instituted among the Jews. Those ancient oracles are speechless, those
ancient altars give no instruction to the world, if they do not teach that
God requires duty or suffering, obedience or penalty, a perfect
righteousness or a perfect payment; and the lesson they read no man can
understand, if they tell not of pardon from the cross.
The same may be said of the whole system of PROPHECY
contained in the Old Testament. Its great outlines, as well as its
wonderfully minute details, all concentrate in the cross, and are there
determined with the most perfect precision. There is the forsaken and
reproached One; the unresisting and abused One; the One who was "sold for
thirty pieces of silver;" the One against whom "the kings of the earth set
themselves, and the rulers took counsel together;" the One who was "cut off
not for himself," whose "feet and hands were pierced," and who was "numbered
with the transgressors." There is he who was "laughed to scorn;" against
whom men "should shoot out the lip and shake the head;" whose garments
should be divided between his murderers; who should be forsaken of God; to
whom his enemies should give the vinegar and gall; whose bones should remain
unbroken, and who should "make his grave with the wicked and the rich in his
death." Vast as is the entire system of prophecy—reaching from the fall of
man to the consummation of all things—darkly as its oracle sometimes spoke,
and confined as it was to a people from whom the Messiah was to be
descended, it is all plain and intelligible when we see it pointing to
him who hung on Calvary. In him alone it receives its fulfillment; and
it is by their relation to him that a multitude of otherwise unimportant
events, of which it speaks, are magnified. Such events multiply and grow
upon us the more we become familiar with the sacred writings, each falling
in with the great consummation on Calvary, and carrying conviction to the
mind, that if the narrative of the cross be true, Christianity cannot be
false.
Hence, we find that our Lord and his apostles appeal to
the Old Testament in proof of Christianity, and by an induction of so many
particulars, and so striking, as to constitute an incontrovertible argument
to show that the whole method of salvation by the cross of Christ was
foreseen and foretold under the Old Testament, and that its authors were
Divinely inspired. And if this be so, the conclusion is equally plain and
incontrovertible, that the New Testament Scriptures, in which alone the Old
terminate and are fulfilled, are a Divine revelation, and that Jesus came,
in accordance with the declared counsel of Heaven, to do and suffer the will
of his Father. And this conclusion is corroborated by the fact, that
scattered as were the writers of this ancient volume through the centuries
that intervened between Moses and Malachi, they all pursued one great end,
and were all under the absorbing influence of this one thought—the
redemption of man by the crucified Son of God.
It is far from the design of these pages to furnish even
an outline of the evidences in favor of Christianity. It is but to take a
transient view of them while standing by the cross. It is here the Christian
loves to view them, and discovers a system of belief of which God is the
Author, and sees doctrines and duties which have upon them the image and
superscription of the Deity. The cross of Christ has an inseparable
connection with all that is peculiar in the religion that is revealed from
heaven. The cross and the Bible stand or fall together. You cannot take away
the cross without demolishing the whole structure; while, if the cross
remain, the whole superstructure remains, "built upon the foundation of the
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."
Let this link of the chain be broken, and there is nothing to support the
whole; let this be supported, and the whole is supported.
The man who reads the Bible nearest the cross, sees most
of its high credentials, and feels most deeply that it contains a system of
truth every way worthy of God to reveal. The principles which it unfolds,
the religion it inculcates, the method of the Divine administration it has
introduced, and its wonderful salvation, beheld and contemplated amid the
scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary, are fitted to produce the strong, the
vivid, permanent impression, that they are too lofty to have been within the
reach of human invention—too holy and pure to have originated with so
polluted a source—too good to be attributed to any but to the Father of
lights.
Where the heart feels the influence and power of the
cross, it has evidence of the truth of it which nothing else can give; views
too clear, and illumined, and transforming, ever to be forgotten, or greatly
eclipsed. "He who believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself."
The word is sealed to him by the Spirit, who wrote it. His own heart
responds to the truth of the cross. He has felt its teachings to be true
within his own soul. To him belongs a deeper scriptural wisdom than all
scholarship can bestow—a wisdom grounded on his perception of the internal
evidence, as made known by the adaptations of all the doctrine which is
without, to all the "felt necessities of the spirit which is within."
