1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” It is of far-reaching importance that the Person of our Lord cannot really be known and understood apart from the Cross. It is equally of consequence to realize that the Cross is only really understood and adequately appreciated when the Person of Christ is discerned. There two work hand-in-hand and are mutually dependent. In the days of His earthly life, His disciples and the people wanted a Crossless Christ. They could see no place for the Cross. It was a contradiction of all their hopes and expectations. Whenever He referred to it, a dark shadow crept over them, and they were offended. They revolted quite positively against the idea and suggestion. Running parallel to this inability to discern the meaning and the value of the Cross was, on the one hand, His continual reference to His own essential Person as Son God, and on the other hand, their total inability to recognize Him. Only in fleeting flashes of illumination did one or two of them see Him as such, and then, it would seem from their behavior, that they lost the realization, and the general clouds of uncertainty wrapped around them again. The state and position in which we find them when He has been crucified indicates how the reality of His Person had failed to possess their innermost life. The interesting and significant thing is that the Lord all the time indicated that the twofold inability would be removed when actually the Cross was an accomplished fact. The eighth chapter of John’s Gospel is a strong example of this. In it, Jesus is concentrating everything upon the question of His Person. “I am the light of the world . . . The Pharisees therefore said unto , Thou bearest witness of thyself ; thy witness is not true. Jesus answered . . . My witness is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go.” Then the statement comes which is the turning point of everything. “Jesus therefore said, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then ye shall know that I am he.” (John 8:27). By something more than implication, Jesus had laid down the same principle with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was groping in the shadows as to the Person of Christ. “We know that thou art a teacher come from God . . .” Jesus pointed out that, in order to “see,” something must take place by which a new faculty is obtained; a new birth is necessary. Then, He lead Nicodemus on to the Cross, using the same phrase as in the eighth chapter: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). The law enunciated is that it will be the Cross which discloses Who Jesus is. Within what we have just written lies the very essence of the significance of Christ. What is the thing for which Christ stands preeminently in the whole revelation of Scripture? The answer is Union with God. That has been the thing for which man has been in quest as long as man has been a sinful creature. In almost countless ways and by as many means, he has sought that peace and rest which is to be had alone by oneness with God. Somewhere, somehow (the Bible shows us) a fellowship with God was lost. Three things became the abiding and ever-active marks of the rupture of relationships. One—the lie; two—enmity; and three—death. We will look at the results of the fall, first ‘a lie is believed.’ Man has not only believed and accepted a lie; but it has entered into his constitution, and he is a deceived and darkened soul. Of himself he neither knows , not is capable of knowing or being the truth. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Man was told that if he took a course contrary to that laid down by God and assumed the right to use his own reason independently of God, he would become “as God.” He accepted the lie, made his bid for supremacy, enthroned his reason in independence, and was taken charge of by the lie. The outworking of this has been—and is—a tremendous development of human achievement by which man has become a lord in his own right (as he thinks) and blinded to the fact that destruction and distress are an ever-growing fruit of his science. So much is this true, that the question has been seriously raised by men in a position to ask it,, as to whether science is a greater benefactor than it is a curse. It is a fact that all unemployment, with its many consequent miseries and troubles, is due to science which has replaced men by machines, and human skill by mass production. The same responsibility lies at the door of science for the ability to literally wipe from the face of earth, all humanity. Science is not all evil and has produced many helpful and valuable discoveries, much in the fight for cures for diseases. The point is that man believes that he is all the time improving, when, as a matter of fact, there is no moral elevation corresponding to the intellectual development It is easy to see that mankind has been riding a lie in the form of a tiger that is tearing them to pieces. The strength of the lie, lies in the fact that man does not recognize it, he is blind and in the dark, as to its nature and source. This is all the Devil’s spite against God. —to be continued Even so, Lord Jesus come
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:56:54 +0000
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