- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
GLORY ONLY IN THE CROSS.
By F.J.Huegel.
As people glory in their wealth, warriors in their arms, royalty in its blood and name, scientists in their science, women in their beauty and artists in their art, so the Apostle Paul gloried in the Cross of Christ. “God forbid,” he exclaimed, “that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He not only gloried in the Cross, he brooked no competition. He would glory in nothing save the Cross. Its claim upon his devotion was to be absolute and undivided.
One simply cannot exaggerate the power of the Cross over Paul’s heart and life. To him it was the centre of his life, the foundation of his being, the alpha and the omega of his hopes and aspirations; it was the load-star of his faith and the foundation from which he drew all his inspiration. He was determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
As Christians we must return continually to our centre, the Cross. If we fail to do so we shall be swallowed up in a dark night.
We must come back to the Cross for an ever-fresh cleansing. We never reach a point where the cleansing Blood is no longer needed. “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean.” Contact with the world besmirches, however watchful we may be in our Christian walk. True, the Christian does not sin willfully, but he does stumble on occasion and his garments are forever being soiled. If he would walk in the light and live in unbroken communion with his Redeemer he must learn to turn immediately to the Cross as need arises and wash his garments anew in the Blood of the Lamb.
We must take possession of the power of the Cross for an ever-fresh removal of the self-life. Our judicial position of identification with Christ in death and resurrection, once it is taken in the power of the Holy Spirit, is an immovable foundation. We count it a fact regardless of feeling. We may reckon true what God affirms in His Word, but oneness with Christ in His death to sin, which we are commanded to reckon on (Rom. 6 v11), is something which the Christian who desires to be more than conqueror must be forever making good in experience. An unguarded moment may be the occasion for the old, sinful nature to raise its head. I must return to my centre and accept anew the slaying power of the Cross, renouncing self, or else the old life of nature will secretly reinstate itself.
There is no life save out of death. That is why we are forever being turned over to death. God would have abundant fruit, but the corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die, or else it remains alone. The abundance of life which we communicate to others will be measured by the depth of death to which we are committed in Christ. There is no other way to abundant fruitfulness.
We must never lose sight of the Cross, ever turning back to it in spirit, inasmuch as it is God's mould for the Christian. We are being fashioned according to a pattern. As to character, the Divine Potter is not shaping one thus and another so. We are “predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son” (Rom. 8 v29) which means being conformed to his death (see Phil 3 v10). It is only as, with Paul, we are crucified together with Christ that the Heavenly Potter sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied. We must interpret all things in the light of the Cross, knowing that we always bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Only this will keep us from being distressed when in trouble, from despair when perplexed, from feeling forsaken when persecuted, and from being destroyed when cast down (2 Cor. 4 v8-9).
We must be forever looking to the Cross, considering “Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart”. It was the Cross that sustained Father Damian as he laboured among the lepers. But for the Cross he could never have lived among them, preaching to them the gospel, until he himself died a leper. Mary Slessor testified that the Cross of Christ held her faithful to a task that involved infinite pain, in the heart of Africa. The conflict to-day is such that unless we draw in an ever deeper way from the fountain that flows from Immanuel’s side, with Calvary as our only centre, we shall most certainly faint in our minds, grow weary and turn back.
Finally, we must be forever turning to the Cross, for nowhere else will be found adequate weapons with which to overcome the devil, the prince of this world. It was on the Cross the Redeemer spoiled principalities and powers and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them. It is only as we live a crucified life that the weapons of our warfare cease to be carnal, and become mighty through God for the pulling down of Satan’s strongholds. It would seem that the hour has come when the enemy, knowing that his time is short, has come down with great rage.
More than ever we need to “bind the strong man" on the basis of the Calvary victory. If ever there was a time when the Biblical injunction, “resist the devil", should be heeded, it is now. If it is done in the full exercise of the Redeemer’s completed work of Redemption, victory shall be ours, however subtly the enemy may strike and though all hell be moved against us.
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