Nor is this any visionary evidence. The great evidence in
favor of Christianity is found in Christianity itself; in a character so
heavenly, that its moral elements never come into contact with the depraved
heart without producing an effervescence that indicates their mutual
revulsion; in a power so subduing to that revulsion that we cannot fail to
discover in it the finger of God. The cross, therefore, stands out before
the world as embodying the great system of revealed truth, in opposition to
all false religions, and the evidence by which it commends itself is adapted
to every class of mind. Before any man renounces it, let him be well
persuaded there is another religion revealed from heaven. Let him undertake
to specify the kind and the amount of testimony required to satisfy his own
mind, that God has revealed his truth to men, and he may find it all, in all
its variety, and in all its effectiveness and tenderness, at the cross.
There is another view of the truth of the cross. The
manifestations of God's truth to men have been progressive, just as are the
manifestations of his wisdom, power and goodness in the material creation.
At one time the earth is clothed with the mantle of winter; then follows the
preparation and the promise of the spring; then the warmth and kindliness of
summer; until at last autumn pours forth its rich treasures, and the Divine
goodness gushes from over-flowing fountains, and runs in ten thousand
channels, everywhere distributing fertility and gladness. So with the means
of intellectual and moral culture. The cross is far in advance of all
other religions revealed from heaven.
The light of truth and mercy had its commencement and
progress. At one time, it was like the flickering lamp which appeared to
Abraham; at another, like the burning bush which appeared on Horeb; at
another, like the pillar and the cloud in the desert; at another, like the
Shekinah over the ark of the covenant; at another, like the brighter
emanations of that glory in the temple, when the priests and the people
could not look upon it for the brightness; and at another, like the splendid
vision of the prophet when he beheld the Son of man, the Lord of heaven and
earth, high and lifted up, and his train filled the sanctuary, and the whole
earth was full of his glory.
This progressive revelation of the truth continued until
the crucifixion. The light had been gradually rising ever since the first
promise in paradise; and now it was high day. The ancient patriarchs and
Jews lived under a comparatively dark dispensation, a dispensation of types
and shadows, and which served "unto the example and shadow of heavenly
things." It was not a "faultless covenant;" for if it had been, "then should
no place have been sought for the second." It was "a figure for the time
then present," and never designed to be God's clearest revelation to the
world. There is a dispensation which is far in advance of it, and the great
High Priest of which has "obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much
more also he is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established
upon better promises." The blood of the sacrifice offered by Abel was for
himself alone, and had no sufficiency, even as a prefiguration, beyond his
own needs. The sacrifices under the Jewish law respected only the Jewish
nation. Both patriarchal and Mosaic sacrifices were positive and not moral
institutions; they were founded on relations and circumstances that were
mutable, and therefore might be, and were, abrogated. These latter were
designed to preserve the Hebrew nation distinct from all other nations of
the earth, until He came who was God manifest in the flesh, and by whose
death the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile was broken down, and
glad tidings were announced to all people. This was one of the offensive
features of the cross to men who "thought that they were righteous and
despised others," and rendered it "to the Jew a stumbling-block." But it is
a blessed and glorious feature of it, that it opens this "new and living
way," and invites all to draw near without distinction of climate,
condition, or character.
It is a revelation that covers a broader surface than any
antecedent revelation. Truth here presents her attractions to all the
children of men. This was an important advance in the series of Divine
revelations. The Jews were not more distinguished from other and Gentile
nations, by the truth contained in the oracles of God under the Old
Testament dispensation, than are men in Christian lands now distinguished
from the ancient Jews by the truth revealed in the gospel of Christ.
Christian privileges are less restricted and more spiritual. The hour has
come in which neither the mountain of Samaria, nor the temple at Jerusalem,
are the only fitting places for worship and devotion. Men may now worship
anywhere; erect sanctuaries anywhere; and wherever they are erected, God
records his name. Never until Christ came was the promise uttered, "Where
two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them." Never before his death, was there such communion between heaven and
earth. Never before, was there such a society collected in the world, as
that of which he is the Head, and his cross the standard. Scattered as they
are, and separated as they are by lines of external organization, all true
believers form now one spiritual community and one church, because they have
"one Lord," who, "for the suffering of death," is "crowned with glory and
honor."
