The Holy Cross
† Theology of the Cross: The Faith Luther Confessed
Theologia Crucis † DawningRealm.com
Christ is the only one who could pay the price — added August 19, 2006 to mitigate confusion between law and gospel that this essay might cause
In the words of C. F. W. Walther (God Grant It, pp. 797-798),
The created world would have perished long ago without God's preservation and government, and, in like manner, a Christian cannot remain born again without daily renewal. It is a good thing when faith is planted in the heart, but that faith must be watered if we are to finally obtain and enjoy eternal life. What is daily renewal? Is the continuation of the work of grace with the Holy Ghost began in our soul by justification through faith. It is the hearty diligence that the believing Christian exercises daily in putting off, more and more, the old man, always striving to avoid error and suppressing sin in himself. It is the earnest daily effort to put on the new man, growing in doctrine and spiritual wisdom, so the Christian becomes conformed more and more to the image of Jesus Christ and thoughts, words, and deeds. In this daily renewal of the Christian, he must constantly war against his weakness and the great corruption in himself in order that they do not rule in him... When the true Christian awakens in the morning, his first care, which he takes to God in prayer, is, "Oh, may I be completely faithful today!" This care accompanies him in his work and, indeed, in all public and private settings. And finally, when evening comes, when he looks back over the day gone by, he confesses to God, with a broken heart, all his lapses. He sighs and prays for grace and forgiveness to Christ until, having been comforted, he can give himself up to rest.
Every Christian meekly takes up his cross in this world, eagerly waiting for his home with Christ
A Calvinistic, redemptive-historical view
The Lord's teachings on taking up the cross
Peter's teachings on taking up the cross, on hope, and on the church (with slide show)
Only those who give up everything have eternal life
| And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross* and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:31-38, ESV; cf. Matt 16:21-28; Luke 9:21-27) |
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:25-33, ESV; cf. Matt 10:34-39) |
|
| "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ...he must follow me..." (John 12:23-26, ESV) |
||
*"...take up his cross daily..." (Luke 9:23, ESV)
Different ways to say the same thing
-
Each follower of Jesus must deny himself.
-
Each follower of Jesus must take up his cross daily.
-
Whoever loses his life in this world for the sake of Jesus and the gospel will save his true life.
-
Whoever loves his life in this world loses eternal life.
-
Whoever does not give up everything cannot be a disciple.
For discussion and application
-
Why did Jesus accuse Peter of being Satan?
-
How does Peter's reaction seem reasonable to men?
-
Why are the things of men against the things of God?
-
Was Jesus teaching us to hate God's creation or gifts?
-
Can any true believer refuse to ever give up something?
-
How often must we give up everything we have?
-
How can you more consistently take up your cross daily?
See also "Take up thy cross" (Trinity Hymnal) and how to have assurance of eternal life.
What it means to take up the cross
From a sermon of G. Vos on Matt 16:24-25; link added:
Our Lord literally meant to say: 'If any man would be my disciple, let him be ready to go on the scaffold with me!'…Most prominent and most easily understood is the demand for self-denial which results from the supreme law of love for our neighbor. This law is so absolute and so comprehensive that it is impossible to do our full duty to our fellow man without in many points denying ourselves–denying ourselves even in the matter of legitimate, sinless desires.…In this spirit, our Lord practiced the great self-denial of his entire earthly life; he brought this sacrifice because he understood its necessity and the beneficial results that would accrue from it for the glory of God and the salvation of mankind.…Both in the one who practices the self-denial and in the one for whose sake it is incurred, the supreme end sought for should always be the true moral and spiritual welfare of the soul; and this thought ought to control and in certain cases to limit the Christian in his altruistic conduct.
For in man's normal condition, everything–whether he eats or drinks or does anything else–is made subservient to the divine glory, so that the natural instead of encroaching upon the spiritual becomes itself spiritualized and receives a religious consecration, thus rendering all self-denial superfluous.…And therefore, the natural constantly tends to engross him in such a sense and to such an extent as to draw him away from God. Hence it is necessary that he should force it back within its proper limits wherever it interferes with his undivided devotion to the service of God. Our Lord frequently speaks of self-denial for the sake of God in this sense. The kingdom of God and God's righteousness are to be sought first. The Christian ought to wean himself from that pagan seeking after the things of this life which treats them as if they were the ultimate realities, which virtually puts them in the place of God. Martha was cumbered with much serving while only one thing was supremely needful; and by attending to this one thing Mary had chosen the good part. How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. Circumstances arose in which Jesus demanded the giving away of all earthly goods; nay, where he warned against the yielding to the claims of natural affection, where he refused permission to go and bury one's father and advised the abstention from marriage because the interests of the kingdom of God could not be properly served without these renunciations.
