The Offense of the Cross: by ML Jones

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. 1 Corinthians 1:23

The test of whether someone is teaching the cross rightly or wrongly is whether it is an offense to the natural man or not. If my preaching of this cross is not an offense to the natural man, I am misrepresenting it. If it is something that makes him say “how beautiful,” “how wonderful,” “what a tragedy,” “what a shame,” I have not been preaching the cross truly. The preaching of the cross is an offense to the natural man. So it becomes the test of any man’s preaching.

Or let me put it in terms of the congregation. If this element of offense in the cross has never appeared to you, or if you have never felt it, then I say that you likewise have never known the truth about the cross of Christ. If you have never reacted against it and felt that it is an offense for you, I say you have never known it. It is always an offense to the natural man. Invariably, there is no exception. So if you have never felt it, you have never seen it because you are a

natural man. Nobody is born a Christian into this world. We have to be born again to become Christians, and as long as we are natural men and women, the cross is an offense.

So if we have never known this element of offense, either we have not seen it or we have had some misrepresentation of it. The cross is an offense to the mind of the natural man. It cuts across all his preconceived notions and ideas. It was a stumbling block to the Jews for this reason. They were expecting a Messiah to destroy the Roman conquerors. So when they found the One who claimed to be the Messiah dying in apparent weakness upon the cross, they were deeply wounded and offended.

The Collision of God and Sin: by Oswald Chambers

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. — 1 Peter 2:24

There is nothing more certain in time or eternity than what Jesus Christ did upon the cross. He made redemption the basis of human life, restoring the whole of humanity to a right relationship with God. The cross of Jesus stands unique and alone. It is not the cross of a man or a woman; it is the cross of God, the exhibition of his nature. No parallel to it exists in human experience.

The cross was a superb triumph. It was the revelation of God’s judgment on sin; it shook the foundations of hell. Never tolerate the idea that Jesus Christ went to the cross as a martyr. The cross didn’t happen to Jesus; he came on purpose for it. Jesus is “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world ” (Revelation 13:8). God became flesh in order to defeat sin, not for self-realization. The incarnation was entirely for the redemption.

The cross is the center of time and eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both. It is the gateway by which any member of humanity can enter into union with God—yet when we get to the cross we do not pass through it. Rather, we abide in the life it has made possible for us, a life of communion with God.

The center of salvation is the cross of Jesus, and the reason it is so easy to obtain salvation is because it cost God so much. The cross is the point where God and sinful humanity merge with a crash and the way to life is opened—but the crash is on the heart 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!

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.

The Cross of Christ: by Andrew Murray

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:19-20

The cross of Christ is His greatest glory. Because He humbled Himself to the death of the cross, therefore God hath highly exalted Him. The cross was the power that conquered Satan and sin.

The Christian shares with Christ in the cross. The crucified Christ lives in him through the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of the cross inspires him. He lives as one who has died with Christ. As he realizes the power of Christ's crucifixion, he lives as one who has died to the world and to sin, and the power becomes a reality in his life. It is as the crucified One that Christ lives in me.

Our Lord said to His disciples: "Take up your cross and follow me." Did they understand this? They had seen men carrying a cross, and knew what it meant, a painful death on the cross. And so all His life Christ bore His cross, the death sentence that He should die for the world. And each Christian must bear his cross, acknowledging that he is worthy of death, and believing that he is crucified with Christ, and that the crucified One lives in him. "Our old man is crucified with Christ." "He that is Christ's hath crucified the flesh with all the lusts thereof." When we have accepted this life of the cross, we will be able to say with Paul: "Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

This is a deep spiritual truth. Think and pray over it, and the Holy Spirit will teach you. Let the disposition of Christ on the cross, His humility, His sacrifice of all worldly honour, His Spirit of self-denial, take possession of you. The power of His death will work in you, and you will become like Him in His death, and you will know Him and the power of His resurrection. Take time, O soul, that Christ through His Spirit, may reveal Himself as the Crucified One.

Christ in Us: by Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Dou you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? 1 Corinthians 6:19

The New Testament tells me that Christ is in me, and I am meant to live a life of constant fellowship and communion with Him. Sin is to look away from Him, to be interested in anything that the world can give rather than in Him. Oh, if it is something foul it is ten times worse; but the best that the world can give me is an insult to Him if I put it before Him.

There are endless statements of this. Paul puts it in terms of the Holy Spirit: “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The argument is about fornication and adultery. Paul does not merely give a moral lecture on immorality; he says in effect, “What is wrong about that is that you are joining your body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit, to another, and you have no right to do it. The way to overcome that sin is not to pray so much that you may be delivered from it; it is to realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and that you have no right to use it in that way.” Another way he puts it is this, and it is very tender: “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30). He is tender, He is sensitive, He is holy; do not grieve Him.

If you and I would only think of our lives like that, it would very soon begin to promote our sanctification. May I commend to you a simple morning rule: When you wake up, the first thing you should do (and I need to do the same) is to say to yourself, “I am a child of God. Christ is in me. That old self is gone: I died with Christ. ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.’ Everything I do today must be in the light of this knowledge.”

The Invasion: by CS Lewis

1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe—a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living ma part of the universe occupied by the rebel.
    Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening--in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery. I know someone will ask me, ‘Do you really mean, at this time of day, to re-introduce our old friend the devil-—hoofs and horns and all?’ Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is ‘Yes, I do. I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance. If anybody really wants to know him better I would say to that person. ‘Don’t worry. If you really want to, you will. Whether you’ll like it when you do is another question.’