The Cross: Crucified with Christ, and Christ Alive in Me

by J.C. Ryle

He was a self-denying man – in many watches, in hunger and thirst, in many fasts, in cold and nakedness (2 Corinthians 11:27). He was a humble man. He thought himself less than the least of all saints and the chief of sinners (Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 1:15).

Imitate Paul

Oh, beware of self-righteousness. Open sin kills thousands of souls. Self-righteousness kills tens of thousands. Go and study humility with the great apostle of the Gentiles. Go and sit with Paul at the foot of the cross. Give up your secret pride. Cast away your vain ideas of your own goodness. Be thankful if you have grace, but never glory in it for a moment.

Imitate Paul!

Think, you who take comfort in some fancied ideas of your own goodness; think, you who wrap yourselves up in the notion that all must be right if I stay in my church; think for a moment what a sandy foundation you are building! Think for a moment how miserably defective your hopes and pleas will look in the hour of death and in the day of judgment!

Contemplate

Once more I say, beware of self-righteousness in every possible shape and form. Some people receive as much harm from their fancied virtues as others do from their sins. Take heed, lest you be one. Rest not until your heart beats in tune with Paul’s. Rest not until you can say with him, God forbid that I should glory in anything but the cross.

What did Paul mean when he said, I glory in the cross of Christ in the epistle to the Galatians?

The cross sometimes means that wooden cross on which the Lord Jesus was nailed and put to death on Mount Calvary.

This is not the cross in which Paul gloried, however.

The cross sometimes means the afflictions and trials which believers in Christ have to go through if they follow Christ faithfully for their religion’s sake.

This also is not the sense in which Paul used the word when he wrote to the Galatians.

But in some places the cross also indicates the doctrine that Christ died for sinners on the cross – the atonement that He made for sinners by His suffering for them on the cross, the complete and perfect sacrifice for sin that He offered when He gave His own body to be crucified.

this one word, the cross, stands for Christ crucified, the only Savior. This is the meaning in which Paul used the expression when he told the Corinthians the word of the cross is foolishness to those that perish (1 Corinthians 1:18). This is the meaning in which he wrote to the Galatians, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross. He simply meant, “I glory in nothing but Christ crucified as the salvation of my soul.”

He did not think of what he had done himself and suffered himself. He did not meditate on his own goodness and his own righteousness.

He loved to think of what Christ had done and what Christ had suffered – of the death of Christ,

the righteousness of Christ, the atonement of Christ, the blood of Christ, the finished work of Christ. In this he did gl...

This is the subject Paul loved to ...

delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3). I judged not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Paul, a blaspheming, persecuting Pharisee, had been washed in Christ’s blood. He could not hold his peace about it. He was never weary of telling the story of the cross.

This is the subject he loved to dwell upon when he wr...

He seemed to think that the most advanced Christian could never hear too much about the cross.[3]

This is what he lived all his life from the time of his conversion.

The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me and gave hi...

He was always feeding by faith on Christ’s body and Christ’s blood. Jesus crucified was the meat and drink of his soul.

This is the truth that we see honored in the vision of heaven before we close the book of Revelation. in the midst of the throne and of the four animals, we are told, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain (Revelation 5:6).

Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.

Consider what I say. You may know a good deal about the Bible; you may know the outlines of the histories it contains and the dates of the events described, just as a man knows the history of England. You may know the names of the men and women mentioned in it, just as a man knows Caesar, Alexander the Great, or Napoleon. You may know several precepts of the Bible and admire them, just as a man admires Plato, Aristotle, or Seneca. But if you have not yet found out that Christ crucified is the foundation of the whole volume, you have read your Bible to very little profit. Your religion is a heaven without a sun, an arch without a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without spring or weights, or a lamp without oil. It will not comfort you. It will not deliver your soul from hell.

You may know a good deal about Christ with a kind of head knowledge. You may know who He was, where He was born, and what He did. You may know His miracles, His sayings, His prophecies, and His ordinances. You may know how He lived, how He suffered, and how He died. But unless you know the power of Christ’s cross by experience, unless you know and feel within that the blood shed on that cross has washed away your own particular sins, and unless you are willing to confess that your salvation depends entirely on the work that Christ did upon the cross, Christ will profit you nothing.

The mere knowing Christ’s name will never save you. You must know His cross and His blood, or you will die in your sins.[4]

As long as you live, beware of a religion in which little is said of the cross. You live in times when this warning is sadly needful. Beware, I sa...

Paul gloried in nothing but the cross. Strive to be like him. Set Jesus crucified fully before the eyes of your soul. Don’t listen to any teaching that would place anything between you and Him. Don’t fall into the old Galatian error; don’t think that anyone is a better guide than the apostles. Don’t be ashamed of the old paths in which men walked who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Don’t let the vague talk of men who speak great, swelling words about catholicity, the church, and the ministry disturb your peace and make you loosen your hands from the cross. Churches, ministers, and sacraments are all useful in their way, but they are not Christ crucified. Don’t give Christ’s honor to another. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Why All Christians Should Glory in the Cross of Christ

There are very few things that all four writers of the Gospels describe. Generally speaking, if Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell a thing in our Lord’s history, John does not tell it. But there is one thing that all four describe most fully, and that one thing is the story of the cross.

People seem to forget that all Christ’s sufferings on the cross were foreordained.

Infinite wisdom planned that redemption should be by the cross. Infinite wisdom brought Jesus to the cross in due time. He was crucified by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

People seem to forget that all Christ’s sufferings on the cross were only necessary for man’s salvation. He had to bear our sins, if they were ever to be borne at all. With His stripes alone could we be healed.

If Christ had not gone to the cross and suffered in our place, the just for the unjust, there would not have been a spark of hope for us. For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). There would have been a mighty gulf between ourselves and God, which no man ever could have passed.

People seem to forget that all Christ’s sufferings were endured voluntarily and of His own free will.

When I think of all this, I see nothing painful or disagreeable in the subject of Christ’s cross. On the contrary, I see wisdom and power, peace and hope, joy and gladness, comfort and consolation. The more I keep the cross in my mind’s eye, the more fullness I seem to discern in it. The longer I dwell on the cross in my thoughts, the more I am satisfied that there is more to be learned at the foot of the cross than anywhere else in the world.

To meditate the cross not to bring oneself to sad and earthly tears, but to rejoice in it as the exercise and fulfilling of God's promise, sovereignty, and triumph over sin. The next lines from Ryle expounds on this.

Can I know the length and breadth of God the Father’s love towards a sinful world? Where would I see it most displayed?

I can find a stronger proof of love than anything of this sort. I look at the cross of Christ. I see in it not the cause of the Father’s love, but the effect. God increased the price of his charity toward us in that while we were yet sinners the Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). There I see that God so loved this wicked world that he gave his only begotten Son – gave Him to suffer and die – that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). I know that the Father loves us because He did not withhold His Son from us, His only Son.

The Father loves us not because Christ died for us, but that He loved us so that Christ was to die in our stead.

Can I know how exceedingly sinful and abominable sin is in the sight of God? Where shall I see that most fully illustrated? Shall I turn to the history of the flood and read how sin drowned the world? Shall I go to the shore of the Dead Sea and note what sin did to Sodom and Gomorrah? Shall I turn to the wandering Jews and observe how sin has scattered them over the face of the earth? No, I can find still better proof.