Audio Transcript
“Cross-centered” — we put the compound adjective before nouns like life or preaching or church. Cross-centered life. Cross-centered preaching. Cross-centered church. And for over twenty years, it has been a catchphrase in the American Reformed world. Of course, the concept is far older. In the Navigators Bible Reading Plan today, we read 1 Corinthians 1:18–31. Christ crucified is “the power of God and the wisdom of God,” according to verse 24. The cross of Christ is the sharp edge of the sword that meets the fake and false hopes of this world.
The cross is essential to our ministry; so essential that, according to legend, Charles Spurgeon once told preachers that every sermon should “make a beeline to the cross.” Whether he actually said it is doubtful, but that he did this very thing is quite obvious — taking every sermon to Calvary. With Good Friday tomorrow, it’s a timely topic today on Ask Pastor John: the wrong kind of cross-centered.
We get there, Pastor John, because you say some controversial, even perplexing things in your book on preaching, Expository Exultation, specifically in chapter 16, “Expository Exultation and Christ Crucified, Part 2: ‘That We Might Live to Righteousness,’” on 1 Peter 2:24, a key text for you here (231). Not only preachers but lots of people who listen to preaching would love to hear you explain more fully what you are getting at when you criticize the method of preaching that begins with the text and makes a beeline to the cross. You say the beeline should be to the cross and then from the cross (239). Explain why this matters so much.
I am really exercised about this because of the way I have seen the pattern of the New Testament distorted in the name of making much of the cross of Christ and of justification by faith alone. Here’s what I mean. There’s a kind of preaching and a kind of treatment of justification that goes like this:
The Bible says, “Be holy,” but we can’t be perfectly holy because we’re sinners. Therefore, Jesus Christ came into the world and was perfectly holy on our behalf. Therefore, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and his holiness will count as your holiness. End of sermon. Go in peace.
You make a beeline from all the imperatives to the cross, get justification clear, make the people feel better, and dismiss them. That’s the sermon.
That is absolutely not the pattern of the New Testament. The pattern of the New Testament is this:
The Bible says, “Be holy.” We can’t be perfectly holy because we’re sinners. Therefore, Christ came into the world and was perfectly holy on our behalf. Therefore, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and his holiness will count as your holiness. Now, in the power of this justification and the freedom and power of the cross, go and be holy. End of sermon. Go in peace.
The Cross’s Double Glory
The point of hundreds and hundreds of biblical imperatives concerning holiness and love and justice is not “You can’t do them. Christ did them. Trust him. End of message.” That’s not the way the New Testament reads at all — not even close. Rather, the point of all those imperatives is, to use the words of Romans 7:4, so that in union with Christ, we might die “to the law through the body of Christ, so that [we] may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.”
“The New Testament takes us to the cross in order to send us from the cross justified and forgiven into newness of life and holiness.”
The aim of the death of Jesus and our union with him in justification was that we might belong to him and bear fruit for God. Christ died for us so that we could obey biblical imperatives by the power of the blood of Jesus and the Spirit of God — not perfectly in this life, of course; we’re not perfectionists. But we undergo a real transformation, confirming a real supernatural change. The cross of Christ is glorious not only because it purchases forgiveness and justification but also because it purchases new power to be holy, causes us to be holy, and warns us against the dangers of not being holy.
The thrust of the New Testament is not to end with a celebration of justification. Let me say that again: The thrust of the New Testament is not to end with a celebration of justification but to end with a celebration of the glory of God manifest in blood-bought sanctification.
Another way to say this would be: Don’t just make a beeline to the cross and stop with a celebration of justification. Rather, make a beeline from the power of the cross to the hundreds of commands in the New Testament that describe our sanctification. That’s the direction of the New Testament. It’s the achievement of the cross in the practical, transforming power of the cross that gives it a public glory. The New Testament takes us to the cross in order to send us from the cross justified and forgiven into newness of life and holiness.
He Died to Make Us Holy
Over and over again, the Bible says that it was the purpose of the cross to make us holy.
“By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). That’s one of the most beautiful statements of substitutionary punishment in the Bible. He bore our condemnation in his own flesh “in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4). In other words, Christ was condemned in our place so that we would walk according to the Spirit and fulfill the just requirements of the law — namely, love, as it says in Romans 13:8–13.
“You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers . . . with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18–19). In other words, we weren’t just delivered from guilt and condemnation by the cross; we were delivered from lifestyles inherited from our parents.
“[Christ] bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). In other words, Christ bore our sins not only that we would be forgiven for our sins but that we would stop doing them — that we would die to sin and live to righteousness.
“[Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). Christ died to create a new kind of people who are zealous for good works. When we’re not zealous to do good works of holiness and righteousness and love, we dishonor the cross. We contradict the purpose of the cross.
“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” — namely, the price of the blood of the Son of God — “so glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Christ bought us. Just think of it: He bought us with his own blood so that we would use our bodies to make him look glorious.
Beeline to and from the Cross
God intends for the upshot of all redemptive history to be the public glorification of his great achievements in Christ. Forgiveness of sins and justification are invisible. They become public, they become a visible glorification of God on this earth, when they bear fruit in the lives of Christ’s people.
“Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that . . . they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12). That’s the ultimate aim of the cross: forgiven, justified, transformed doers of good deeds, such that God is publicly glorified in a transformed people. This is what Paul prayed for in Philippians 1:9–11: “It is my prayer that . . . you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” The practical, lived-out fruit of righteousness comes through Christ crucified and results in the glory and praise of God. That’s the pattern of the New Testament everywhere.
So, I write, don’t just take a text and make a beeline to the cross and stop. Instead, take a text and make a beeline to the cross, by all means — make it the foundation for every undeserved blessing in the Bible (Romans 8:32). And then make a beeline from the cross back to that text, and urge your people to obey it in the power of the cross and for the glory of God.