The Sun of righteousness is now pouring a flood of light
upon the dark nations. Jesus came down to earth, assumed our nature, and
"died the just for the unjust," in order that the worship of God might
become the devotion of the world, and the religion of his truth and grace
the universal religion. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
will dwell among them!" There is no holy place, no "holy of holies," into
which the high priest alone entered once a year—where He who sits between
the cherubim is invoked; but wherever and whenever men draw near to him by
faith in the blood of his Son, then is the hour of communion, and there is
his chamber of audience. "You have not come to a mountain that can be
touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a
trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it
begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear
what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be
stoned." The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with
fear." But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city
of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in
joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in
heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of
righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to
the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."
Hebrews 12:18-24
But there is a still more important thought in relation
to the truth of the cross. When Jesus stood a prisoner at the bar of Rome,
he made the following impressive, exulting avowal—"To this end was I born,
and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth!" The cross was designed to be the most compendious and vivid
expression of all religious truth. It is the great witness for the truth of
God. The testimony of Christ was the testimony of the Prince of martyrs.
Nowhere else does truth utter her voice with such distinctness, such
fullness and emphasis. She spoke with power in the death of prophets under
the law; in the death of Stephen, and in the triumphs of Paul, under the axe
of Nero; but as she never spoke before, she speaks from Calvary. Were an
angel to descend from heaven to become the teacher of men, his instructions
might well be listened to with eagerness. But the cross is the teacher of
angels. It is the Deity himself bearing witness to his own doctrines. It is
"the light of the world," and like the apocalyptic "angel standing in the
sun," when the whole "earth was lightened with his glory."
Every truth in the Bible brings us at last to the cross,
and the cross carries us back to every truth in the Bible; so that the sum
and substance of all truth is most impressively proved, illustrated, and
enforced, by "Christ and him crucified." A right conception of what is
included in the cross, insures a right conception of every important
doctrine contained in the Bible. This is the hinge on which the whole system
turns, and the great truth by which alone any and all truths can be
understood.
Several particulars here deserve to be attended to.
Nowhere is the true character of GOD so fully revealed, as in the
cross. The works of creation, with all their beauty and magnificence, make
no such discoveries; nor do the wondrous ways of Divine Providence, much as
they are fitted to arrest the attention of men, and to show them that "truly
there is a God who judges in the earth." The revelations made to Moses and
the prophets, were very inferior to those made by Jesus Christ on this great
article of the Christian faith. God spoke to them from the thick darkness;
the brightness of his glory was concealed by the veil that covered the "most
holy place;" and not until the Savior exclaimed, "It is finished," and gave
up the spirit, was it "torn from the top to the bottom," and the holiness
that is untarnished, the justice that is inflexible, the grace that is
infinite, the mysterious wisdom, and amiable and dreadful sovereignty and
goodness, appeared in such forms that sinful men might look upon them and
live.
Here is not only a true and faithful, but a finished
portrait of the Divine nature; one which, but for the cross, never would
have been known. No view of the Deity is more complete, even though enjoyed
by the "spirits of just men made perfect;" for the clearest and brightest
perceptions of that upper sanctuary, are those in which He is seen through
the cross. We fix our eye on the cross, and feel that "It is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God;" while, as we dwell more intensely
on that ineffably tender scene, do we more satisfactorily discover, that,
amid all the agitation of its frightful terrors, it is mainly designed to
lead us to a reconciling God, and to impress upon our hearts a sense of his
boundless love and mercy.
One would suppose that men need no other instruction upon
the great doctrine of human SINFULNESS, except their own experience
and observation, and the melancholy light which is cast upon this truth by
the pages of history. The fact that men are sinners is indeed here taught
with sufficient clearness; but the intenseness of their moral depravity, and
the infinite demerit of sin, are taught only by the cross. The
self-gratulatory and self-complacent notions which they entertain of
themselves and their fellows, the wretched subterfuges for their wickedness,
and all their exulting self-righteousness, disappear before the stern and
melting rebuke of Calvary. "Christ died for the ungodly." "If one died for
all, then were all dead." "The Son of man has come to seek and to save those
who were lost." Who does not see that the mighty remedy indicates the
malignant and deadly disease? Nothing but the deepest and direst
exigency could have demanded, or even justified, such a sacrifice as the
death of God's eternal Son. The sufferings of Christ are the most affecting
testimony in the universe, of man's unyielding, helpless depravity. Nor do
they indicate less clearly his true and proper ill-desert, than the fires
that shall never be quenched.
