7. The cross and boasting (6:14)
7. The cross and boasting (6:14)
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
There is no exact equivalent in the English language to kauchaomai. It means to boast in, glory in, trust in, rejoice in, revel in, live for. The object of our boast or ‘glory’ fills our horizons, engrosses our attention, and absorbs our time and energy. In a word, our ‘glory’ is our obsession.
Some people are obsessed with themselves and their money, fame or power; the false teachers in Galatia were triumphalists, obsessed with the number of their converts (v. 13); but Paul’s obsession was with Christ and his cross. That which the average Roman citizen regarded as an object of shame, disgrace and even disgust was for Paul his pride, boasting and glory. Moreover, we cannot dismiss this as Pauline idiosyncrasy. For, as we have seen, the cross was central to the mind of Christ, and has always been central to the faith of the church.
First, to glory or boast in the cross is to see it as the way of acceptance with God. The most important of all questions is how we, as lost and guilty sinners, may stand before a just and holy God. It was to answer this question loud and clear that Paul, in the passionate heat of his controversy with the Judaizers, dashed off his letter to the Galatians. Like them some people today still trust in their own merits. But God forbid that we should boast except in the cross. The cross excludes all other kinds of boasting (Rom. 3:27).
Secondly, to glory or boast in the cross is to see it as the pattern of our self-denial. Although Paul writes of only one cross (‘the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’), he refers to two crucifixions, even three. On the same cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ was himself crucified, ‘the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world’. The ‘world’ thus crucified (repudiated) does not of course mean the people of the world (for we are called to love and serve them), but the values of the world, its godless materialism, vanity and hypocrisy (for we are told not to love these, but to reject them). ‘The flesh’ has already been crucified (5:24); now ‘the world’ joins it on the cross. We ought to keep the two main crucifixions of 6:14 in close relation to each other – Christ’s and ours. For they are not two, but one. It is only the sight of Christ’s cross which will make us willing, and even anxious, to take up ours. It is only then that we shall be able with integrity to repeat Paul’s words after him that we glory in nothing but the cross.
We have now considered Paul’s seven great affirmations about the cross in the letter to the Galatians, and have looked at them in the order in which they occur. It may be helpful, in conclusion, to re-arrange and group them in theological rather than chronological order, in order to grasp yet more firmly the centrality and pervasiveness of the cross in every sphere of Christian living.
First, the cross is the ground of our justification. Christ has rescued us from the present evil age (1:4) and redeemed us from the curse of the law (3:13). And the reason why he has delivered us from this double bondage is that we may stand boldly before God as his sons and daughters, declared righteous and indwelt by his Spirit.
Secondly, the cross is the means of our sanctification. This is where the three other crucifixions come in. We have been crucified with Christ (2:20). We have crucified our fallen nature (5:24). And the world has been crucified to us, as we have been to the world (6:14). So the cross means more than the crucifixion of Jesus; it includes our crucifixion, the crucifixion of our flesh and of the world.
Thirdly, the cross is the subject of our witness. We are to placard Christ crucified publicly before people’s eyes, so that they may see and believe (3:1). In doing so, we must not bowdlerize the gospel, extracting from it its offence to human pride. No, whatever the price may be, we preach the cross (the merit of Christ), not circumcision (the merit of man); it is the only way of salvation (5:11; 6:12).
Fourthly, the cross is the object of our boasting. God forbid that we should boast in anything else (6:14). Paul’s whole world was in orbit round the cross. It filled his vision, illumined his life, warmed his spirit. He ‘gloried’ in it. It meant more to him than anything else. Our perspective should be the same.
If the cross is not central in these four spheres for us, then we deserve to have applied to us that most terrible of all descriptions, ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’ (Phil. 3:18). To be an enemy of the cross is to set ourselves against its purposes. Self-righteousness (instead of looking to the cross for justification), self-indulgence (instead of taking up the cross to follow Christ), self-advertisement (instead of preaching Christ crucified) and self-glorification (instead of glorying in the cross) – these are the distortions which make us ‘enemies’ of Christ’s cross.
Paul, on the other hand, was a devoted friend of the cross. So closely had he identified himself with it, that he suffered physical persecution for it. ‘I bear on my body the marks of Jesus’ (Gal. 6:17), he wrote, the wounds and scars he had received in proclaiming Christ crucified, the stigmata which branded him as Christ’s authentic slave.
The stigmata of Jesus, in the spirit if not in the body, remain a mark of authentication for every Christian disciple, and especially every Christian witness. Campbell Morgan expressed it well:
It is the crucified man that can preach the cross. Said Thomas ‘except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails...I will not believe’. Dr. Parker of London said that what Thomas said of Christ, the world is saying about the church. And the world is also saying to every preacher: Unless I see in your hands the print of the nails, I will not believe. It is true. It is the man...who has died with Christ,...that can preach the cross of Christ.8