The Centrality of the Cross
The cross features prominently in the book of 1 Corinthians. We saw how the Apostle Paul communicated the gospel: with trembling and fear so that the salvation of the Corinthian Christians would depend onthe power of the Spirit and the message of the cross. Paul affirmed that he and his co-workers were just stewards, but the growth of the church and the glory belong to God; they served as servants of the gospel which is anchored in the message of the cross. Throughout the sixteen chapters, the cross appears, sometimes prominently, at times in a subtle manner.
In the concluding remarks, we need to pause and take a good look at the cross and why it is so important in the life of the Church and in the ministry of the servants of God.
The supreme moment of triumph and glory for God is achieved through the humiliation, weakness and betrayal of the Son of God as He was nailed to the cross by humankind, the people He has created and for whom He came to die. The glorification of the Father and the Son, the two are tied together, take place at the cross where the Father and the Son stoop in love and humility to save humankind. Jesusʼ death onthe cross will bring judgement on the world, drive out Satan, eliminate death and reverse the effects of the Fall.
We need to learn and re-learn again and again that God is glorified by the teaching and application of the cross. The main focus should not be signs and wonders, not magnificent church buildings, not large numbers at meetings, not big budgets, clever rhetoric and clear argument (which was highlighted by Paul), not even beautiful music and singing. These can all be good in their proper place. First and foremost, it is Jesusʼ death that accomplishes Godʼs glory and reverses all our failure.Throughout church history, the church has stumbled badly when she drifted away from this truth, either by thinking we are good enough to achieve Godʼs glorification, or by failing to understand history from an eternal perspective, looking for Godʼs glorification mainly in a visible way through our work, apart from the enabling of the Spirit.
The cross is central to our adoption into Godʼs family; it is central to our assurance, our day to day forgiveness and to our ongoing life as His servants and messengers. It is central in the discipleship of every believer; it speaks of sacrificial love, humility, self-giving service and unconditional obedience to the triune God. It is therefore indispensable in the life and service of the Church of God.
The preaching of the cross, the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, and the meaning of this is the very centre and heart of the gospel and the Christian message. This is never a popular message and the preaching of the cross brings offence to many and it also brings persecution to the preacher.
This explains what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that when he preached Christ crucified, to the Jews it was a stumbling block and to the Greeks it was foolishness. Nonetheless, the Apostle Paul determined not to know anything among the listeners except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
The message of the cross declares that we are not saved by human wisdom, or by human ideas or philosophy or understanding; it is the cross that saves us. Jesus Christ saves us by bearing our punishment and by taking our guilt upon Himself. The cross saves us if we believe this message; this is only the one thing we have to do. “…through Jesus the forgiveness of sin is proclaimed to you. Through Him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39).
The message of the cross is the greatest insult to natural man; he rejects the remark that he is lost and needs to be saved; he resents the idea that he is a sinner and a failure; he refuses to believe that he is as bad as the hopeless drunkard or the fallen woman and that there isno difference. He cannot accept that ʻall have sinned and fallen short of the glory of Godʼ (Romans 3:23). The message of the cross is anoffence to the pride of the natural man; not only does he not acceptthat all are equally sinners, but he finds it unacceptable that we are allequally hopeless and can do nothing about it at all. To confess that we are utterly hopeless and helpless hurts our pride and our heart. And toeven suggest that all our efforts to be right with God are of no availis repulsive; and on top of this, to conclude that our only hope is just to believe and accept the message of the cross and the gospel withoutany contribution on our part makes the message very offensive indeed!
No wonder Apostle Paul, in the epistle, declares that God forbidthat he should glory, save in the cross of Christ. The Christian not only glories in the cross but he glories in the cross alone; for he knows that apart from the cross there is no salvation; apart from the cross, there is no hope, apart from the cross there is no power to overcome sin, to be godly and to be fruitful spiritually.
It is imperative that we see the centrality of the cross in Christian ministry and service as well as in building Godʼs Church.This is particularly seen in 1 Corinthians.
