Glorying in the Cross

Galatians 6:14-18

I draw your attention to the 6^th Chapter of Galatians for our study in the word tonight.  What a joy and thrill it is to be able to share in this subject.  That's why I say if I don't get done, it'll be because I get excited about it and just don't get finished, and we won't worry about that because there's not a better subject to talk about.  Glorying in the cross, glorying the cross.  The key verse that we'll look at tonight is verse 14 of Chapter 6, "But God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified in unto me and I unto the world."

Now as we saw last time in our study of the book of Galatians, there are only two religions in the world.  The religion of human achievement and the religion of divine accomplishment.  One is the religion of salvation by works, the other is the religion of salvation by faith.  One depends upon what man does.  The other depends upon what God did.  Now of these two religions, most of the world is banking on the religion of human achievement.  Most of the world is banking on the possibility that man can reach the highest plane of potential destiny by his own good deeds, by his own activity, on his own merit.

Now you say, well, John how could you say there's only two religions in the world when there are so many.  No, there are only two.  It's just that one category of them comes under so many different brand names.  The religion of human achievement comes in many, many forms, but it is the same religion.  You see there's a basic conflict involved in the whole structure of the universe that first became apparent in the fall of Lucipher, and it hasn't changed.

Satan, himself, when he was Lucipher, the highest of the angels, wanted to be higher than God and he determined that by self effort he would become the equal to God.  And so the conflict began.  He invented at that point the whole religion of self effort.  Immediately when God created men on the earth, Satan passed on the religion of self effort, and the first one to be involved in it was Eve.  And Eve was induced to want to be like God.  And Satan told her a simple effort on her part would make it so.  All she had to do was disobey God and eat of the fruit and it would happen and she did and it didn't happen.

And then there was Cain.  Cain, instead of coming to God on the basis of God's standards, decided that he would bring to God the sacrifice of that which he had produced.  Again, the religion of self effort.  Satan did it.  Eve did it.  Adam did it.  Cain did it.  And God rejected it every time.  He threw Satan out of heaven.  Threw Eve and Adam out of the garden.  And he spurned and rejected the offering of Cain.  And it is the very same religion going on today.  You either accept what God has provided for salvation or you endeavor to provide something on your own.  Those are the only two religions in existence. 

Now just to verify this to you, I checked the current religious list of those religions which seem to be the most dominate or popular in our culture.  And every one of them falls into the same category.  Let me list them.  And some of them you'll be familiar with and some of them you want.  The mighty I am teaches salvation by works.  Mormonism, teaches salvation by works.  Islam, salvation by works.  The Urantia Foundation, which incidentally has a 2,100 page book, teaches salvation by works.  The One World Family, teaches there's no need for anybody's salvation.  Everybody's already perfect.  Jehovah's Witnesses, salvation by works.  Spiritualism, salvation by works.  The Association for Research and Enlightenment, alias Edgar Casey, salvation by works.  Divine Light Mission, salvation by works.  You say what's that?  That's guru maharaji, a little guy who sits on pillows and holds flowers.  Oaspi, which is a very strange eastern a cultic religion, salvation by works.  Herbert W. Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong and the Radio Church of God, salvation by works.  The Great White Brotherhood, salvation by works.  Astera, salvation by works.  The Unification Church of Reverend Moon, salvation by works.  Christian Science, salvation by works.

Do you see what I'm saying?  Every one of those is the same thing.  It is also interesting to note that all of those religions that I've name for you claim to have come originally from spirit beings, from supernatural spirit beings.  From revelations, from angels or spirits or extraterrestrial beings.  The mighty I am was dictated by a Spirit.  Mormonism cam from Moroni an angel who interpreted some golden plates.  Islam dictated by Gabriel the angel.  Urantia, 23 extraterrestrial beings by automatic writing dictated the book of Urantia.  One World Family, extraterrestrials originated all of it.  The Jehovah's Witnesses, angels of different ranks controlled the first witnesses.  The Association for Research and Enlightenment all initiated by psychic forces through automatic writing. 

