. In the cross, we see what is in man. In the cross, man has spoken
out. He has exhibited himself and
made unconscious confession of his feelings, especially in reference
to God, to His being, His authority, His character, His law, His love. It was man who erected the cross
and nailed the Son of God to it. Permitted by God to give
vent to the feelings of his heart, and placed in circumstances the
least likely to call forth anything but love, he thus expressed the
feelings of his heart in hatred to God and to his incarnate Son. Reckoning the death of the cross
as the worst of all deaths, man deems it the fittest for the
Son of God. Thus the enmity of the natural
heart speaks out, and man not only confesses publicly that
he is a hater of God, but he takes pains to show the intensity
of his hatred. More, he glories in his shame,
crying aloud, Crucify him! Crucify him! The cross thus interprets
what is in man's heart. The cross rips the mask of pretended
religion from his face and exhibits man overflowing with the malignity
of hell. You say, I don't hate God. I may be indifferent to Him. He may not be in all my thoughts,
but I don't hate Him. Then what does that cross mean? Love? Hatred? Indifference? Which? Does love demand the death
of the loved one? Does indifference crucify its
objects? Look at your hands, are they
not red with blood? Whose blood is that? The blood
of God's own Son. No, neither love nor indifference
shed His blood. It was hatred that did it. Enmity,
the enmity of the carnal heart. You say that I have no right
to judge you. I am not judging you. It is yon cross which judges
you, and I am asking you to judge yourselves by it. It is yon cross
that interprets your purposes and reveals the thoughts and
intents of your heart. Oh, what a revelation! Man hating God and hating most
when God is loving most. Man acting as a devil and taking
the devil's side against God. The cross, then, was the public
declaration of man's hatred of God, man's rejection of his Son,
and man's avowal of his belief that he needs no Saviour. What
do you think of Christ was God's question? Man's answer was, Crucify
Him. O, what must man be when he can
hate, condemn, mock, scourge, spit upon, crucify the Lamb of
God, when coming to Him clothed in love and with the garments
of salvation? And what must sin be, when, in
order to expiate it, The Lord of glory must die upon the tree? An outcast, a criminal, a curse.