The cross speaks of weakness leading to strength. The apostles were acutely aware of this and they knew they had to depend on God and His wisdom and ways to do the ministry and to build His people. As such, they refrained from depending on their ability to debate, to counton rhetoric and oratorical skills in doing Godʼs work and in preaching the gospel. They were prepared to be looked upon as ʻunimpressiveʼ teachers, as ʻscum of the earthʼ so that the Word of God could go forth with His power and life and not on the basis of their charisma and skills.In this light, the Apostles were always conscious of not claiming Godʼs glory for themselves; they considered themselves just as stewards and servants of God and they knew that growth and progress of Godʼs work depends entirely on God.
The servants of God, in recognising the importance of the cross, sought to have a cross-shaped feature in their approach to service and ministry. They therefore took on self-denial in their approach to doing Godʼs work and were prepared to give up their rights for the sake of the gospel even though they were legitimately entitled to these rights as servants of the living God.
The cross also speaks of sufferings leading to glory in God. The servants of God were prepared to suffer for Jesusʼ sake and they did not flinch in the face of persecution, misunderstanding and pain.They continued to endure and persevere even though they were notappreciated as long as the Lord God was pleased with them.
Finally, the cross focuses on the grace and love of God whenFather and Son, in love and humility, agreed to send the Son to the cross to bear the sins of many and to reverse the effects of the fall. The true servants of God know what Godʼs love is like and they were conscious that apart from their message, they need to manifest the love of Jesus in their service and to be willing to be servants for Jesusʼ sake. They continued to be gracious to those who wronged them and extend their forgiveness and good will to those who repented.
We need to measure the ministry of Godʼs servants today and the work of God in the Church and missions against the characteristics that come forth from the cross of Jesus Christ. If the cross is not central in our life and ministry, we can be sure that the work would not last and the Lord God will not be pleased with it.
The Role of the Holy Spirit
We have seen how the CROSS features so much in the book of 1 Corinthians and how its ‘absence’ and its lack in emphasis had caused so many problems for the church in Corinth.
We now need to focus on the Holy Spirit, His role in regenerationwhen the gospel is preached, His ministry in sanctification of thebelievers and His contribution in Christian ministry and in the life of the church.
The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 emphasised that his preaching and message of the gospel were not dependent on human wisdom or persuasive words but rather with a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, by the Word of God alone or through the ministry of those who preach the Word, convinces the unbelieving world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement (John 16:8). The believers in Corinth were taken up with rhetoric and the oratorical skills of the false “apostles” to a point that they missed the authentic ministry of the Spirit in the proclamation of the gospel. We must not make the same mistake in our desire to evangelise; we cannot afford to depend on human wisdom, management principles, props, psychological influences through emotional music, technical skills and the like to preach the gospel. In depending on all these, we are in danger of ‘ignoring’ the Holy Spirit of God who alone can bring about true conversion and salvation. The church must recognise beyond all doubt that the sole cause of conversion and faith is the Holy Spirit,working through the Word of God. If all good flows from the Spirit of God, down to the first desire to seek God, then dependence and prayer constitute the only fitting attitude for the church in her approach topreaching and sharing the gospel. Too often we focus on techniques and events and activities, but Jesus teaches that if we focus on Him, and our relationship with Him, evangelistic fruit will come naturally, in answer to our prayer, and in this way we will bring glory to the Father.
The Corinthian believers were endowed with many spiritual gifts; yet in 1 Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul branded them as worldlyor fleshly or carnal. Their lives were characterised by pride, jealousy, envy and outright arrogance. Obviously, although they, as a church, was supposed to be a temple of God, they were not a body which is holy and attractive for the Holy Spirit to reign in. Christian love and character is distinctive and a powerfully effective form of witness in the world, while we wait for the Lord Jesus to return. When the world sees the ʻuglinessʼ of the church, it is understandable why she recoils from the gospel. We are reminded of what the late John Stott wrote in “The Radical Disciple” that those who shared the gospel do not look like the Jesus they proclaimed. No wonder the hearers found it hard to receive the good news!
