Cross Bearing # 2

Cross Bearing # 2

I want to call your attention to the context. Turn with me for a moment to Matthew 16, verse 21: "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him." He was staggered and said, "Pity Yourself, Lord!" That expressed the policy of the world. That is the sum of the world's philosophy - self-shielding and self-seeking; but that which Christ preached was not spare yourself - but sacrifice yourself. The Lord Jesus saw in Peter's suggestion a temptation from satan - and He flung it away from Him. Then He turned to His disciples and said, "if any man will come after Me - let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." In other words, what Christ said was this: I am going up to Jerusalem to the Cross - if anyone would be My follower - there is a cross for him. And, as Luke 14 says, "Whoever does not bear his cross - cannot be My disciple." Not only must Jesus go to Jerusalem and be killed - but everyone who comes after Him must take up his cross. The "must" is as imperative in the one care as in the other. Mediatorially, the Cross of Christ stands alone - but experimentally it is shared by all who enter into eternal life.

Now then, what does "the cross" stand for? What did Christ mean when He said that "unless a man takes up his cross?" My friends, it is deplorable that at this late date, such a question needs to be asked; and it is more deplorable still, that the vast majority of God's own people have such unscriptural conceptions of what the "cross" stands for. The average Christian seems to regard the cross in this text, as any trial or trouble that may be laid upon him. Whatever comes up that disturbs our peace, that is unpleasing to the flesh, or that irritates our temper - is looked upon as a cross. One says, "Well, that is my cross," and another says, "Well, this is my cross," and someone else says something else is their cross. My friends, the word is never so used in the New Testament! 

The word "cross" is never found in the plural number, nor is it ever found with the indefinite article before it, "a cross." Note also that in our text the cross is linked to a verb in the active voice and not the passive. It is not a cross that is laid upon us - but a cross which must be "taken up!"  The cross stands for definite realities which embody and express the leading characteristics of Christ's agony.

Others understand the "cross" to refer to disagreeable duties which they reluctantly discharge - or to fleshly habits which they grudgingly deny. They imaging that they are cross-bearing when, prodded at the point of conscience, they abstain from things earnestly desired. Such people invariable turn their cross into a weapon with which to assail other people. They parade their self-denial and go around insisting that others should follow them. Such conceptions of the cross areas Pharisaical as false, and as mischievous as they are erroneous!

Now, as the Lord enables me, let me point out three things that the cross stands for:

First, the cross is the expression of the world's hatred. The world hated Christ, and its hatred was ultimately manifested by crucifying Him. In the 15th chapter of John, seven times over, Christ refers there to the hatred of the world against Himself and against His people. And just in proportion as you and I are following Christ, just in proportion as our lives are being lived as His life was lived, just in proportion as we have come out from the world and are in fellowship with Him - so will the world hate us!

We read in the Gospels that one man came and presented himself to Christ for discipleship, and he requested that he might first go to bury his father - a very natural request, and perhaps a very praiseworthy one. But the Lord's reply is almost staggering. He said to that man, "Follow Me - and let the dead bury their dead." What would have happened to that young man if he had obeyed Christ? I do not know whether he did or not - but if he did, what would happen? What would his kinsfolk and his neighbors think of him? Would they be able to appreciate the motive, the devotion which caused him to follow Christ and neglect what the world would call a filial duty? Ah, my friends, if you are following Christ - the world will thin you are mad - and some of you will find it very hard to bear aspersions on your sanity. Yes, there are some who find the reproaches of the living a harder trial than the loss of the dead.

Another young man presented himself to Christ for discipleship and he requested the Lord that he might first be allowed to go home and say farewell to his friends - a very natural request, surely - and the Lord presented to him the cross: "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God!" Affectionate natures find the wrench of home ties, very hard to bear; harder still are the suspicions of loved ones and friends for having been slighted!

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 3)