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THE KING’S BUSINESS
intellectually convinced of the Deity of Christ, but they keep right on with the Crucifixion.. They do not join with those that worship and praise. As we look above the Cross at that inscription, we learn something. It is in Greek, and Latin and Hebrew, the language of culture, the language of power, and the language of religion. “The place for learning is not above the Cross,” says an old Puritan, “but at the foot.” It is got into the wrong place. Yet it teaches a great lesson, that what the culture of the Greek needs, and what the sturdy Roman needs, and what the religious Hebrew needs, is the Cross of Jesus Christ. What your culture needs, if you have any, and what your religion needs, is the cleansing power of the precious blood. On the way to Damascus Paul had a vision of the glorified Christ, his first view of Him. But He never gloried in the glorified. He came back in the light of the glorified to the crucified, and said, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross.” When Leonardo da Vinci had fin ished his great painting of the Last Supper, he took a friend with him to criticise it, and as the friend looked at it he said, “The most beautiful thing in your picture is the cup.” The art ist just took his brush and wiped out the cup. He said, “Nothing in my picture shall attract more attention than the face of my Master.” And that was the religion of the Apostle Paul. “Nothing in my preaching, in m'v character, in my mission, if I can help it, shall attract more, attention than the Cross of Christ. God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross.” It is the Glory of the Cross that we ask the Holy Spirit to help us talk about now for a few minutes. We can put it, as far as it can be put, in one
word, “sacrificial.” In Christ and the Cross there is the glory of Sacrificial Love Love sometimes just enjoys itself, and it may not be sinful under certain circumstances. That is the tendency of human love, the first t.endency, it may be; but love enjoying itself is not glory. It is love giving itself in sac rifice for others that has about it the halo of glory. When you behold Christ on the Cross you have seen God. God has power, God has wis dom, “God is love.” If you would have a clear vision of God in the glory of His love, you must see Him in Jesus Christ on the Cross. He is more glorious there, even than in the power of the resurrection, important as-that is; but the resurrection is just the stamp of heaven’s authority upon the gold of God’s love, that makes it coin current between earth and heaven. You know I have been interested, as I have read the Scriptures lately, in noticing how God takes it for granted that He loves us. He just expects us to read it between the lines every where, and see it when He does not mention it. I decided to preach a se ries of sermons on that little text, “God is love.” Well, I said, “I will take Genesis, and unfold the love of God in Genesis.” What was my as tonishment to find that Genesis has not a declaration of God’s love in it! The word “love” occurs thirteen times, but there is no reference to God’s love. There is retribution, there is right eousness, there is power, there is jus tice, declared, but God seems to take it for granted that we know that He loves us. “Well.” I said, “I must get my first sermon from Exodus.” It is not in Exodus ! If it is, I wish you would drop me a postcard and give me the place! “Then,” I said, “we will have a good time in Leviticus.” It is not in Leviticus! There is no
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