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

by J.C. Ryle

in no wise should I glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14).

He never gloried in his national privileges. He was a Jew by birth, as he tells us he was an Hebrew of Hebrews (Philippians 3:5).

He never gloried in his own works.

He never gloried in his churchmanship. If ever there was a good churchman, that man was Paul.

If Paul said, “God forbid that I should glory in anything except the cross,” who should dare to say, “I have something to glory in; I am a better man than Paul”?

Oh, beware of self-righteousness. Open sin kills thousands of souls. Self-righteousness kills tens of thousands.

Work for God and Christ with heart and soul and mind and strength, but never dream for a second of placing confidence in any work of your own.

Millions of so-called good works will turn out to have been utterly defective and graceless. They were genuine and valued among men, but they will prove light and worthless in the balance of God.

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.

The cross is an expression that is used with more than one meaning in the Bible. What did Paul mean when he said, I glory in the cross of Christ in the epistle to the Galatians? This is the point I wish to make clear.

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.

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.

As long as you live, beware of a religion in which little is said of the cross.

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 cross is the grand peculiarity of the Christian religion. Other religions have laws and moral precepts, forms and ceremonies, rewards and punishments. But other religions cannot tell us of a dying Savior. They cannot show us the cross.

The cross is the foundation of a church’s prosperity. No church will ever be honored in which Christ crucified is not continually lifted up; nothing whatever can make up for the lack of the cross.

Nothing, most probably, nothing at all. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

In 1837, before graduation, Ryle contracted a serious chest infection, which caused him to turn to the Bible and prayer for the first time in over fourteen years.

Stradbroke, Suffolk, was Ryle’s last parish, and he gained a reputation for his straightforward preaching and evangelism. Besides his travelling and preaching, he spent time writing. He wrote more than 300 pamphlets, tracts, and books. His books include Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (7 Volumes, 1856-1869), Principles for Churchmen (1884), Home Truths, Knots Untied, Old Paths, and Holiness.

First, care and tend to your own family. Second, swim against the tide when you need to. He was evangelical before it was popular and he held to principles of Scripture: justification by faith alone, substitutionary atonement, the Trinity, and preaching. Third, model Christian attitudes toward your opponents. Fourth, learn and understand church history. Important benefits come from past generations. Fifth, serve in old age; “die in the harness.” And, sixth, persevere through your trials.