A Dead Christ vs a Living Christ: by TA Sparks

Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. Galatians 5:1

Legalism always crucifies Christ afresh because legalism cuts out the greatest word in Christianity. The word over the door into true Christianity is the word: “Grace.” Legalism always wipes out “Grace,” and puts in its place “Law.” Grace is the chief word in the vocabulary of the Christian. Do you notice that where legalism reaches its fullest expression, it always puts the crucifix in the place of the empty tomb? The badge of the Christian is the empty tomb. That is “Life from the dead.” The badge of legalism is a crucifix, “a dead Christ.” Legalism always brings death, and the chief thing about Christ is resurrection. It is Life from the dead. This was something that Paul came to see when it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. And he said, “Let me get out of all this legalistic system. Jesus of Nazareth Whom we crucified is alive. He has been revealed alive in my heart.” If we really see the Lord Jesus, we shall be emancipated. Some of us have had that experience. We were in legal systems; our horizon was that system. Then the day came when the Lord opened our eyes to really see the significance of Christ. And that whole system fell away as being all nonsense. No, it is not our business to say, “Come out of this and that, and come into this other.” The word “must” or “thou shall” does not belong to this realm. That belongs to the old legal realm. The “must” becomes a spiritual thing, not a legal thing. We could say of Paul, there was a mighty “must” in his spirit. “I have seen the Lord, and I am seeing more and more of what the Lord is, and this is creating in me this great imperative. ‘This one thing I do, leaving the things which are behind, I press on toward the mark of the prize of the on-high calling.’” So we do not say, “Change your system.” 45 But we do say, “Ask the Lord to reveal His Son in you.” Then the great work of emancipation will begin.

The Cup Jesus Emptied: by Jerry Bridges

Matthew 26:42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” A little while later, at His arrest, He said to Peter in John 18:11, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” The cup was very much on Jesus’ mind that night.

What was in the cup? We generally associate the cup with His crucifixion. We assume that when He prayed that the cup might be taken away, He was asking that, if possible, He might be spared from that horrible and demeaning death on the cross. There is truth in that assumption and certainly, the cup was connected with the crucifixion. But we still haven’t addressed the question of what was in the cup?

In both the Old and New Testaments, the cup of God is a reference to His judgement. For example, in Psalm 75:8, we read, “in the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine and mixed with spices; he pours it out and al the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.”

Here we see that the cup God pours out and that the wicked drink down to the dregs is the cup of God’s judgement. Jeremiah 25:15 is even more specific: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.”

We also see it in the New Testament in Revelation 14:9-10, “A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.”

So the cup is a metaphor referring to the judgement of God as expressed in the pouring out of His wrath on sinful nations and people.

What was in the cup Jesus drank at His crucifixion?  It was the wrath of God.

Do Not Mistake the True Meaning of the Cross: by AW Tozer

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

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles.
It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial, the differences fundamental!
From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life with encouragement for a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist tries to show that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. The modern view is that the new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him!
The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere, but it is as false as it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.
The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. In Roman times, the man who took up his cross and started down the road was not coming back. He was not going out to have his life redirected: he was going out to have it ended! The cross did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more!
The race of Adam is under death sentence. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. Thus God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life!

Victory through Weakness: by TA Sparks

Although He was weak when He was nailed to the cross, He now lives by the power of God. We are weak, just as Christ was. But you will see that we will live by the power of God, just as Christ does. 2 Corinthians 13:4

One of the most damaging things in the realm of God’s work, a thing which eventually leads to shame and confusion and much sorrow, is Natural Soul Force projected by strong-willed, determined, aggressive Christians who have not come to a spiritual state where they are able to discriminate between stubborn indomitableness, personal determination and resolution, and that which is altogether another thing: spiritual grace in endurance, perseverance, and Divine instrengthening. The Lord has often to break the former to make place for the latter. Do not talk about Paul’s wonderful will to go through. Let Paul talk to you about the Lord’s wonderful grace to continue. Whenever a man or a woman really recognizing the truth that Calvary means the end of “I” commits himself or herself to the Lord to work it out, the flame of the sword will come round to the point where that “flesh” would seek to enter into the realm where the first Adam no longer has any standing. The features of a personal strength of will are hardness, coldness, death, resentment of interference, suspicion of rivals, intolerance of obstructers, detachment, independence, secretiveness, heat, etc. While spiritual strength is always marked by love, warmth, life, fellowship, openness, confidence, and trust in the Lord.... At the end, in the Revelation, the dragon, the whole power of Satan is overthrown by the Lamb. The Lamb is the synonym for weakness and yieldingness. Paul says of Christ that “He was crucified through weakness,” and, he adds, “we also are weak with Him.” Yes, but he also says, “by the Cross He triumphed.” Triumphed through weakness!

Preaching About the Cross of Christ: by ML Jones

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 6:14

The preaching of the cross of Christ was the very center and heart of the message of the apostles, and there is nothing I know of that is more important than that every one of us should realize that this is still the heart and the center of the Christian message. In order to emphasize that, let me put it negatively first. What is the message of the Christian Gospel and of the Christian church? Now at the risk of being misunderstood I will put it like this: It is not primarily the teaching of our Lord. I say that, of course, because there are so many today who think that this is Christianity. They say, “What we need is Jesus’ teaching. He is the greatest religious genius of all times. He is above all philosophers. Let us have a look at His teaching, at the Sermon on the Mount and so on. That is what we want. What the world needs today,” they say, “is a dose of the Sermon on the Mount—a dose of His ethical teaching. We must preach this to people and teach them how to live.” But according to the apostle Paul, this is not their first need. And I will go further. If you only preach the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only do you not solve the problem of mankind, but in a sense you aggravate it. You are preaching nothing but utter condemnation, because nobody can ever carry it out.

So they did not preach His teaching. Paul does not say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Sermon on the Mount” or “God forbid that I should glory save in the ethical teaching of Jesus.” He does not say that. It was not the teaching of Christ, nor the example of Christ either. What they preached was His death on the cross and the meaning of that event.

Impossible Debt: by Jerry Bridges

Matthew 18:25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

We can't begin to appreciate the good news of the gospel until we see our deep need. Most people, even believers, have never given much thought to how desperate our condition is outside of Christ. Few ever think about the dreadful implications of being under the wrath of God. And none of us even begins to realize how truly sinful we are.

Jesus once told a story (Matthew 18:21-35) about a king's servant who owed his master ten thousand talents. (Just one talent was equal to about twenty years' wages for a working man.) Why would Jesus use such an unrealistically large amount when He knew that in real life it would have been impossible for any servant to accumulate such a debt?

Jesus was fond of using hyperbole to make His point. That immense sum represents a spiritual debt every one of us owes to God. It's the debt of our sins. For each of us, it's a staggering amount. This is what the gospel is all about. Jesus paid our debt to the full. And He did far more. He also purchased for us an eternal inheritance of infinite worth. That's why Paul wrote of the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8). And God wants us to enjoy those unsearchable riches in the here and now, even in the midst of difficult and discouraging circumstances.

Lofty Thoughts: by JI Packer

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Psalm 139:6

At the age of twenty, C. H. Spurgeon proved that he already had his priorities right: The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, . . . “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God.