Christian Living

The Cross, Part I —Does it Offend You?

by J.W. Phillips
03/06/25
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The Cross, Part 1—Does it Offend You?

For many churches, the cross, like the manger, is considered a seasonal topic: one surfaces in the winter during Christmas; the other surfaces in the spring during Easter. Thereafter, both subjects are only occasionally mentioned. So the impression easily gained from this practice is that these are elementary truths—profound, yes, but understood enough to move on to other topics.

This assumption stands in sharp contrast with the Apostle Paul’s declaration in I Corinthians 2:2, "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." For Paul, there was a fixed focus on the cross throughout his ministry. The message of the cross, he thought, was too important, too profound, to consider only on certain occasions.

When Paul said he gloried in the cross, he spoke as one who did what we don’t: studiously contemplated all these dimensions of one’s life impacted by the cross.

Like a jeweler inspecting a diamond, turning it one direction and then another in order to see every facet of its splendor, Paul was drawn like a magnet to the cross, and never turned away! Why? Because there was that much to see! We haven’t seen nearly that much, so the cross’ impact on us is much less.

The hymn writer spoke personally when he wrote, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” This could be our experience as well, especially if we, as he, extended this survey more than we have done.

When undertaking this survey, we learn first that that there’s something so ruthless and final about a cross it causes many people to shrink back and to slink away with an avoidance agenda. Certainly this was so at the time Jesus was crucified.

The cross—so scandalous in the shame it proclaimed and so excruciating in the suffering it afflicted—caused the Roman orator Cicero to abhor the sheer terror of it all by saying, “Not only let the cross be absent from the person of Roman citizens, but its very name from their thoughts, eyes and ears.”

Mind you, these words were addressed to a populace that gloried in gladiator violence!

In his book, Born Crucified, L.E. Maxwell observed that the cross merchandised today—surfaced casually in our conversations and featured commonly in our churches—wasn’t ever regarded that way when Rome adopted it as a means of execution. “Two thousand years ago we find no halo of glory, no beautiful associations of history, no nobility, and no thought of heroic sacrifice attached to the cross.”¹

We may be giving our self more credit than we deserve by thinking our esteem of the cross is higher than that. It is, yes, but only because we don’t understand it.

Were we to understand the cross better, we would draw back from it too, at least in the beginning. The serious and sober message the cross declares would not be easily accepted.

While the symbol of the cross is well-known today, the meaning of the cross is not.

It is true that the cross can be seen in many places, but the cross that is only a fashion accessory in the social world, or a good luck gesture in the athletic world, is seriously diminished in its value, as is the cross that inspires artwork for church promotion but isn’t imprinted during personal devotion.

The frivolous always replaces the momentous whenever the cross becomes a mere adornment, or a convenient logo for advertising. Not wanting the cross to become an empty emblem, we must consider the possibility that the cross worn outside the heart may not be in the heart, and the cross that has commercial value may have no value at all in the eyes of God.

One of the saddest verses in Scripture is found in Luke 23:48, where these words were recorded: “And the whole crowd who came together to that site, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned.” They left the cross that day deeply grieved. And while there can be no doubt about their affection, what is doubtful is that they understood what they just saw.

Yes, they knew a great injustice had been done—the uncanny darkness that covered the land had certainly confirmed that much! But still the cosmic achievement of this day was yet a mystery to them. So, with disturbed feelings, with minimal understanding, with stirrings of soul that could find no relief—they left, and they went home.

One has to wonder if that congregation has grown through the years, for in the centuries that followed, others have also beheld what was done at Calvary, only to gain minimal understanding.

They understand their salvation was secured by the cross, that their walk with God had its beginnings there. But, often, that’s about it.

Many leave the cross at the point they see how it dealt with the penalty of sin, whereby there was judgment of sin through the blood of Jesus (Matthew 26:28) and remission of guilt. Thinking they have now learned the lesson of the cross, they soon depart with not much more understanding than that possessed by those first witnesses of the crucifixion.

In Galatians 5:11 Paul speaks of the offense of the cross. Stop right there! Now ask yourself this question. Have you ever been offended by the cross?

You know what it feels like when you are offended, right? You feel insulted. You become indignant! Red-face mad! Ready to set forth your case! And not with measured logic, either; you lash out!

Have you ever felt that way about the cross?

Probably not, and that’s not because you are such a nice person; it’s really because you never understood what the cross was really saying about you.

Yes, you’re a sinner; you got that part. But the cross says more than that about you! And were you to have understood that, having been confronted with that, it is likely you wouldn’t have easily accepted it either.

What you found little difficulty to accept, most people in that day, Jews and Gentiles alike, went decades not accepting.

Yay, you!

Paul said in I Corinthians 1:23 that the cross was “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” Contemplate his words.

A stumbling block—a barrier! A huge obstacle! Something that stopped them in their tracks! They couldn’t get over it, and they couldn’t get around it.

Foolishness—it made no sense! It baffled beyond belief! It had to be wrong! Don’t accept this!

So why was that the case for them, and not for you?

Could it be because you barely understood the message of the cross, that the sliver of truth you knew was easy to accept?

Oswald Chambers said: “The reason we are so shallow and flippant in our presentation of the cross is that we have never seen ourselves for one second in the light of God. When we do see ourselves in the light of God, there is only one of two refuges—suicide or the cross of Christ.”²

Whoa! What’s this man talking about?

You really don’t know, do you?

Well, you need to know. There is a revelation God wants to give you.

So instead of fleeing as you have done before, please linger at the foot of the cross to gain what God wants to give.

Once you do see yourself by the light emanating from the cross, you, like the apostle, will be determined to know; and, like the hymn writer, will more seriously survey the wondrous cross.

You won’t let one more Easter pass, still less impacted by the cross than what God wants you to be.

Notes:

1. L.E. Maxwell, Born Crucified, (Chicago, Moody Press, 1945), p.56.

2. Oswald Chambers, The Highest Good, (Fort Washington, PA., Christian Literature Crusade, 1938), p.98.