by Gardiner Spring
The religion of the cross is full of Christ. Christ is associated with all its duties and all its hopes. Christ is its centre. Christ is its living head, and it lives not, any more than an amputated limb, when severed from Christ. Only as its roots strike downward, and clasp this Tree of Life, does it bear fruit. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” The Christian is nothing, has nothing, can do nothing, without Christ. It is a bastard Christianity that owns not Christ as its parent. It is an ignorant Christianity that looks not to Christ as its teacher, and that follows not his teaching. It is an unpardoned Christianity that looks not to Christ as its priest. It is an impure Christianity that is not washed in the blood of the Lamb. It is a disloyal Christianity that does not recognise Jesus Christ as its king, and that hesitates to obey where he commands. It is a wayward Christianity that looks not to Christ as its example, and that does not follow where he leads the way. The knowledge of the Christian is the “knowledge of Christ.” The love of the Christian is “the love of Christ.” All his graces find their element at the cross. Christ crucified is his glory and joy. Christ in his uncreated glory — Christ in his humanity — Christ in his obedience and temptations — Christ in his death and resurrection — Christ in his kingdom and on his throne — Christ in his weakness and his power, his reproach and in his honour, in his past history and his coming triumphs — is the mighty magnet that attracts his heart, that moves and fixes it, that fills it with grateful astonishment and devotion. Christ, in the word and ordinances, is meat indeed to him, when he is hungry, and when he is thirsty, it is drink. In the storm and tempest, Christ is his hiding-place; in the parched desert, he is as rivers of water; under the noon-day sun, he is as “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Christ near him is his consolation in sorrow; in joy, his triumph. Christ in him is the hope of glory. He seeks supplies only from the fulness of Christ. In death, Christ is his life, and his resurrection in the grave. When he stands in the judgment, Christ is his Judge; and, through interminable ages, Christ is his heaven. The religion of the cross is full of Christ; and this renders it so peaceful and so happy a religion, and imparts to it, not indeed the paroxysms of ecstasy, but “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” It begins and takes root in the soul, not until it has first felt the burden of sin and a sense of its condemnation; not until it has learned to cry for mercy at the foot of the throne; and not until it has found relief in believing in the Son of God, and receiving him as all its salvation and all its desire. Then its peace is as a river, and its joys are as the waves of the sea. It is the counterpart of heaven. It is the cup of joy from the river of life, which clear as crystal, flows from the throne of God and the Lamb.
Allow me affectionately to ask, Do you possess this religion of the cross! You may not be a favourite with the world if you do; but what is unutterably more important, you are the friend of God. This religion comes to you as a suffering, perishing creature, and would make you happy by making you holy. Make the trial of everything else if you will, but there is a voice within your own bosoms that dispels the delusion. And I hear your own response to it: No, I cannot be happy, without the religion of the cross? I may well afford to forego anything, everything, rather than the religion of the cross!