The Divine Light Mission, the guru had a spirit voice that told him three times what he was to say.  The Great White Brotherhood was dictated by a spirit by the of Azeriel contacted through a medium.  Oaspi is a proliferation of mediums and spirits.  Armstrongism which you may not have associated with this came from angelic revelations to Mrs. Armstrong.  Astera, Astera was from spirit sources through telephonic inspiration.  The Unification Church came from spirits which dictated and some of those spirits were named Jesus.  Christian Science special revelations to Mary Baker Eddy.

Now, I want you to notice something, all of those religions come from spirit beings.  I think that's interesting.  All of them come from angelic or spirit sources.  You say what's so interesting about that?  Because it indicates to me that all of them have a demonic source.  They aren't even the invention of men people.  They are the religion of Satan under all different names.

In 2 Corinthians Chapter 11 in verses 13-15, the apostle Paul says, that you can expect that the Devil will appear as an angel of light and you shouldn't be shocked when his ministers appear also as angels of light.  In other words, they are involved in false religion.  And do you want to hear something interesting about all of those that I named to you?  Listen, none of them accept the biblical doctrine of the Trinity.  None of them accept the unique biblical identity of Jesus as deity.

All of those religions believe in salvation by works, deny the uniqueness of the Trinity and deny the biblical construction of the deity of Jesus Christ and all of them come from spirit being sources.  They're all Satan's religion under different names and different brands in order to appeal to a cross section of cultures and people, but it's all the same thing.  Now, I hope you understand that just by the little insight, no matter what it's name apart from biblical Christianity, which is from God, all other systems are satanic and damning.  Satan's in a rut.  There's no other option.  You either believe in salvation by what God has done or the only other possibility is salvation by what men have done.

And Satan is going on and on with the same old stuff.  You're okay on your own, you can do it, you don't need a Savior, etc., etc.  God refused Satan's system when he introduced it and kicked him out of heaven.  God refused it when Adam and Eve offered it up and kicked them out of the garden.  God refused it from Cain, and He's still refusing the system that says you can save yourself or your good deeds will reach God.

Now clearly the New Testament boils down to this, you either accept the finished work of Christ on the cross or you do not accept it.  That's the whole issue.  In fact, it's crystallized, I think, in Philippians 3:18 as well as any where in scripture.  "For many walk of whom I told you often and now tell you weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ."  Now notice, anybody who is in opposition to the cross, verse 19, "will end in destruction."  It's the next verse.  You have the friends of the cross and the enemies of the cross and everybody in the world is in one or other of those two groups.

And all of those who are not the friends of the cross are the enemies of the cross.  Jesus said "you're either for me or," what, "or against me."  And all of those who are the enemies of the cross their end is destruction.  There are only two systems in the world.  In 2 Thessalonians verse 8 of Chapter 1, Paul says, "That the Lord Jesus will come from heaven in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that no not God," not listen, "and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  What is the gospel?  Read it in 1 Corinthians 15.  Jesus Christ was crucified for our sins, raised again for our justification.  That's the gospel.  If you do not accept the cross and the resurrection of Christ, you do not obey the gospel and it says for those who do not obey, they shall be punished with everlasting destruction. 

There are only two possibilities.  Satan has masked his same old lie of salvation by works, a denial of the Trinity, a denial of the unique deity of Jesus Christ in all different forms, but it's the same thing.  One of those forms that Satan uses is Judaism.  And I say that not in denial of the Old Testament, because before the cross, Judaism was the truth.  After the cross, Judaism without a Messiah became as pagan as the worship of a totem pole.  Now the Judaisers who are the real culprits in the area that we've been studying in reference to the Galatians had come in behind Paul and taught the religion of human achievement.  Oh yes, they were very subtle about it and they said, you know, you have to believe in Jesus Christ, that's fine, and in His work, but you must also be circumcised and keep the law.  And they had a salvation by works.

