Cross Bearing # 2

Cross Bearing # 2

The word "cross" is never found in the plural number, nor is it ever found with the indefinite article before it, "a cross." Note also that in our text the cross is linked to a verb in the active voice and not the passive. It is not a cross that is laid upon us - but a cross which must be "taken up"! The cross stands for definite realities which embody and express the leading characteristics of Christ's agony.

Others understand the "cross" to refer to disagreeable duties which they reluctantly discharge - or to fleshly habits which they grudgingly deny. They imagine that they are cross-bearing when, prodded at the point of conscience, they abstain from things earnestly desired. Such people invariably turn their cross into a weapon with which to assail other people. They parade their self-denial and go around insisting that others should follow them. Such conceptions of the cross are as Pharisaical as false, and as mischievous as they are erroneous!

Now, as the Lord enables me, let me point out three things that the Cross stands for:

First, the cross is the expression of the world's hatred. The world hated Christ, and its hatred was ultimately manifested by crucifying Him. In the 15th chapter of John, seven times over, Christ refers there to the hatred of the world against Himself and against His people. And just in proportion as you and I are following Christ, just in proportion as our lives are being lived as His life was lived, just in proportion as we have come out from the world and are in fellowship with Him - so will the world hate us!

Ah, my friends, if you are following Christ - the world will think you are mad - and some of you will find it very hard to bear aspersions on your sanity. Yes, there are some who find the reproaches of the living - a harder trial than the loss of the dead. Yes, the reproach of the world becomes very real - if you are following Christ closely. No man can keep in with the world - and follow Him. The cross stands for the reproach and the hatred of the world. But as the cross was voluntary for Christ, so it is for His disciples. It can either be avoided or accepted. It can either be ignored or taken up!

But secondly, the cross stands for a life that is voluntarily surrendered to the will of God. From the standpoint of the world, the death was voluntary sacrifice. Turn for a moment to the 10th chapter of John, beginning at the 17th verse: "Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man takes it from Me - but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Why did Christ thus lay down His life? Look at the closing sentence of verse 18: "This commandment have I received of My Father." The cross was the last demand of God upon the obedience of His Son. That is why we read in Phil. 2 that, He "made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death" (that was the climax, that was the end of the path of obedience), "even the death of the cross!"

Christ has left us an example that we should follow His steps. The obedience of Christ should be the obedience of the Christian - voluntary, not compulsory; continuous, faithful, without any reserve, unto death. The cross stands for obedience, consecration, surrender, a life placed at the disposal of God. "If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me" and "Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me - cannot be My disciple." In other words, dear friends, the cross stands for the principle of discipleship, our life being actuated by the same principle that Christ's was. He came here - and He pleased not Himself; no more must I. He made Himself of no reputation: so must I. He went about doing good: so should I. He came not to be ministered unto - but to minister; so should we. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That is what the Cross stands for.

Have we begun to "take up the cross" at all? Is there any wonder that we are following Him at such a distance? Is there any wonder that we have such little victory over the power of indwelling sin? There is a reason for that. Mediatorially, the Cross of Christ stands alone - but experimentally the cross is to be shared by all His disciples. Legally the Cross of Calvary annulled and put away our guilt, the guilt of our sins; but, my friends, I am perfectly convinced that the only way of getting deliverance from the power of sin in our lives and obtaining mastery over the old man within us - is by the cross becoming a part of the experience of our souls! It was at the Cross, that sin was dealt with legally and judicially. It is only as the Cross is "taken up" by the disciple that it becomes an experience, slaying the power and defilement of sin within us. And Christ says, "Whoever does not bear his cross, cannot be My disciple." O what need has each Christian here this morning to get alone with the Master, and consecrate Himself to His service!!

~A. W. PinK~

(The End)