male announcer: In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on “In Touch,” “Why the Cross?” Dr. Charles Stanley: Well, I see them hanging in automobiles in front of the windshield. Then I see them, oftentimes, on the wall. Sometimes I see them around people’s necks. And then I oftentimes see it in a hymnbook.
Sometimes people have them on their rings. Sometimes they have something in their pocket. They think it’s a good luck charm. I’m talking about the cross. The cross is not a good luck charm. It is an object that has the most profound message the world will ever hear. And that’s what I want to talk about in this message, “Why the Cross?” And as we begin the message, you’ll understand rather quickly why I question the idea of why a cross.
And the apostle Paul made a statement in Galatians that is an astounding statement when you think about who he was and all the things that had gone on in his life, things he accomplished in life. And he made an awesome statement in the sixth chapter of Galatians. And so I want you to turn there, if you will for a moment.
And I’ll just read one verse. He’d been talking and writing to the Galatians about their dependence upon the law and so forth and the freedom that you and I have as a result of a personal relationship with Christ. And so then he says in the fourteenth verse, “May it never be,” may it never be, “that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
” Crucifixion was such a horrible thing. In the catacombs or outside of Rome where the Christians were oftentimes found as a result of being persecuted by Rome, or desiring to worship secretly, they etched on the walls and the ceilings of the catacombs such pictures as a fish, for example, or a dove. And you and I could sort of see how that would be true.
But sometimes it was Noah’s ark, sometime Daniel in the lion’s den or a cross. Finally, finally after many, many, many, many years, the symbol of Christianity became a cross. So, it is the simplicity of the cross that we look at and think in terms of the cross being a sign of the Christian faith or a symbol of the Christian faith.
And if you’ll think about how surprising that is because with the fact that the purpose of it was shame, suffering, and death. That’s what it was all about. And why would Christians adopt a symbol as their symbol that was the worst, horrible form of death? It didn’t make any sense. But it didn’t stop the apostle Paul from preaching.
And he kept preaching. And so finally, it became the universal symbol of Christianity. Now, when you think about it, when you see them pull out something that’s got a cross on it or you hear them talking about it, I wonder how many people recognize what that’s all about. And I want you to listen carefully because this is really the heart of the whole Christian message.
You can take this Bible from cover to cover, the central theme all the way through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The crucifixion, His death, what the purpose of it was all about. Because the resurrection is God’s way of doing what? God the Father accepted His crucifixion as full atonement for our sins.