Listen, if you add anything to pure grace, anything to faith, it ceases to be what it is and it becomes worse.  And so Paul in the final appeal of the book of Galatians sets these two religions in contrast.  And it's a last kind of appeal to the Galatians.  It's saying look, there are only two options.  The end of verse 13, "you either glory in the flesh," or verse 14, "you glory in the cross."  That's all.  That's the only choice.  And you can't mix them.  And we've seen that again and again through our study of Galatians for a long, long time as we pursued it. 

Only two roads, the Judaisers were teaching glory in the flesh, be saved by works, Paul was teaching glory in the cross, be saved by grace through faith.  They never mix.  You either believe that you're going to meet God and be approved God and enter into God's heaven and receive God's blessing by what you have done or you believe you're going to have all of that by what He has done.  And if you believe it's what he has done and what you do together, you've missed it.  It's one or the other.

And so the final verses, verse 11-18 divide themselves easily into two parts.  Point one is works glorying in the flesh.  Point two is faith glorying in the cross.  Now last time we considered point one, glorying in the flesh.  Verse 11, "You see how large a letter I've written unto you with mine own hand.  And as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised."  You see they're still operating and glorying in the flesh.  They want to put on a big display in the flesh.  They're constraining you to be circumcised. 

The reason they it is they don't want to suffer persecution. "For neither they themselves," verse 13, "who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh."  False religion is fleshly.  It's motives are to show off spiritually, verse 12.  They want to make a fair show in the flesh to avoid persecution, verse 12, and to cover up their sin, verse 13.  They don't even keep the law themselves, but they think if they can show everybody how wonderful they are proselyting, nobody will notice how disobedient they are.  Religion's a great cover for sin.  We went into that in detail last time.

So Paul says, first of all there's that kind of religion.  The kind that glories in the flesh.  The kind that praises itself.  Glory to me in the highest.  That's the religion of human achievement.  You can do it on your own.  You can do good deeds.  You can earn God's favor.  But as against that, beginning in verse 14, that's where we want to start.  We have the other option, faith, glorying in the cross.  Now here stands Paul and all true Christians.  Here's the religion of grace.  Now notice folks, you can't glory in both.  And he says to the Galatians and to us "I desire that you would join me in glorying in the cross.  God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Notice the phrase, "God forbid."  In the Greek magenata, is a strong negative.  It doesn't say God forbid in the Greek.  That's not a literal translation.  It says may it never be.  That is a very strong negative.  It's as if he said, no, no, no, no.  Absolutely, positively, no, never.  The same construction is used repeatedly in Romans Chapter 3 when God's character is in question.  Paul says, "I will never no, no, no, never in no way under no circumstances at all glory in the flesh, but only in the cross."  You say, hah, he was probably such a crumb that he had nothing to glory in.

I wasn't that way.  If you knew me, you'd understand why I glory in the flesh. I'm a wonderful person.  Well, let me show you something.  Philippians 3, Paul had something to glory about.  If you're going to glory in the flesh, he says, I'll stand nose to nose with you and match you.  I was super religious.  I did a lot of little spiritual goodies.  Chapter 3, verse 1, "Finally my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.  To write the same things to you to me indeed is not irksome, but for your it's safe.  Before of dogs, beware of evildoers, evil workers, beware of the concision."  These are the Judaisers.  People going around telling you have to be circumcised.  "For we are the circumcision.  That is the true circumcision to worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence," what, "in the flesh."  They're going around saying we're the true children of God, because we have had a physical operation.

Paul says, no, no.  We are the true ones.  We rejoice in Christ, we worship God in the Spirit.  Now he says if you want to talk about confidence in the flesh, verse 4, "I might also have confidence in the flesh."  That's right.  I can stand up and tell you about my flesh.  "Because of what my appearance gave me in terms of Jewish heritage and because of what I myself attain.  Why do you realize that if any other man thinks that he hath reasons for which he might trust in the flesh, I have more reasons?  Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel.  Of the tribe of Benjamin," one of the good tribes, "and Hebrew of the Hebrews.  Why as touching the law I was a Pharisee."  Super conservative, legalistic.  "Concerning zeal I persecuted the church.  Touching the righteous which is in the law," what's that next word, "blameless."  Man I really...I got down to the nitty gritty of that law and I kept it.

