Often we see things more clearly through the use of contrasts. The white may look whiter against a jet black background, or the rose may appear lovelier for growing in a rubbish dump. In the epistle to the Galatians, Paul has been fighting tooth and nail against false teachers who entered his newly founded churches and undermined their understanding of the cross. Paul saw what a crucial issue this was for the Galatians, and remains so for us today. In Galatians 2:21, Paul asserts: ‘I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died in vain.’ J. Gresham Machen viewed this as ‘the key verse of the Epistle to the Galatians’.
As a contrast, we could cite Robert Funk, the founder of the pretentious and wretched Jesus Seminar conferences, who has declared that ‘The doctrine of the atonement – the claim that God killed his own son in order to satisfy his thirst for satisfaction – is subrational and subethical. This monstrous doctrine is the stepchild of a primitive sacrificial system in which the gods had to be appeased by offering them some special gift, such as a child or an animal.’ Can we, then, reject the cross of Christ as the place where God’s mercy and justice meet, where God is shown to be just and the justifier of all who have faith in Jesus (Rom.3:25-26)?
The apostle Paul is emphatic in his reply. He declares that it is either/or – either the cross accomplishes everything or it accomplishes nothing. We do not have two saviours. That which condemns cannot justify. Later in the same epistle Paul says that ‘if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law’ (Gal.3:21). What does this mean for us in thinking of how we are to regard Christ crucified? Calvin was clear: ‘Do we wish to come to him? Then let us come empty-handed, for whatever we bring to him will be like smoke in our hands.’ That is the way to believe in Christ.
To refuse the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ is folly; to rely on our own righteousness is pride. Even to add a little something to the work of Christ is to destroy it. I would not dare to touch up a Rembrandt painting or a Bach cantata. Yet that is, after all, what the Galatians were doing. Their great error can be seen in Paul’s telling them that ‘if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you’ (Gal.5:2). They were not embracing violence or decadence; they were simply adding to the cross of Christ. So far as the sinner’s acquittal before the throne of God is concerned, the cross of Christ is not vital; it is everything.
If it were not for our sin, there would be no need for Christ to die to pay the death penalty for sin. God could have simply given us the law and we would keep it, and so remain right with him. But sin ruined that notion, and the law shows that we cannot save ourselves. The law is God’s law but it cannot bring life because we are sinners (Rom.3:20; 4:15; 5:20; 7:7). The law shows me that I have a terminal disease and I need to go to the Physician. Christ is the Physician.
There is a play on words by Paul in demonstrating this truth. The same Greek word which is translated in Galatians 2:21 as ‘in vain’ is found in Romans 3:24 where Paul says that believers ‘are justified by His grace as a gift. Either Christ died for free, or Christ died in vain. If we think we can save ourselves, we are saying He died in vain; if we humbly receive His grace, we are saying He died for free.
The cross is not something to think about once a year. It is something to ponder daily. Here I see the holiness of the wrath of God against sinners and here I see His amazing mercy poured out on the undeserving who come with empty hands to Christ. Paul preached on many topics, but he could summarise what he did by saying: ‘I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified’ (1 Cor.2:2). The relevance of the cross of Christ? Words are too weak, our notion of God too small, our egos too inflated – the question is beyond our capacity to do it justice. Best to take refuge in the graphic words of John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan: ‘There is nothing but Christ between us and hell; and, thanks be to God, we need nothing else.’
With warmest regards in Christ,
Peter Barnes