Adrian Buchan

THE CROSS

Philippians 2: 7-11; Luke 23: 39-46 (to “spirit)

I want to speak about the cross of Christ. Persons wear a cross round their neck as an ornament, quite a common thing, but I want to ask each one of us what significance does the cross mean to you? What does it mean to you? If you go back in history, when Sir Edmond Hilary conquered Everest he put a cross there. We were just looking at the Belsen field where many persons died in concentration camps, and in the fields where they were buried they put up a big cross. What does that cross really mean? What significance does it have to you? To the Christian the cross has a very great significance. The Lord of glory was suspended on a cross between heaven and earth and the great matter of sin and sins – sin the root, and sins the fruit – the whole tremendous matter of good and evil was solved at the cross. What does it mean to you? I want to show, dear friends, the number of persons who were at the cross and the different categories that they come into. Then we have to ask ourselves, each one of us, what category do we come into because it is the great separating line between the Christian and the world. The Lord Jesus did not only suffer – the sufferings, the ignominy, the spitting – all that the Lord Jesus suffered was tremendous, but there is more than that. He suffered at the hands of men and then He suffered at the hands of God, but it says in Hebrews that He “endured the cross, having despised the shame”, Heb 12: 2. It is a tremendous matter to take account of what was wrought, what was accomplished, and by virtue of an accomplished and finished work an immutable basis has now been laid upon which every man, woman and child can receive the forgiveness of their sins for time and for all eternity. It stands, the cross stands, dear friend, as an eternal witness before God, before men.

What does the cross really mean? The first thing I think the cross means is the depth of what sin is. You will never know what the depth of sin really means until you come to the cross. You see God’s judgment meted out on the Lord Jesus, His only Son. He gave His only Son. Sin must have been a horrible thing for Jesus to have to suffer and die. It shows the depths of sin. That is the first thing it shows.

The second thing the cross shows is the fulness of the love of God. It is a tremendous thing the expression, “how shall he not also with him grant us all things?”, Rom 8: 32. Think of the richness of God coming out and His mercy to persons like you and me who had no rights, undeserving as we were.

The third point in the cross is that there is no other way of salvation. If you want to be saved, if you want to be converted, if you want to have to do with God on His terms, you have to come to the cross.

What does the cross mean to you? What does the cross really mean? The next point is that the cross gives a new dynamic power to life because if it was not for the cross there would not be resurrection and there would not be any hope for any one of us here. The cross is the great central point because that is where the great matter of sin was settled, “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5: 21): in Him sin was not, He was made sin for us. It says, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor, in order that ye by his poverty might be enriched”, 2 Cor 8: 9. It is a tremendous matter, dear friends, to appreciate the cross.

So I have read in Luke’s Gospel. You will know that Matthew, Mark and Luke have their own presentation, different from John. John has his own presentation. In John the Lord Jesus carried His own cross. But Matthew, Mark and Luke give us some detail as to the persons who surrounded the cross, and you just think of the Lord Jesus as He journeyed with these persons after being given stripes. In the first three gospels we know that Simon the Cyrenian came and helped Jesus as He bore the cross, and the soldiers, how they pierced His hands and His feet, and they put Him on a cross. Crucifixion is the most torturing of deaths that there can ever be. Stoning or slaying is an act of mercy compared to crucifixion because it can last for hours and days. It lingers on. It is the most torturing of all deaths. Jesus endured it, and the point in the gospel, dear friend, is that He endured it for you and for me. Peter says, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2: 24), Himself. I want this to come home because there are certain facts in the gospel which need to be mentioned, but I want to give you something of the feelings of God. That is what the gospel is about, the feelings of God, and they come out in the gospel. God has feelings for you and for me and He wants to bring you in to the blessedness of the enjoyment of His house. But, you see, we have all broken God’s law, and there is a sentence for that. The sentence has been passed and it is death, and it has been passed upon all men. All men have come short of the glory of God, every one. We all say in the period of our lives, ‘Well I am as good as him’, ‘I am as good as her’, ‘I am as good as them’. God is not judging you with another man, who is a sinner too. God is judging you by Jesus Christ, that is how He is judging you. God wants you to come up to that level, Jesus Christ. How can I have that kind of goodness? How can I acquire that kind of goodness? You get it at the cross. You find God’s judgment about sin. During the week we were speaking about Psalm 73, and how great a man David the king was. It says, “my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped”; nothing happens in that Psalm until we get to that word “Until”. All the rest of it was not of much relevance, “Until I went in to the sanctuaries of God” – notice the plural, “sanctuaries” – “then understood I their end”, Ps 73: 17. It all came into perspective, all the things he had ended, the wicked and the arrogant, how they seemed to prosper, and David had the thing completely out of perspective. But it is interesting, it says, “Until I went in to the sanctuaries of God”. It is interesting if you go on further it says, “Nevertheless I am continually with thee”, (v 23). Wonderful thing! In spite of all the failings and the wanderings, God is saying “Nevertheless”. His grace has overabounded! That is the God we have to do with. Then you go further down that chapter and it says, “and after”. Oh, dear friend, have you reached through to the “after”? – the Authorised says “afterwards”. Men only think about today, they only live for the day:

The creature of a day      (Hymn 150)

They only think about this moment, they do not think about the future, but the Psalm says, “and after”. Wonderful thing! It says, “But no chastening at the time seems to be matter of joy … but afterwards yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it”, Heb 12: 11. O, dear friend, do you think of the afterwards? That is what the gospel is about. Do you think about the afterwards? Where is each one of us going to spend eternity? Where are we going to spend eternity? This matter of which we are speaking addresses the subject, because by virtue of accepting God’s word and the means which He has provided in the death of Christ, we can come into the enjoyment with Him, loved with the same love with which Jesus is loved.

