The Cross of Christ

by John R.W. Stott

What we are (our self or personal identity) is partly the result of the creation (the image of God) and partly the result of the Fall (the image defaced). The self we are to deny, disown and crucify is our fallen self, everything within us that is incompatible with Jesus Christ (hence his commands ‘let him deny himself’ and then ‘let him follow me’). The self we are to affirm and value is our created self, everything within us that is compatible with Jesus Christ (hence his statement that if we lose ourselves by self-denial we shall find ourselves). True self-denial (the denial of our false, fallen self) is not the road to self-destruction but the road to self-discovery.

whatever we are by creation we must affirm:

Whatever we are by the Fall, however, we must deny or repudiate:

Both enrichments are due to the introduction into the human scene of the redemption of Christ. Christians can no longer think of themselves only as ‘created and fallen’, but rather as ‘created, fallen and redeemed’.

First, we have more to affirm.

No, no, Dr Hoekema objects. We cannot sing that. ‘And my unworthiness’ would express the truth, but not ‘my own worthlessness’ (p.16). How can we declare ‘worthless’ what Jesus Christ has declared of ‘value’? Is it ‘worthless’ to be a child of God, a member of Christ and an heir of the kingdom of heaven? So then, a vital part of our self-affirmation, which in reality is an affirmation of the grace of God our Creator and Redeemer, is what we have become in Christ. ‘The ultimate basis for our positive self-image must be God’s acceptance of us in Christ’ (p.102).

Secondly, Christians have more to deny as well as more to affirm.

standing before the cross we see simultaneously our worth and our unworthiness, since we perceive both the greatness of his love in dying, and the greatness of our sin in causing him to die.

There was, first, the choice between selfish ambition and sacrifice.

The second choice was between power and service.

Jesus claimed the title, but changed the role. He had not come to be served, but rather to be the ‘servant of the Lord’ of the Servant Songs. He fused the two portraits. He was both the glorious Son of Man and the suffering servant; he would enter glory only by suffering.

The symbol of an authentically Christian leadership is not the purple robe of an emperor, but the coarse apron of a slave; not a throne of ivory and gold, but a basin of water for the washing of feet.

The third choice was, and still is, between comfort and suffering.

It is the glory of Christ’s cross which shows up their selfish ambition for the shabby, tatty, threadbare thing it was. It also highlights the choice, which faces the Christian community in every generation, between the way of the crowd and the way of the cross.

If Christian pastors adhered more closely to the Christ who was crucified in weakness, and were prepared to accept the humiliations which weakness brings, rather than insisting on wielding power, there would be much less discord and much more harmony in the church.

Why this renunciation of selfish ambition and this cultivation of an unselfish interest in others? Because this was the attitude of Christ, who both renounced his own rights and humbled himself to serve others. In fact, the cross sweetens all our relationships in the church.

If the cross is to mark our Christian life in the home and the church, this should be even more so in the world.

For the cross-cultural missionary it may mean costly individual and family sacrifices, the renunciation of economic security and professional promotion, solidarity with the poor and needy, repenting of the pride and prejudice of supposed cultural superiority, and the modesty (and sometimes frustration) of serving under national leadership.

Only an incarnation can span these divides, for an incarnation means entering other people’s worlds, their thought-world, and the worlds of their alienation, loneliness and pain.

Just as the essence of hate is murder (as with Cain), so the essence of love is self-sacrifice (as with Christ).

With the love of God both revealed to us and indwelling us, we have a double, inescapable incentive to give ourselves in love to others.

So love gives food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, help to the destitute, friendship to the lonely, comfort to the sad, provided always that these gifts are tokens of the giving of the self.

the cross is a revelation of God’s justice as well as of his love. That is why the community of the cross should concern itself with social justice as well as with loving philanthropy.

Just so Christian philanthropy in terms of relief and aid is necessary, but long-term development is better, and we cannot evade our political responsibility to share in changing the structures which inhibit development. Christians cannot regard with equanimity the injustices which spoil God’s world and demean his creatures.

If our peace-making is to be modelled on our heavenly Father’s, however, we shall conclude at once that it is quite different from appeasement. For the peace which God secures is never cheap peace, but always costly.

We have no right to expect, therefore, that we shall be able to engage in conciliation work at no cost to ourselves, whether our involvement in the dispute is as the offending or offended party, or as a third party anxious to help enemies to become friends again.

Although the followers of Jesus never have the right to refuse forgiveness, let alone to take revenge, we are not permitted to cheapen forgiveness by offering it prematurely when there has been no repentance. ‘If your brother sins,’ Jesus said, ‘rebuke him’, and only then ‘if he repents, forgive him’ (Luke 17:3).

Churches tend to oscillate between the extreme severity which excommunicates members for the most trivial offences and the extreme laxity which never even remonstrates with offenders.

Thus all disciplinary action was to exhibit the love and justice of the cross.

In particular, these verses define what our Christian attitude to evil should be.

First, evil is to be hated.

Secondly, evil is not to be repaid.

Thirdly, evil is to be overcome.

Fourthly, evil is to be punished.

how does God punish evil?

‘at the last judgment’, and

first is in the progressive deterioration of a godless society,

The second is through the judicial processes of the state,

First, Paul is not distinguishing between two entities, church and state,

Secondly, Paul is not distinguishing between two spheres of Christian activity, private and public,

Thirdly, what Paul is doing is to distinguish between two roles, personal and official.

This, then, is the distinction which Paul is making in Romans 12 and 13 between the non-repayment of evil and the punishment of evil. The prohibitions at the end of chapter 12 do not mean that evil should be left unrequited pending the day of judgment, but that the punishment should be administered by the state (as the agent of God’s wrath) and that it is inappropriate for ordinary citizens to take the law into their own hands.

what did he do in place of retaliation? ‘He entrusted himself to him who judges justly’ (1 Pet. 2:23).

First, the origin of its authority is God.

Nevertheless, the fact that the state’s authority has been delegated to it by God, and is therefore not intrinsic but derived, means that it must never be absolutized.

Secondly, the purpose for which God has given authority to the state is in order both to reward (and so promote) good and to punish (and so restrain) evil.

Thirdly, the means by which the state’s authority is exercised must be as controlled as its purposes are discriminate.

Fourthly, the due recognition of the state’s authority is laid down.

First, according to the Bible suffering is an alien intrusion into God’s good world, and will have no part in his new universe.

Secondly, suffering is often due to sin.