The Imperative of the Cross

Christ Crucified is the example we are summoned to follow daily, and it is the test of the genuine Apostolic Faith and true spirituality.

The death of Jesus provides the indispensable pattern for how we must live in this fallen world, and the measuring rod for judging spirituality. Whether examining a man’s wisdom, teachings, conduct, or supernatural deeds, the Cross of Christ is the bright line between truth and falsehood. No man can know God apart from “Christ crucified.” God has revealed Himself in His Son, the Crucified Messiah.

In Corinth, certain assembly members were boasting of their spirituality, and, in their minds, this was demonstrated by the abundance of spiritual gifts operating through them, especially “speaking in tongues.”

[Photo by Cdoncel on Unsplash]

To such presumptuousness and immaturity, Paul retorted: If you are so spiritual, why do you behave so carnally?

• (1 Corinthians 3:1-4) – “And I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with meat, for you were not yet able to bear it. No, not even now are you able, for you are yet carnal. Because there is among you jealousy and strife, are you not carnal, and do you not walk after the manner of men?”

The divisions among the Corinthians proved they were anything but “spiritual.” They were behaving like the unregenerate men of their city. Spiritual gifts and miraculous displays do not constitute wisdom or power, and certainly do not demonstrate “spirituality.” Instead, Paul pointed to the Cross as the model and evidence of genuine spirituality:

• “Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; to Jews, scandal; to Gentiles, folly, but to them who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power and the wisdom of God” – (1 Corinthians 1:22-24).

To any patriotic Jew, the idea of a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms. To Gentiles, the claim that God dealt with humanity’s plight in the shameful execution of a powerless man by the world’s mightiest empire was sheer nonsense.

The death of Jesus was the very means by which God achieved victory over sin, death, and Satan, therefore, the proclamation of this “crucified Messiah” is the “wisdom and power of God.” What this fallen age sees as scandal and folly is, in fact, the same “power of God” that accomplished salvation for humanity on the Roman Cross.

In contrast, the “Rulers of this Age” did not understand this. If they had, they would never have “crucified the Lord of glory,” an act that sealed their doom. By the “Rulers of this Age,” Paul means the nonhuman entities he elsewhere labels “principalities, the powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavens” – (Ephesians 6:12).

Despite the powers of these otherworldly entities, they proved incapable of comprehending what God was doing through His Son. They were as clueless as the men who opposed Jesus and plotted his execution.

The significance of the Cross can only be comprehended through revelation “by the Spirit of God.” Christ Crucified is contrary to the “wisdom” of this age. Only those who have the Spirit of God, and thus the “mind of Christ,” can understand the “wisdom” and faithfulness God has displayed before humanity on Calvary, a “demonstration of His righteousness.”

• “But now, apart from the Law, a righteousness of God has been manifested, borne witness to by the Law and the Prophets, a righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ, for all who have faith. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and lack the glory of God. Being declared righteous freely by his grace through the ransomed release[i] that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as the mercy-seat[ii], through the faith, by his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness, because of the passing-over of the previously committed sins, in the forbearance of God, with a view to a showing forth of his righteousness in the present season, that he might be righteous even when declaring a man righteous from the faith of Jesus” – (Romans 3:21-26).

SPIRITUALITY

If a follower of Jesus is “spiritual,” instead of asserting his superior “rights,” he will set aside such things for the sake of others. As Paul wrote to the Philippians:

• “In lowliness of mind, each counting the other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you to the things of others. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Unlike Adam, Jesus did not attempt to “become like God,” but chose instead to “pour himself out, taking the form of a slave.” That meant denying himself and becoming “obedient unto death”; therefore, God “highly exalted him” – (Philippians 2:1-11).

Spirituality and wisdom are found in His Cross, and we are summoned to live accordingly. Even the ability to perform supernatural feats is no guarantee that any man is spiritual.

Many men who did “mighty deeds in his name” will hear Jesus declare on the Last Day, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity!” It seems something vital was lacking in their “spirituality” – (Matthew 7:21-23).

Jesus provided his disciples with a clear explanation of what it means to live like him. When they argued over who was the “greatest” in the Kingdom, he intervened:

• “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones tyrannize them. Not so shall it be among you! Whoever would become great among you will be your servant, and whoever would be first among you will be your slave, even as the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” – (Matthew 20:25-28).

The term translated as “servant” represents the Greek noun ‘diakonos’, which referred to household servants and slaves who waited on tables, a rather menial task. Self-sacrificial service to others and “denying ourselves daily by carrying his cross” is how we become “great” in the Kingdom. Jesus illustrated this rather graphically when he laid down his life as the ransom price to liberate humanity.

There is no Christianity without Christ, and there is no genuine Christ apart from Calvary, the same Jesus who “gave his life a ransom for many.” Every one of his disciples is called to imitate him. That is the mark of who is a true disciple and who is not.

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SEE ALSO:

• Let this mind be in you - (The submission of Jesus to an unjust death is the pattern of the love and service to others that his disciples are called to imitate)

• Power and Wisdom - (The power and wisdom of God are found in the proclamation of a Christ who was crucified on a Roman cross)

• The Cruciform Path - (To follow Jesus necessitates a lifetime of self-denial and sacrificial service for others and a willingness to lose all for the Gospel)

Endnotes:

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[i] “Ransomed Release” (apotutrôsis {απολυτρωσις}) – A release achieved by ransom; the act of ransoming.

[ii] (Hilastéron {ιλαστηριον}) – “Mercy-seat, The, mur'-si-set (kapporeth; New Testament hilasterion, Heb 9:5): The name for the lid or covering of the ark of the covenant (Ex 25:17, etc.). The Old Testament term means "covering," then, like the New Testament word, "propitiatory" (compare kipper, "to cover guilt," "to make atonement"). The ark contained the two tables of stone which witnessed against the sin of the people. The blood of sacrifice, sprinkled on the mercy-seat on the great day of atonement, intercepted, as it were, this condemning testimony, and effected reconciliation between God and His people.” (from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia – {https://www.internationalstandardbible.com/M/mercy-seat-the.html}).