Nowhere are we taught how man can be JUST WITH GOD,
but at the cross. If there be one truth taught more emphatically by the
cross than another, it is that "Christ is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone who believes;" and that "our righteousness" is
found only in his finished career of suffering obedience and obedient
suffering. Justice and mercy, hatred of sin, and the pardon of the sinner,
the threatening of death and the promise of life, irreconcilable as they are
by reason and conscience, meet and harmonize in the marvelous fact, that He
who knew no sin, was made sin for us, "that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him."
Would we know who those are, whom God intends to save by
this redemption? The cross answers, "Everyone who believes"—"Whom God has
set forth to be an atoning sacrifice through faith in his blood." Do we
inquire, Who have the Divine warrant to believe? This inquiry also the cross
answers; and by the dignity of its great Sufferer, and the infinite merit of
his sacrifice; by its unembarrassed invitations of mercy and its unqualified
commands, gives the assurance that there is enough and to spare, that
whoever will, may come, and that him who comes shall never be cast out.
Would we know how man, benighted and fallen, and disabled by the sin that
dwells in him, is ever to come to Christ? While the cross unequivocally
assures him, that no man can come except the Father draws him, it at the
same time teaches him to say, "I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me."
Do we inquire, whom he will draw, and to whom this needed
strength will be imparted? The cross answers, "Seek, and you shall find." Do
we still inquire, Who will seek and find the grace that thus draws them?
Here too light falls on the path of our inquiry, though it often shines in
darkness, and the darkness comprehends not. The cross points far back to the
eternal counsels of mercy—refers to those whose names are written in the
Lamb's book of life as his stipulated reward; who were chosen in Christ
"before the foundation of the world," and who, thus predestinated, were
"also called." And if the question be asked, If those who are thus called,
will ever be allowed to draw back to perdition? the reply of the cross is,
"Whom he called, them he also justified—and whom he justified, them he also
glorified."
The cross is no game of chance, nor are the results of it
left to the fickle purpose and heart of man. "My Father, who gave them
me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's
hand." Is it into the coming eternity that we desire to look? no other hands
have so drawn aside the veil, as those have done, which were nailed to the
accursed tree. Life and immortality are brought to light by him; it is his
voice which all who are in their graves shall hear and come forth; before
his bar of judgment shall they stand, and from his lips shall they receive
their eternal destiny. It was not far from the cross that he once said, "In
my Father's house are many mansions—if it were not so, I would have told
you;" and still nearer was it to that place of tears and blood that he made
the affecting demand, "If they do these things in a green tree, what shall
be done in the dry?"
There is one subject on which the cross speaks with
peculiar emphasis—I mean THE RADICAL AND EVERLASTING DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE
RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED. While it is the first and only refuge for the
broken-hearted, it is the last refuge in the universe for the incorrigible;
and while, in its fullness and efficacy, there is no room for fear to the
penitent, its fearful sanctions give no room for hope to the impenitent. If
its flames of justice thus burned against God's well-beloved Son, when he
stood in the sinner's place, while on the one hand, the believer may confide
in this complete satisfaction of its claims, on the other with what
inextinguishable fury will they burn against the man who disowns this
substitution, and has nothing to protect him from the coming wrath!
It is interesting to observe how intimately the New
Testament Scriptures especially, connect all the truths of revealed religion
with the cross. Do they speak of the faith, it is "faith in Christ;" of the
truth, it is "the truth in Christ;" of hope, it is "hope in Christ;" of the
church, it is "one body in Christ;" of her triumphs, it is "triumph in
Christ;" of the covenant of God, it is "his covenant in Christ;" of
spiritual blessings, they are "spiritual blessings in Christ;" of heavenly
places, they are "heavenly places in Christ Jesus;" of the promises, they
are "yes and amen in Christ;" of God, it is "God in Christ."
Wherever the cross is known, the truth of God is known;
and wherever the cross is unknown or obscured, there the truth is unknown or
obscured. The entire testimony of the cross is harmonious, and shows that
the truth is harmonious in all its parts. In some minds, truth is found to
exist in a confused and chaotic state. What such minds need is a clearer
"knowledge of Christ," and a careful comparison of all their attainments
with this standard. Just as the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the
waters, and reduced the primitive chaos to this beautiful world, does the
cross of Christ give shape and form, place, proportion, and beauty to the
truth of God. Nor is it possible to discover, much less appreciate, the
harmony and connection which run through all the essential doctrines of the
gospel, without a just estimate of the relation they sustain to the cross.
