In Search of the Cross—Learning to “Glory” In It | (1999) | Chapter 5 | Robert J. Wieland
PETER WOULD BE SHOCKED WHEN HE HAD TIME TO CONSIDER WHAT HE HAD DONE. He had actually dared to rebuke his Master, and had even laid hands on Him as on a fellow fisherman that he thought was out of his mind.
An awed and deeply impressed group listened as Jesus for the first time clearly unfolded the law of the kingdom of heaven. Here is the real point of what it means to follow Him:
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If any man desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whosoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’” Matthew 16:24, 25.
It was as if He said, in effect: You are astonished that I, the Son of God, must go to My cross and die. Not only so, but you yourselves, if you will follow Me, must each one surrender to die upon his cross with Me. We are in this together, and the law of the cross is binding upon us all!
Neither God is excepted, nor man. In the distant ages of eternity before sin began, Father and Son clasped hands in a solemn agreement that if man should sin, the Father was to give His Son, and the Son was to give Himself, that the universe might be saved from the ruin of self-seeking.
Further, in the end God would share His throne with all who would choose to share Christ’s cross. For Him there must be a risking of everything in a dramatic expression of love, revealing depths and heights as yet undreamed of by sinless beings. God has His cross!
Whoever you are, if you follow Jesus, you have your cross. You need not be a priest, a monk, a clergyman, a missionary, or even a church officer or religious leader, in order to be included in the “whoever” who otherwise must lose his “life.” The seed that would save its life will lose it; the seed that will die in the ground alone will bear much “fruit.” Here, says Jesus, is the genius of principle on which My kingdom is founded.
It is no surprise that when sin challenged the government of God, it zeroed in to attack this principle of self-surrender at the cross. In the war that followed, divine love could find no other way to conquer than the way of the cross. Love chose it instinctively because it is its perfect expression. No other course could the Son of God have taken than to surrender to the cross.
Whenever genuine love (agape) meets the problem of sin, a cross is erected on which self is crucified. No other decision could the Father have made than to give His only-begotten Son, because He “so loved the world.” In those dimly understood ages of eternity, the solemn agreement was entered into by the preexistent Christ that He should become the Lamb of God. Because His heart was the infinite reservoir of love itself, He chose that way. Thus He was “slain from the foundation of the world.” Revelation 13:8.
In whatever heart it enters today, divine love chooses alike when it meets the problem of sin. The principle of victory is the same whether it is the Creator wrestling with the problem, or you and I.
The truth of the cross is beautifully illustrated in the experience of
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