I read in Luke 23 because it says that when the Lord Jesus was being crucified, others came up and they watched, they looked on. There were conditions of apathy. It speaks elsewhere about the rulers and the scribes and the elders, and the passers-by shouted and said to the Lord Jesus, “Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou art Son of God, descend from the cross” (Matt 27: 40) – ‘Come down from the cross and we will believe on you!’ There were the mockers, there were those who spat on the Lord Jesus, the Creator of the world. What a gathering of people there is here!

Then we come to the malefactors, and you might say one of the malefactors had a strange look in his eye. He turned to the other, and it says, “Now one of the malefactors who had been hanged spoke insultingly to him, saying, Art not thou the Christ? Save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou too not fear God, thou that art under the same judgment? And we indeed justly”. Life was ebbing out for this man and he took an opportunity; he would never have that opportunity again. Somebody said this was the greatest evidence in the whole of the New Testament of faith; the greatest evidence of faith in the whole New Testament was what this man did, and he comes into the blessing. It says that whosoever calls on the name of Jehovah shall be saved. This is it, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of Jehovah shall be saved”, (Joel 2: 32), you might say, if you pardon the expression, almost by the skin of his teeth. But grace is available and the Lord Jesus, if you think of what he says to Jesus, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”. What this man would have seen would have been quite awful as far as the eye could see, but yet in the faith of his soul he could see the Lord Jesus coming in His kingdom. It is a wonderful thing, a wonderful thing! He says, “Remember me Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom. And Jesus said to him, “Verily I say to thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”. He was the first person to enter into paradise with the Lord Jesus, wonderful thing, another kind of person who was at the cross.

It goes from there to the centurion. Think of the effect it had on the centurion. He could say, “Truly this man was Son of God”, Matt 27: 54. What a wonderful thing, beloved. It had such an effect he said, “Truly this man was Son of God”.

There is another kind of person too. John tells us, “And by the cross of Jesus stood …”, John 19: 25. That is a wonderful stance to take. In the rejection of Jesus Christ today, “And by the cross of Jesus stood his mother”, these women who were able to stand – another kind of person who was at the cross. Somebody said that the pagan mob that was present at the cross is less painful than the present world where indifference and apathy abound, where the light of the gospel has spread for almost two thousand years. That is a very sobering thing if we think about it. Where do you stand in relation to the cross? Paul speaks about the scandal of the cross. What a scandal it was! The Prince, not of this world, but the Prince Jesus, He is the true Prince, the Creator of the world, Jesus; the greatest travesty that ever was committed in this universe was that Jesus died at the hands of sinful men. What a travesty! Think of it, the cross. Now as the Lord Jesus has died and has taken my place, He is not only the Offerer, He is the Offering and He is the Offering Priest. He exhausted God’s judgment in relation to sin. He exhausted it, dear friend. Wonderful thing! And God has been glorified. That is the great point in the gospel. Let us not miss the great point in the gospel, that God has been glorified righteously in result of sin. My blessing and your blessing is only incidental. The great point and the great scheme of things is that God has been glorified. May we come into the whole system that God is being glorified and come into the house! We can join in it.

When Jesus died, as somebody said, as Man it was murder, as God is was an offering; as Man is was martyrdom, as God it was sacrifice; as Man His life was taken from the earth, as God He laid it down; as Man it calls out admiration from our hearts, as God is calls our adoration; as Man we bow our hearts with great respect, as God we bow in homage and worship. How wonderful the gospel is and the message goes out to ever corner of the world and persons are being brought into the blessings of the gospel;

Rich blessings unmeasured, conceived in His heart

Do you know something of the richness of God’s heart towards you and towards me? We had no rights, “strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ”, Eph. 2: 12,13. He has “made peace”, it says, “by the blood of his cross”, Col. 1: 20. It is a wonderful thing this matter of the cross; it keeps coming up. Paul speaks about it at the beginning of Corinthians, “the word of the cross”, 1 Cor. 1: 18. You will notice it is the word, not the work. Oh no, it would not be the work; the work has been accomplished, dear friend, and God has been glorified. “The word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us that are saved it is God’s power”, to everyone that believes. What a message is going out, dear friend, and God is bringing men into the blessedness, undeserved as it may be, but how very blessed. Dear friend, I want you to think about that, about the cross. May it not lose its effect with us. It is the basis of it all. May it be so for His Name’s sake.

 

EDINBURGH

10 July 2001