September 1927
T h e
B u s i n e s s
K i n g ’ s
562
Glorying In His Cross B y D r . G eo . S. B ish o p
the world. St. Paul distinguishes this epistle by signal izing it in his FOUR CRUCIFIXIONS: 1. He is crucified to the law —dead to it by the body of Christ, He has paid the law’s penalty in his Substitute. Gal. 2:19, 20. See also Rom. 7 :6, where the proper ren dering is, “we are delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held.” (See, also, the margin.) 2. He has crucified the flesh —hung it up, by faith, upon the cross, so that, although the flesh is in him, he is not in the flesh but is out of it and has left it—the old nature—behind him on the cross, while he, in practice and in thought, lives in the Spirit and in resurrection. Gal. 5 :24; Rom. 6 :14. ' 3. The World is crucified to him. If my dearest friend were lying dead in the parlor, struck down by the knife of an assassin, could I enjoy that parlor or the thought of that assassin ? So did the world which had done his Saviour to death seem to St. Paul. So to him seemed the entire scene of the present existence. 4. He is crucified to the world. He has done with its hopes, its ambitions, its rivalries, its pleasures, its honors —he can say: “I thirst, but not as once I did, artistic development, 3,000 years old, quite the equal of our own. Greek sculpture and Greek architecture we can but feebly imitate today. In intellectual power we do not surpass, even if we equal, the Athenians or the Alex andrians. “In devotion to moral and spiritual ideals, where can the twentieth century show anything finer than the death of Socrates? And was it not 2,000 years ago in Galilee that One lived of whom the whole thinking world still says, ‘Never man spake as this man’? “The civilizations of the past have all discovered truth. Some of them, perhaps most of them, have gone as far as they could with the observational data with which they had to work. “Why is it that we have never surpassed the sepulchral decorative art of the Egyptians, nor their sepulchral architecture either ? Is it not because they, too, in some fields, discovered eternal truth ? Why is it that in the plastic arts, in esthetics, in the exercise of pure reason, we can only imitate the Greeks? Again, because in these fields the Greeks discovered eternal truth, and we must go to them to learn it.” Evidently the Bible student is not the only one who fails to see the superiority of the modern mind over those of old time. The vain delights of earth to share; Thy wounds, Immanuel, all forbid That I should find my pleasures there. “It was the sight of Thy dear Cross First weaned my soul from earthly things, And taught me to esteem as dross The mirth of fools, the pomp of kings.”
“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." T. PAUL found nothing in himself, his suffer ings, his visions, his record, in which to glory. But one Object stood before him—the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. This, to the apostle, was the highest marvel of God—the miracle of the universe—the con centration of eternal thought—the focus of infinite decree —the outpouring of infinite love—the hinge of two des tinies—-the pivot on which hangs the ages. Any other glorying than in the cross he holds to be the worst of crimes. “God forbid !” he cries. Imagine a poor lost and sinful creature standing up in front of the crucified Son of God and boasting his merits —what he himself is and what he has done! Could' pride be more Satanic ? Could blasphemy be more appalling ? The cross it is—not the incarnation; not the resurrection; not the Lamb enthroned. What chains the apostle—what rivets all his gaze is SUBSTITUTION. He dies that I may live; He takes my place in condemnation, that I may take His place in acquittal and glory. By simple faith in Him, I, who deserve to die eternally, pass from death unto life. O fact incomprehensible but real!' O revelation overwhelming and sublime! ' “Calvary’s wonders let us trace,- Justice magnified in grace; Mark those purple streams and say, There my sins were washed away.” F our C ruc ifix ion s By whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto We’re Not So Smart! P ROFESSOR ROBERT A. MILLIKAN, speaking at Yale upon New Truth and Old, made some striking comparisons, as these extracts from The New York Times show: “The more intimately one gets in touch with any civ ilization of bygone days, the more he is struck by the sim ilarity between the way people lived and talked two or three thousand years ago and the way they live and talk and think now. “The beauty of women, the strength of men, the flavor of strawberries, the aroma of flowers, the love of friends; courtship, marriage and divorce; the racetrack, the wrest ling match and the boxing bout, all of these played almost exactly the same role in the lives of the people of Rome as they play in the lives of the people of New Haven or New York. And it is around these things, too, that about 90 per cent of the interests of the average man revolve. “Even in what are called the higher things of life, can we be truthfully said to have made, or to be making, any real progress? That question has often been raised, and often answered negatively by literary men of reputation, sometimes even by philosophers, and occasionally also by divines. In Tutankh-Amen’s tomb are found evidences of
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