Now if you want to talk about the flesh, I'll match you.  If you want to say well I've been so wonderful and I've done all these religious things, won't God accept me, I'll stand on that ground and I've done just as many things as you've done or more.  Now you want to know what I think of all that stuff?  Verse 7, "But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ.  Ye doubtless," and you're going to hear some strong language.  "Ye doubtless and I count all things but loss."  You can take all of that stuff and chuck it he says.  Every bit of it means nothing.  "For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and I count them but refuse, dung," is the word.

You can't come up with a worse possible concept than that of the valuelessness of something.  Worthless, refuse, extriment, nothing, less than nothing.  That's what you can do with all that stuff.  It means nothing. "That I may win Christ and be found in Him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ.  He says, you can take all of that self-righteous legal stuff and chuck it.  I only know this, that I want to win Christ and attain His righteousness through faith.

"I just want to know him," verse 10.  Now you see he...this is where Paul is.  He says, if you're going to talk to me about religion of the flesh, I've been there folks and it doesn't cut it.  It has no way to bring a man to God?  He says, "God forbid."  "God forbid that I would ever glory in the flesh."  It's worthless, useless.  "I count it but loss that I may appropriate Christ by faith.  That I may just believe and receive the free gift of God."

Now notice verse 14 in Galatians 6 again.  No, no, no, no, may it never be that I should glory. What does glory mean?  What do you mean when you're going to say you're going to glory?  It means to praise or honor or worship.  I'll never honor anything but the cross.  I'll never praise anything but the cross.  I'll never praise my own works.  I'll never praise my own flesh.  And that's what these legalistic Judaisers were doing, praising their own flesh.  The only thing I'll ever praise, the only thing I'll ever honor, the only thing I'll ever worship, those are synonyms for glory, is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know something, I know a lot of people here tonight that feel that way.  I feel that way.  Don't you?  I don't look to myself for my own righteousness.  I have to look a long time and wouldn't find any.  I just glory in the cross.  We sang some hymns of the cross.  I could just feel my heart being lifted when the choir was singing Halleluiah For The Cross.   Because that's it. You say, well I don't understand that.  How could a man honor a torture instrument.  I don't understand how Christians can get so excited about this cross.  Why does the Christian symbol have to be such a horrible thing and what's so important about the death of a man who died 1,900 years ago?  And what kind of an effect can such a death, 1,900 years ago, have on anybody alive today?  Wasn't it just heroism?  Wasn't it just a great example of self-sacrifice?  Wasn't Jesus just sort of a misguided religious patriot who got in a little deeper than he wanted to?  Why do we glory in the cross?  Why is Paul saying oh I praise the cross, I praise the cross?  Why do Christians where a cross around their neck?  Why do they have a cross on the wall?

What is all this cross stuff?  It's a little morbid, isn't it?  Why do Christians honor the cross?  We can answer that can't we?  Because you see it was the cross that was the act of divine accomplishment that brought to men the salvation that human achievement couldn't bring.  What happened on the cross has lasting effects for the salvation of every man and every age who believes.  In fact, unless a man puts his faith in Jesus Christ, unless he has been redeemed by what Christ did on the cross, he has no chance of knowing God and knowing salvation.  The cross is the crux of the religion of the divine accomplishment.

When Jesus hung on the cross with His last breath, He said, "It is finished."  What was finished?  The accomplishment of redemption.  He died to bring us salvation we could never obtain ourselves.  We couldn't do it.  We couldn't do it.  Now let me expand on this so you'll understand.  Let's first of all start with God.  God is God.  Now unless you accept that, you're in real trouble.  God is God.  And you know who God is?  God is the one who runs the universe?  Watch this one.  God makes all the rules.  Think about it.  All of them.  Now one of the things about God is that God is holy.  He is without sin.  He is without iniquity.  He has no flaws.  He is perfect.  And you know something, the heaven that He occupies is just as perfect as He is.  And Revelation says there will be nothing that will ever enter His heaven that would defile His heaven.  Okay?  And it's His heaven.  And He's calling the shots. 