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul shared that although there are different kinds of gifts, it is the same Spirit who distributes them, and although there are different kinds of service, we are serving the same Lord andit is the same God who is at work. We must recognise that the churchcomprises of the individuals who worship together; the church is not the building and the ministry of the church is the collective ministry of the individuals who constitute the church and not only expressedin the organised ʻspiritual activityʼ of the church in her programmesand planned activities. Thus the ministry of the church is expressed by the collective ministry of her members in different walks of life and in different locations in society. It does not mean that individuals who do not participate in the church’s planned activities are guilty of not ministering the gospel.
Philippians 2:13 crystallises this truth: “for it is God (the Spirit) who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil His good purpose”The Holy Spirit is the one who is at work to direct us to will and toact according to His good pleasure to fulfil His good purpose. He isthe one who works in all individuals who belong to a church; He can work differently in different individuals in different contexts and the believers are to obey His direction and guidance prayerfully. At times, certain ones may be called to focus on certain work which is apart from the planned programmes of the church, yet their work and contribution are no less the ministry of the church as well.
Notice the emphasis that it is the Holy Spirit who works, even to the extent of helping us to will and to do. This is in fact what it means to walk in the Spirit. Let us not forget that it is possible to seek to do God’s work by walking in the flesh and the example of the Corinthian believers shows this very clearly.
To conclude, it is the Holy Spirit who makes regeneration and positive response to the gospel possible; it is He who works out sanctification and holiness in the lives of believers and it is definitely He who works in us to cause us to will and to do Godʼs good work and purpose. If the believer and the church fail to see this clearly and work this out properly, the church would not be free from her ailment.
The Relationship between the Cross and the Holy Spirit
We have noted how the CROSS and the HOLY SPIRIT feature rather prominently in 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul highlighted this in how the gospel was communicated, how Church-life and outworking depend on it, and how Christian ministry needs to be approached and carried out. Neglect of this leads to dependence onfleshly methods and worldly wisdom and invariably ends up with achurch like that of Corinth; oratorical skills and rhetoric took centre stage, spiritual gifts accompanied by pride and self-glory became the norm, partisan spirits and divisive acts devoid of true Christian love and self-denial came to the forefront and the environment was ripe for deception and false teaching to displace faithful teachings and godliness.
A few words may be necessary to tie up the relationship between the Cross and the Holy Spirit in Christian living and the outworking of healthy Church-life. The perfect man Jesus discharged all phases of His atoning work in perfect obedience to the Father. His obedience (which is an expression of His love for the Father) was seen in what He achieved as the perfect man and also in what He suffered, climactic in His substitutional death on the CROSS. He obeyed, both byfulfilling the law and by accepting its sanctions against the sins of those for whom He died.
As John Calvin pointed out, nothing is received in salvation that is not first accomplished in and through Jesus Christ; everything that is accomplished in Christ is done so, not for His own sake, but for ours. We see therefore the central role of the CROSS and the wondrous grace and love of the triune God. Calvin went on to say that everything that has been accomplished in Christ is to be applied to us and in us by the Holy Spirit. We see here the intimate relationship between what Christ accomplished and the role and work of the Holy Spirit and hence the close relationship between the CROSS and the HOLY SPIRIT in all of Christian life, ministry and mission.
Finally, Calvin summarised it by stating that Christ is bearer of the Spirit not for His own sake but for ours. He bore the Spirit in order to bestow the Spirit; He receives the Spirit in order to accomplish His work so that the Spirit may communicate Him in the virtue of His accomplished work to all who believe. Thus the anointing Christ receives flow over him to all the members of His mystical body, the Church.
Outside of Christ, nothing is worth knowing; says Calvin; but Christ becomes ours through the gift of the Holy Spirit to us.