Finally in the third place our Lord preaches the duty of self-denial because self has become identified with sin. So far we have only dwelt upon the renunciation of the natural instincts under special circumstances where they come in conflict with the higher, the paramount interests of the love of God and our neighbor. But in the heart of every man there are cravings and lusts evil in themselves which must under all circumstances and at any cost be suppressed if the higher life of the soul is to prosper.
When God lays upon us a trial, a cross, he always adjusts it to our individual state that it may be helpful to us in purifying ourselves of remaining sin. But here also it is not the external bearing of the cross, it is the inward taking up of it which can alone yield the gracious result God designs it to have for us. Just as our Lord Jesus not merely bore his cross, but entered into its spirit and approved of it and made it by his obedience and submission effective for atonement, so we must take upon ourselves, receive, as another passage says, the chastisement of the Lord. We must search ourselves to discover the purpose God has in sending it to us and then deliberately set ourselves to give effect to it.…Even now, if we are his true followers, the Son of Man comes to us in the glory of his Father and with his holy angels to impart unto us and strengthen in us that higher, heavenly life which needs no repression, no denial and with which trials of the present are not worthy to be compared.
A sure hope: the first letter of the apostle Peter
Slide show on 1 Peter, including whether the church exists for the world
View presentation (best presented with Window >>>
Full Screen View in Adobe
Reader)
Watch movie (requires Mac or QuickTime
player for Windows)
How to make Christianity attractive to those living for this present age
...how imperative in view of [the hopelessness of paganism] becomes the duty of every true believer in the present age to cultivate the grace of hope; to make himself remember and to make others feel, not so much by direct affirmation, but rather by the tone of life that the future belongs to us and that we belong to the future; that we are children of the world to come and that even now we allow this world to mold and rule and transform us in our thoughts and desires and feelings. If we could only learn again, brethren, what Peter calls "to hope perfectly" (1:13), what a witness of the reality of the Christian religion, what a powerfully attractive influence there might proceed from this one manifestation of our spiritual life! People not having such hope would feel the difference between themselves and us and regret at not having it might in many instances offer the first inducement to regain an interest in it and inquire about it. -Geerhardus Vos, "A Sermon on I Peter 1:3-5"
Christians avoid worldly and ascetic extremes
Every Christian meekly takes up his cross in this world, eagerly waiting for his home with Christ. While Peter did not explicitly quote his Rabbi's teaching that his followers take up their cross daily since eternal life is most important to them, Peter's first letter shows that he learned the lesson well. His readers learn that looking forward to the coming of Christ must never lead to a proud detachment from others, to a judgmental spirit, or to a proud rejection of God's present care in the form of houses and families in this life, but to engaging, forgiving love for believers and appropriate submission even to unbelievers, and to priestly offerings of thanksgiving. Far from detracting from an enjoyment of God's gifts, Christian hope makes true enjoyment and contentment possible, as we do not need to rely on them to bring ultimate happiness, which leads to despair to the extent that one realizes their futility without God (cf. Eccl. 3—there is nothing better in this life "under the sun" than to thankfully enjoy the temporal fruit of one's labors). Likewise, the book of Hebrews teaches us to avoid world-flight as well as worldliness. Although better known for condemning idolatrous asceticism than for commending moderation, John Calvin shared Peter's hope in the age to come: "Let the aim of believers in judging mortal life, then, be that while they understand it to be of itself nothing but misery, they may with greater eagerness and dispatch betake themselves wholly to meditate upon that eternal life to come" (Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.9.4; cf. Calvin's teachings on taking up the cross in chapter 8 of book 3).
Bibliography
The Message of 1 Peter: The Way of the Cross (1988), by Edmund P. Clowney.
