Boasting in the Cross

At one time, the apostle Paul was proud and boastful, but an encounter with Jesus changed all of that. I find my identity.

I find my sense of well-being in my relationship with Jesus, in my union and communion with Him. I am a crucified man. I have died to who I once was. We read about Paul's conversion, and we're amazed at the radical change in his life.

But if you're a Christian, have you ever considered that your conversion is no less dramatic? Remember, like Paul, you and I were dead in our sins and trespasses. There was no hope for us apart from God's sovereign grace. So, like Paul, we discover there is no ground for our boasting except in the cross of Christ.

How should we respond? Well, just like Paul. Lesson 14 and the final lesson in Galatians, and it's chapter 6 from verse 11 to the end of the chapter. And let's pick it up immediately in verse 11, see with what large letters I'm writing to you with my own hand. And that might give us a little clue as to what it is that Paul was afflicted with and that it has something to do with his eyes and that maybe he was writing in large letters because he couldn't see very well and he had some kind of eye condition, and that's as good a theory as any. And then in verses 12 and 13, he goes back to the issue that has preoccupied him throughout the entire epistle, those who are insisting on circumcision, and you remember earlier he had said that he wished them to go all the way and emasculate themselves. But he also now gives us a little hint as to perhaps the motivation behind the Judaizers' insistence on compliance with circumcision for Gentile Christians, and that is to, first of all, free themselves from persecution in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

Part of the motivation was to make life easier for themselves, especially in Jewish circles that had some antipathy towards Christianity, but also that they, verse 13, even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. In other words, that there was a measure of pride and a measure of lordship, of one-upmanship involved in their motivation, and that raises now for Paul the issue of boasting. And Paul says, "'Far be it for me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.'"

And that's a wonderful, wonderful text by which Paul brings this Galatian epistle to a close, because it sums up everything that he wants to say about the gospel and what it means and who we are and our identity in Christ. "'Far be it for me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.'" The cross, of course, has become the symbol of Christianity, and there's something of a strangeness about that, isn't there? The cross for Romans was an instrument of execution, of state punishment, like a rope, like a syringe, like a gas chamber.

It would be strange, wouldn't it, if we were to carry a little replica of a syringe around our necks to boast in the death penalty? Because for the Romans, that's what the cross meant. There's a piece of graffiti from the second century, and it's now in the Kershirian Museum, and it was found on the Palatine Hill in Rome, and it's a picture of a man who's looking up at a crucifixion, and the person being crucified has the head of a donkey. And it's an anti-Christian Roman propaganda piece of graffiti that, in the eyes of the Romans, Christianity was foolish.

It was stupidity. Why would you worship? And the graffiti at the bottom says, Alexa menus sabbatheion, and that Alexa menus worships God, and the god is the head of a donkey. And it was foolishness to them. For the Jews, crucifixion was a symbol that God had abandoned them. It was a depiction because it is everyone who hangs upon a tree, so it didn't make sense to the Jews that Jesus was crucified and that you would worship somebody who was crucified. But for Paul, it means something very different.

And for every Christian, the cross means something very different. The cross was the climax of Jesus' obedience. As He set Himself steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, He knew what the end would be. He discerned what the consequences of going to Jerusalem would be and that He would be crucified. He'd come for this purpose.

I must go to Jerusalem and there be handed over to the Jews and to be tried and to be crucified and on the third day rise again. You remember when Peter said to Him, No, this will never be. And Jesus reacts as though He had touched a nerve. Jesus didn't react like this all the time, but He says to him, Get behind Me, Satan. Because He had heard that voice once before in the temptation that if He were to spare the cross, all He would have to do was to bow down and worship Satan and all that He could see would be His. He could have the crown without the cross and He'd heard that suggestion before, and now He's hearing it again in Peter. It's what the baptism signified. It was a water ordeal that spoke in the Old Testament of judgment. When Paul talks about baptism, he talks about the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians in 1 Corinthians 10.

When Peter talks about baptism, he talks about Noah and the ark and how eight people are saved and the rest of humanity are drowned in the waters. So, there's a sense in which baptism is a picture that conveys the idea of the judgment and curse of God. But what does the cross mean? And here Paul doesn't explain it, but elsewhere he does, and he uses words to explain the cross.