There is one more thought in relation to the truth of the
cross, and that is, it is THE LAST REVELATION OF GOD'S WILL TO MAN. The
light here reached its zenith. It had been forty centuries in
rising—gradually dissipating cloud after cloud—now concentrating and now
diffusing its rays—now cheering some few selected spots, and now throwing
its twilight rays over a larger surface; but the cross was its meridian
altitude. Nor shall the sun ever go down, nor the moon withdraw itself. As
this is the last dispensation of the Divine mercy, so is it the last the
Divine government will ever assume. There cannot be a better. "There remains
no more sacrifice for sins." There cannot be a greater, and there will not
be a less. Under this form of government, with this redeeming God and Savior
at its head, the world will move forward to its close. The dynasty of
Moses has passed away; the scepter of the prophets, too, is laid
low—but they have been succeeded by "a kingdom which cannot be moved," and
under whose alone influence, he who died as a malefactor and rose as a
Prince, will "rule and defend his church, and restrain and conquer all his
and her enemies." The changing dispensations of the past have been
superseded by this permanent, this last economy. "Little children," says the
beloved John, "this is the last time." "Now once in the end of the world,"
says another apostle, "has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself."
To my own mind, this is an affecting thought. To have in
our hands the last communication of his truth which the God of love will
ever make to lost men; to have bequeathed to us the last will and testament
of the expiring Mediator; to have listened to his voice for the last time,
until he shall speak "with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet
of God;" may well awaken emotions that cannot be uttered, and lead us to
feel that all other interests and claims are insignificant compared with
the interests of immortal truth, and the claims of the cross. This is
the thought that fired the ardent mind of Paul, in one of the most glowing
arguments he ever uttered—"See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks.
If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how
much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At
that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, 'Once more I
will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.' The words 'once more'
indicate the removing of what can be shaken--that is, created things--so
that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a
kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God
acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." Hebrews
12:25-29. He caught the thought from the lingering notes of the prophet
Haggai, who long before had sung, "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'In
a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and
the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations will
come, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the Lord Almighty."
Haggai 2:6-7.
Now the time had arrived; it was the last variation, the
final revolution in the Divine government, until this world should pass
away, and the elements of which it is composed melt with fervent heat.
Already had the voice shook the earth, when Sinai trembled, and Moses
introduced the dispensation of the law. But there was to be yet one more
voice, that should shake not the earth only, but also heaven. It was His
"who spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets," and who "has in
these last days spoken unto us by his Son." This was the great change,
abolishing all former dispensations, itself never to be abolished, but to
remain among the things that cannot be shaken. The truth is disclosed from
His cross who was the Desire of all nations, is firm as the ordinances of
heaven. And now, if any say, "Lo, here is Christ, or lo, there!" believe
them not. If false prophets appear, as they have done in ages past, and are
appearing still, claiming new communion with heaven, and new and further
revelations; if they cannot be reclaimed, they must be left to their own
idiot dreams and mad delusions. However varied the successes of this
dispensation of Divine truth, and however great the inequalities that may
mark its wondrous progress, there will be no other within the bounds of
time. What is last in God's appointment may well be first in our
estimation—"The last in nature's course; the first in wisdom's thought."
Men who are saved by this, need no greater, no other
salvation; men who are not saved by it, will find no greater, and require no
less. "He who is holy, let him be holy still—and he who is filthy, let him
be filthy still."
Such is the truth of the cross. It must be believed,
loved, and obeyed. It has no false coloring, no gaudy garb. If you doubt its
importance, go and learn it from Gethsemane and Calvary. If you find it hard
to be understood, seek light at the feet of its great Author. It has no cold
and philosophical abstractions, and no lifeless morality. It is not the
mysticism of theory, nor the sentimentalism of feeling, but the truth and
love of God coming down upon the soul, and fitting it for heaven. Human
theories live for a day; the truth of God abides forever. Men gaze at human
theories as they gaze at a meteor when it flashes across the heavens, but
leaves no trace of the path it describes; while the light of the cross is
never extinguished, and the mind in contemplating it never becomes weary. It
has indeed forbidding features; but it may not be forgotten that those
very features which are so repulsive to men who are dead in sin, constitute
its most powerful attractions to those whose hearts are right with God.
Allow me then affectionately to inquire of the reader's
heart, if he loves the truth of the cross? It is not a vain thing, it is for
your life. "Life and death, the blessing and the curse," are yours, as you
fall in, or fall out, with the truth as it is in Jesus.