The Cross of Christ

ONLY ONE CROSS

There is only one actual cross in the world, and that is the cross of Jesus Christ. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” We have often thought we were denying self, when we were only building self up; we were putting ourselves in the place of Christ. Our talk of self-denial was but Pharisaism. People are apt to get a wrong idea of what a Pharisee was. The word “Pharisee” denoted one who was “separated.” They were the separated once, zealous for the law, and for God, as they supposed. They were not bad as people saw them. The observer might find nothing crooked in the outward life of Saul, the Pharisees; before men he was blameless. But when he came to himself he saw that he was all sin. There is no writer who states the depravity of human nature so vividly as the Apostle Paul. While it was all written by inspiration, he wrote what he had experienced. When he told of the wonderful grace of God, he told exactly that grace that had been revealed to him, as chief of sinners; for the man who sins and calls it righteousness, is of all sinners the chief. CRCH 6.1