THE CENTRALITY OF THE CROSS

“For I didn’t think [it was a good idea] to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2 HCSB)

In the center of London you will find a place called Charing Cross.  Most of the local folks just refer to it as “the Cross.”   I read a story of a policeman who saw a boy weeping—the little fellow was lost.  Trying to understand him through the sobs and tears, the officer concluded the lad didn’t know his address.  But, the child did recall he lived near Charing Cross and so he answered, “If you will take me to the Cross, I think I can find my way home from there.”

That is still true today! 

In an age where many churches are taking down the cross from their buildings so as not to be offensive, we will still cling to the old rugged cross!   At a time when being sensitive to modern sensibilities has led some denominations to excise references to the blood from their hymnal, we will still sing of the wonder working power of the blood.

If Paul and the early church had decided not to preach the cross lest it be offensive, then we would know nothing of its saving power today.   When has it not been offensive?  It was as scandalous in the first century as in the twenty-first.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved.  For it is written:

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the experts.’

Where is the philosopher?  Where is the scholar?  Where is the debater of this age?  Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish?  For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached.  For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.  Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor.1:18-25)

At the center of our faith stands the cross of Christ.  That is non-negotiable.  Paul was willing to die for it.  Jesus died on it.  Christianity is dead without it.

So, Paul tells the Corinthians there is to be THE PROCLAMATION OF THE CROSS.

“When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom.  For I didn’t think [it was a good idea] to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”  (1 Cor.2:1-2) 

The centrality of the cross is seen in the priority given to its proclamation.  It was the core of New Testament preaching.  Paul underscores this in his ministry.  He did not seek to enthrall them with soaring oratory—with human eloquence—or to enchant them with sublime philosophy—with human intelligence.  Rather it was a simple sermon—“the testimony of God” he calls it.  

Notice that the Apostle connects his preaching with the glory of God (see the preceding context of 1:26-31) so he will not seek to exalt himself but exalt Christ!  No preacher can seek his own glory and seek God’s at the same time.  Paul wrote in Galatians.6:14, “But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world.”

Bible teacher, Warren Wiersbe, told this story:

A certain church had a beautiful stained-glass window just behind the pulpit. It depicted Jesus Christ on the cross.  One Sunday there was a guest minister who was much smaller than the regular pastor.  A little girl listened to the guest for a time, then turned to her mother and asked, “Where is the man who usually stands there so we can’t see Jesus?” ^[1]

God forbid it ever be so with me!  Let no preacher—let no one obscure Jesus Christ, crucified!  If you leave worship this Sunday saying, “What a great sermon” then the pastor has miserably failed!  My goal is for you to leave saying, “What a great Savior!” 

Here’s the summary of the message Paul preached—the testimony—stated in the fifteenth chapter of this book:

“Now brothers, I want to clarify for you the gospel I proclaimed to you; you received it and have taken your stand on it.  You are also saved by it, if you hold to the message I proclaimed to you — unless you believed for no purpose.  For I passed on to you as most important what I also received:

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

that He was buried,

that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” (v.1-4).

If you come to our church to hear some new thing, forget it—that is not happening—it is the old rugged cross about which you will hear, over and over!   That is our message.  It is the only way of salvation!

Paul stressed the proclamation of the cross because of THE PREEMINENCE OF THE CROSS.

“For I didn’t think [it was a good idea] to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Cor.2:2)

There had been many crosses erected on that skull-shaped hill outside Jerusalem.  Perhaps hundreds of Jews had been crucified there.  Crosses were horrible, but unremarkable—even the cross upon which Jesus died was merely a rough-hewn piece of wood.  On that day there were three crosses—but it is the central cross that is pre-eminent—the cross where Jesus was crucified.  It is the unique Person who hung on that cross which makes it remarkable.  Others had been crucified at this place of public execution—for their own crimes.  On that cross, Jesus died for our crimes!

Our eyes are drawn irresistibly to it.  That is our focus.  The cross of Christ must ever be the point of our concentration and contemplation. 

What we concentrate on is crucial for determining a desired outcome.  Just ask a professional golfer.  For example:

Arnold Palmer made a terrible mistake on the final hole of the 1961 Masters Golf tournament.  “I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, ‘Congratulations.’ I took his hand and shook it, but as soon as I did, I knew I had lost my focus.  On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, and then put it over the edge of the green.  I missed a putt and lost the Masters.  You don’t forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again.  I haven’t in the thirty years since.”

You’ve got to keep your focus—and that is on the cross!  It magnetically draws our gaze.  We stand transfixed on the cross—its bloody awfulness and its beautiful attraction—simultaneously known. 

There are those who want to take the cross and make it an object of beauty—gilding it with gold and encrusting it with precious gems.  It is made into an object of art instead of agony.  That is not the cross of Christ.  Rather it was a cruel instrument of death.  But—here is the joyful news in that sorrowful death—it is in the Son of God crucified that we can be forgiven—paying the debt of sin we could never fully pay.

The proclamation of the cross finds its root in the preeminence of the cross and leads to the fruit of THE POWER OF THE CROSS.

“I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.  My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a powerful demonstration by the Spirit, so that your faith might not be based on men’s wisdom but on God’s power.” (1 Cor.2:3-5) 

Apparently, there was nothing imposing about Paul’s physical presence and nothing eloquent about his exposition.  He may have sounded more like Don Knotts than James Earl Jones.  But it wasn’t the charisma of his person, but the content of his preaching that provided the power to transform lives. 

He contrasts the faith that is rooted in man’s wisdom and that which is resting in God’s power.  The former is a sham-faith and the latter a saving faith.  In the first, some Christian salesman uses emotional manipulation and psychological techniques to talk someone into a decision.  In the latter, a Gospel witness shares the message of the cross and trusts the Holy Spirit to work.  The first approach offers, “Your Best Life Now” and the second “Deny yourself, take up the cross and follow Jesus.” 

I bought a time-share from a charismatic salesman once—came to regret it and have since sold it, taking a big loss.  It wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.  That only cost a few thousand dollars, but the kind of preaching that hides the cross so as not to offend can cost an eternal soul!

When the Gospel is proclaimed in faithfulness, the Holy Spirit’s power convicts of sin, and generates faith in the heart of man.  It is a miracle—a dead man coming to life, a blind man coming to see, a deaf man to hear, and a cripple to walk!  Only God can do that!

Is that where your faith rests?  Is it in the cross alone?  It must be as underscored in these lyrics of the old hymn, “The Way of the Cross Leads Home.”

I must needs go home by the way of the cross,
There’s no other way but this;
I shall ne’er get sight of the Gates of Light,
If the way of the cross I miss.

The way of the cross leads home,
The way of the cross leads home;
It is sweet to know, as I onward go,
The way of the cross leads home.

I must needs go on in the blood-sprinkled way,
The path that the Savior trod,
If I ever climb to the heights sublime,
Where the soul is at home with God.

The way of the cross leads home,
The way of the cross leads home;
It is sweet to know, as I onward go,
The way of the cross leads home.

Then I bid farewell to the way of the world,
To walk in it nevermore;
For my Lord says, “Come,” and I seek my home,
Where He waits at the open door.

The way of the cross leads home,
The way of the cross leads home;
It is sweet to know, as I onward go,
The way of the cross leads home. (Jessie B. Pounds)

As the little lost boy said to the policeman, ““If you will take me to the Cross, I think I can find my way home from there.”

---

^[1]Wiersbe, Warren W.: The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1989, S. 1 Co 2:6