Wednesday
Wednesday
Placarding Christ Crucified
Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
Galatians 3:1
Paul described his preaching ministry in the Galatian cities as a public placarding of Christ crucified. Of course, the Galatians had not seen Jesus die. Nor had Paul. But through the preaching of the cross Paul had brought the past into the present and made the historical event of the cross a contemporary reality. In consequence, the Galatians could now see the cross in their imagination, could understand that Christ had died for their sins, and could kneel before the cross in great humility and receive from his hands the gift of eternal life, absolutely free and utterly undeserved.
But his preaching of the cross, as Paul was later to elaborate in 1 Corinthians, is a stumbling block to human pride, for it insists that we cannot achieve our salvation by anything we do. Indeed, we cannot even contribute to it. Salvation is a totally noncontributory gift of God. As Archbishop William Temple put it, “The only thing of my very own which I contribute to my redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.”
It is in this connection that Paul contrasted himself with the false teachers, the Judaizers. They preached circumcision (apostolic shorthand for self-salvation by obedience to the law) and so escaped persecution for the cross of Christ (6:12). He, on the other hand, preached Christ crucified (salvation through Christ alone) and so was always being persecuted (5:11).
The same choice faces all Christian communicators today. Either we flatter people and tell them what they want to hear (about their ability to save themselves)—we develop a pussy-cat ministry, stroking them until they purr with pleasure—or we tell them the truth they do not want to hear (about sin, guilt, judgment, and the cross) and so arouse their hostility. In other words, either we are unfaithful in order to be popular or we are willing to be unpopular in our determination to be faithful. I doubt very much if it is possible to be faithful and popular at the same time. Paul saw the need to choose. So should we.
For further reading: Galatians 5:11; 6:11–18