That's why a movie of the crucifixion of Jesus is wholly inadequate. The cross has to be explained. In the movie, all you see is a person dying on a cross, like other people died on a cross. But to really answer the question, what does the cross mean, there has to be a word, a logos of the cross, as Paul says elsewhere. He's used words like redemption. The cross is redemptive, and it's the language of the marketplace, the payment made to release from bondage and from slavery.

The cross sets me free from bondage to sin and self. He's used words like propitiation in chapter 3 and verses 13 and 14, where the word specifically means the cross is where the judgment of God descends, the wrath of God descends. We asked the question in an earlier lesson, why did the wrath of God descend here if Jesus is sinless?

Death is the wages of sin, but if He hadn't sinned, why does He die? And the answer that Luther gave was substitution. At that point, He was the greatest sinner the world had ever seen because our sins had been reckoned to His account. Elsewhere, Paul will use the language of reconciliation, the language that comes from broken relationships, and that God's relationship with us is broken and needs to be restored, and the cross reconciles us to God. And here in Galatians again and again, he's used the language of justification, that it's the cross that enables us to be found in a right relationship and standing with God, clothed with the obedience that is necessary, our sins removed and robed in the righteous robe of the obedience of Christ. Paul glories in the cross because he sees the cross not simply as a death and therefore one to which we might render sympathy, but he sees it as redemptive and saving and reconciling and justifying.

He sees the gospel in the cross, God's good news of eternal life for sinners through the satisfaction and substitution of the work of Christ on our behalf. And so he says, by which the world has been crucified to me. And I think he means this in the sense that the world had nothing to offer him, not in the sense that Paul didn't have a world and life view, not in the sense that Paul couldn't appreciate art or music or architecture or sport or hobbies or whatever, not in that sense. But in the ultimate sense, the world had nothing to offer him. The world in its fallenness, the world in its vanity had nothing to offer him.

There was something about even the beauty that there is in the world would remind him of ruined castles where the beauty had faded. And in the sense that Mick Jagger would have put it, I can find no satisfaction, that which would satisfy the soul, that which would satisfy the sinner in need of redeeming grace. We cannot find it in the world. What profit is there if I gain the whole world and I lose my soul?

You know, do the math. If you have the world, you have the world. You have the whole world, but you don't have Jesus. What have you got? And it's nothing. What if you don't have anything, but you have Jesus?

You've got everything. The world is crucified to me. He's not living ultimately for the world's plaudits or the world's approval. What was profit to me once? I now count as loss, Paul will say to the Philippians. He had many things to boast about, but what I once considered profit, I now consider loss. I count them as dung. That's a nice translation, scubala.

He means dung. That's how he regards the world, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, but the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. He's saying that to the Philippians, and he's saying it here in a much more compressed way.

Far be it for me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me. And then he says, and I to the world. How did the world look at Paul? This great man, this man who had a terrific education, this man who was destined to be one of the greatest minds in Judaism.

He would have taken Judaism by storm had he remained in Judaism. And now what is he doing? And he's wandering hither and yon through Europe, and all he's doing is speaking about Jesus all the time. And in the eyes of the world, Paul is a fool.

He's a fool. I am crucified to the world. Look at what he says in verse 17. From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. He's talking literally, I think. He's saying, what am I to the world?

What does the world think of me? And imagine that you're going on a trip with the youth, and they're going to the beach for the day, and Paul goes along. If you can imagine Paul as the youth pastor, probably difficult to imagine, but imagine that Paul is the youth guy at the church, and he's taking the young people to the beach, and, you know, they're playing in the sand, and then all of a sudden they say, let's go in swimming, and Paul, come on, come on, Paul. And he takes off his shirt, and you just gasp, because five times he received thirty-nine lashes, so his back is scarred all over.

It's horrible to look at. It's hard to imagine the sufferings that Paul went through on behalf of the gospel because he loved Jesus, and that's why he's saying, I am crucified to the world. I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. Here's a man who's out and out for Jesus. He's out and out for the gospel. He has one thing on his mind, and it's Christ.

