The Meaning of the Cross
So you see, this false gospel of carnal Christianity misses completely the whole meaning of the cross, which means death. But the Gospel of the grace of God in Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation, demands the death, burial and resurrection of you, the sinner, in Christ. It sets forth the cross of Christ as the abrupt, violent end of all that you are by nature, and raises you to a new life in Christ with the shackles of sin broken. It brings to an end your pride and ambition, and leaves you at the feet of a holy God crying for mercy.
The true Gospel of God tells you that you will take up the cross of Christ and say goodbye to your friends and the world, for you are not coming back the same person. It tells you that you are not going to have your life redirected, but you are going to the place of death. As Hebrews 13:13 puts it, “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach,” for there we die to the world. As the Lord Jesus Himself says in Luke 14:27, “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” We must die to the world and all of its pleasures and allurements, as Galatians 6:14 tells us: By the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ “the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Did you know that the two ingredients that make up the table salt we use every day, when taken by themselves, are a deadly poison and will kill you? But put together, they become a blessing in the form of salt which purifies, gives taste, preserves, and is used in so many different ways. It is the same with the true Gospel, the Gospel of the grace of God! We can preach Christ and His blood for the forgiveness of sins, in such a way that will deceive sinners, if we do not tell them that the death of Christ means death to us and our ways, and death to sin! If we do not put all of the ingredients into the message we preach, what we do preach then becomes deadly poison to the soul, damning instead of saving!
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