Preached at Redmarley, Afternoon of the 15th Sunday after Trinity, September 8, 1861.
“But God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Christ Jesus my Lord, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”—Galatians vi. 14.
I Explained to you last Sunday how the Galatians had been drawn away to think St. Paul their enemy, though they had once counted him their best friend. He had written them a letter with his own hand (commonly he employed some of his companions to write for him), to tell them how they had mistaken him, and how much they had injured themselves by listening to the people who slandered him. The words we read in the epistle for this morning are the end of his letter. They are good for us to read and to think of, because they show us what bound St. Paul to these Galatians for all that they had used him so ill, and what binds him to us, for all that we were born into the world so many hundreds of years after he left it.
The Galatians had been persuaded that they must become like the Jews, and must have the sign of the covenant if they would have God’s favour. St. Paul was a Jew himself, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; he says he had once been very proud of his privileges as a Jew.
He had once despised all other nations and thought that they were cut off from God; but he had cast away that pride; he had found that he was not in himself a whit better than other people, let him have been born where he might, let him have had ever so many advantages, ever such a good law, ever such a holy covenant. He could not, he would not, glory then on this ground any more. And he made the Galatians understand that if they tried to find this excuse for glorying, they would be sadly disappointed. They would not be able to keep God’s law any better than they had kept it hitherto, if they made themselves like the Jews; they would not love one another or love God better. But he had not given over glorying because he did not glory in being unlike the rest of men. And he would not have the Galatians cease from glorying, though that was no good pretence for it. What could he glory in then? In that which did not separate him from his neighbours, but united him to his neighbours. In that which did not separate him from those who quarrelled with him, but was as great a blessing to them as to him. In that which did not belong to one people or to one time, but to all people and all time.
“God forbid,” he says, “that I should glory save in the Cross of Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Now just think what that means. The Romans had many ways of putting men to death, but there was one way which was the most shameful of all, one way which they kept for slaves and for people who had committed the greatest crimes, that was the death of crucifixion, a death of hanging on a cross. When St. Paul came preaching of Jesus as the Son of God, people listened to him for a while. They said, ‘Yes; it is just possible that some great ruler may have come upon earth, or some very wise man who deserves that name.’ But when he said, ‘He whom I say is the Son of God, is Jesus of Nazareth, who was called a carpenter’s son, and who was crucified by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor’—then they cried out, ‘How monstrous! Can you expect us to believe that? To think of the God of Heaven making himself known to us in a man who underwent such a death as this.’ But St. Paul said, ‘I can proclaim to you no other. That is the King to whom I bow. That is the Son of God in whom I believe.’ Yes, and that is the King, the Son of God, whom you need, one and all of you. You want a king who can stoop to the state of the lowest and most wretched of His subjects. You want a Son of God who shows that the love of God is stronger than the wickedness of man, and than the ingratitude of man. You want a Son of God who can show that love is stronger than death. Any other will not avail you. Any other is not a King and a Saviour and a Son of God for sinful men. Any other is not a King and a Saviour, and a Son of God for dying men. Any other is not a King, and a Saviour, and a Son of God for all men,—for men of every kindred and tribe; for all times; for the rich and poor; the wise and the unwise; for the man that is highest in the world’s esteem, and for the outcast that is most trodden under foot. A crucified Lord is for all of these and for each of them. If He is the Son of God, the Image of His Father, then I can know what God is; what His character is; what His will to all human creatures is. If He is King of men, then I can know what sort of government men are under; what hope there is that they may overcome their enemies. And so he says, ‘Since I cannot glory in myself, or in my descent, or in my difference from other people, any longer, I will glory in this, I will think of this, the cross of Christ, and I will boast of that, and be proud of that; I will say, He who hung there is my Lord. He who hung there is the Christ with whom God is well pleased. I will exult in Him because I know that He has redeemed me who would have been a poor slave of my own lusts and my own vanity if I had been left to myself. I will exult in Him, because He has redeemed all mankind as well as me; because there is no creature in any corner of God’s wide universe whom He has been ashamed to call His brother. That is my warrant for boasting in this Cross, and nothing can take that right from me. If it is said that I am good for nothing, I confess it, therefore I glory in this Cross. If it is said that death and the grave have set their mark upon me, I confess it, therefore I glory in this Cross. If it is said that I cannot make out any reason why God should care for me any more than for any vagabond on the earth, I confess it, therefore I glory in this Cross. If it is said that the Cross itself was humiliating and degrading, I confess it, therefore I glory in Him who submitted to the Cross.’
And so he goes on. “By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” That is as if he had said, ‘I know perfectly well that this seems to Jews and Gentiles both—to those who call themselves God’s people, and to those who worship idols—very strange, and ridiculous, and contemptible. It seemed to me as strange, and ridiculous, and contemptible, as it could to any one. But since I hold this to be the sign of my deliverance and of the world’s deliverance, since this is what fastens me to all men and makes me care for all men, I cannot much mind their opinion or even my own opinion. The nails of this Cross go through the world’s opinions, and my own. I know very well how one man glories against another, and one nation against another, one religious society against another. I know how I have gloried against my fellow-men, but now I cannot do that any more.’ The Son of God is lifted up above all the conceit and arrogance of me and of you, and of all the people in the earth, let them be who or what they may. That, I take it, is at least a little part of the meaning of these words—“By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” It may be a very little part indeed, you may find a great deal more of what it means hereafter; I hope you, and I hope I, shall. If we hold fast to the first part of the sentence and determine we will live upon that, we shall be sure to find out something more of the length and depth and breadth of the latter part every day. Yes! each of you may do that; for consider, my friends, what is all I have been saying, all that St. Paul has been saying, good for, if it does not declare what every creature upon earth may delight in, what may lift every creature upon earth above the earth, yes, may lift them out of a deep beneath the earth. Why should St. Paul glory in the Cross of Christ, if not because “Christ being in the form of God, took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made subject to death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him, giving Him a name which is above every name.” And if it be so, each one of us who is furthest from St. Paul’s stature of holiness may begin to do just what he did. We may swear that we will glory in nothing save the Cross of Christ, not because we are strong, but because we are weak; not because we are great, but because we are little; not because we have deserved anything of God, but because we have erred and strayed from Him. We may glory in the Cross of Christ because: He bore it that He might claim fellowship with all of us, and might raise us out of all our sins, and might make of our crosses blessings, and love-tokens to us.
And if we do glory in the Cross of Christ, we may be sure that we are doing what the angels in heaven and the spirits of just men made perfect are doing. We shall be entering into the song of triumph; for it is this, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory, and dominion, and praise, and honour.” And in that song, we are told, all that are on the earth, and all that are under the earth, will surely join.