It's Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It's not about Him. It's not about His advancement. It's not about His glory. It's not about His career. It's not about wealth. It's not about goods. It's not about the trinkets and baubles of this world. Paul isn't saying for one minute that we don't have the right of private ownership.

That's not his point. But what is it that you live for? What is it that gets you up in the morning? What is it that gives you a sense of identity? What is it that makes you who you are? And throughout the whole course of this epistle, the answer has been, I find my identity. I find my existence. I find my satisfaction.

I find my sense of well-being in my relationship with Jesus, in my union and communion with Him. I am a crucified man. I have died to who I once was. I'm no longer Adamic, but I'm a man in Christ, and everything has changed. I don't seek the approval of the world.

I don't seek the approval of anyone. I am already approved in the sense that I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who is producing now in me a calculus that leads to Jesus' likeness as I identify the vices, the fruit of the flesh, and put those to death, and as I seek more and more to identify the fruit of the Spirit and bring these to life. And all of it is by the strength and power and leading of the Holy Spirit so that if I'm going to boast about anything, I can't even boast about my Christian achievements. I can't boast about those who have come to Jesus through me because all of it at the end of the day is God's work.

It's by Him. It's by the power of the Holy Spirit. Well, He ends, as He often ends, with a little benediction, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your spirit, brothers.

Amen. It's a very short little benediction, but that's not just a little farewell, goodbye. This is a benediction, and benedictions are blessings, and blessings are what covenants give because covenants always had blessings and curses.

He was cursed that we might be blessed. The benediction is a sign of the gospel. At the end of services, and the church throughout the last 2,000 years has concluded a service, a worship with a benediction. It's not a prayer, so it's appropriate to keep your eyes open, and you receive it. It's God's Word to you, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your spirit, brothers. It's a reminder once again of who you are. It's a reminder once again that you are within the circle of the gospel.

You are safe. You are blessed, not in the trivial way, but in the most profound way imaginable. We are blessed, people, because we have been given eternal life.

That's what lies before us. As you leave church on a Sunday morning or a Sunday evening, and that word of blessing rings in your ears, and it's a reminder that as you go to whatever lies before you, you're a blessed person. You have gospel privileges. Next time you're at a service, and the blessing is said, just remind yourself this is gospel.

This is good news. In this I stand. In this I go forward with the assurance that God has blessed me because He has cursed the Lord Jesus Christ in my stead, in my room, as my substitute. Well, as always in these studies, whenever preachers preach through books, I always feel as though when I come to the end, I'm now in a position to start again because now you see the big picture, and I trust that Galatians will mean a little more to you as you study it together. It's been a privilege being your teacher on this occasion. That's Ligonier teaching fellow Dr. Derek Thomas wrapping up his series on the book of Galatians.

You're listening to Renewing Your Mind. I'm Lee Webb, and I'm glad you could be with us today. Over the past couple of days, we've learned about gospel stewardship and the cross of Christ. Paul's letter to the Galatian church teaches us that false gospels drive people to despair, while the true gospel frees us to rest in Christ alone for our salvation.

In 14 messages, we see Paul's encouragement for Christians to stand firm and rest in Christ. We would like for you to have this series. It's contained on two DVDs, and when you give a donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries, we'll be glad to send it your way. You can make your request online at renewingyourmind.org, or you can simply call us.

Our number is 800-435-4343. You'll also discover rich teaching like you heard today in Table Talk magazine. It's a monthly resource with articles on specific theological themes. For example, this month, the theology of Christmas. You'll also find daily guided Bible studies, and subscribers have access to a growing library of back issues online. Just as an example, I typed Galatians into the search bar, and there are nearly 300 articles in Bible studies. It really is a rich resource to help you in your own Bible reading.

You can learn more and subscribe when you go to tabletalkmagazine.com. Well, it was all the craze about three decades ago, bracelets and T-shirts emblazoned with the letters W-W-J-D. They referred to the question, What would Jesus do? Certainly a well-intentioned campaign, but perhaps the first question we need to consider is, What did Jesus do? Dr. R.C. Sproul believed that question to be so important that he devoted an entire teaching series to help us better understand the person and work of Christ. We'll feature the first lesson of that series tomorrow, so we hope you'll join us for Renewing Your Mind. . .