Therefore, unless a man is as holy as God is holy, he'll never enter into God's heaven.  That's what the Bible says.  In fact, in Matthew 5:48, Jesus looked at the people and said, "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."  Now you say oh that's quite a standard.  That's God's standard.  Now God's justice demands that you stick by His laws.  God has another law.  The law is this.  "The soul that sinneth, it shall," what, "die."  New Testament version, "The wages of sin is death."  Romans 6:23.

So God says heaven is only for absolutely holy individuals and anybody who's unholy is going to die, not just physically, but spiritually and eternally.  God will judge sin with death. In Romans 1:18, it says "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness."  All of it.  Now many people find it hard to understand that God is judge.  And so they just chuck that and then they just come up with their own standards.  The best way to illustrate this perhaps would be to say it this way.  Let's suppose you go to a football game.  You know, you've got an afternoon off on a Saturday, so you go down to the coliseum and you want to see a football game.  And you come up to the window and the ticket thing on the window says the tickets are $5.00 for the seat you want.  And you say to the man in booth, "do you know something, sir, I know both of these teams very well.  Neither one of them can play worth $5.00.  They couldn't give me a game worth $5.00.  I'll pay $2.00, no more." 

Now you may really hold your point of view well, but you know something, you're not going to have any luck with that guy at the gate.  He is not interested in your argument.  You either pay your $5.00 and go in and watch the game or you go home.  Because it's not your prerogative to fix the prices.  You can either take it or leave it.  You can't modify it.  But somewhere along the line, Satan has caused people to believe that though God has set absolute standards you can dicker around and modify God's standards.  You can't do it.

It's God's heaven.  It's not yours.  He lays down the terms of admittance and you come to the gate and start offer Him $2.00 and He's not going to be interested in you at all.  He does not modify the entrance requirement for heaven.  And you're never going to impose your conditions on God, yet people all over the world do this all the time.  This is a fundamental error and it means that you refuse, listen, you refuse to take the character of God seriously.  Now, the first fact to consider in the religion of the cross is God's estimate of the situation and His laws are decisive.  He says sin is an affront to me, it'll never enter into my heaven.  It'll be dealt with with death. 

God is displeased with sin.  No one will ever defile his heaven with sin.  You scratch your head and you say well, we've got a problem.  The first thing a man has to do is realize he's a sinner.  Second thing he wants to do is if he's a sinner, he wants to realize that he can't get into God's heaven.  Well, that's a problem.  So Satan comes along and says hey, you can modify that, sure.  Maybe the Bible doesn't really mean that.  That's a hard line, super fundamentalist view.  Why God is a great loving God.  And so they write the Bible.

But the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death."  And God set the standard.  And the Bible says, you see that sin can only be put away by death.  Hebrews 9:22 says, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin."  God is a loving, yes.  And He wants to forgive sin, but He can't arbitrarily forgive sin.  He's got to deal with it.  God can't just say well, I know I don't like sin, but I'll just go forgive all of you any old way.  Sin must be paid for.  God cannot arbitrarily forgive without doing something to take care of the offense of sin.  So God looks down on the world and He says I love you.  I love you, but I'm going to have to punish your sin.  I have two choices.  I can just damn you for your own sin.  Or I can have a substitute take your place.  And so the love of God forgave you, but the justice of God crucified Jesus Christ.  Do you see?  Because somebody had to pay for your sin.

God's choice was to let every man pay his own penalty and suffer eternal death in hell or to offer a substitute who would die in the place of man.  And Jesus came to die and the reason he came to die was because somebody had to die for your sins and mine.  And it was the act of God when the Son died on the cross to take care of sin so that He could offer forgiveness to those who would accept it.

Jesus didn't die because He was a sinner.  He never committed a sin.  1 Peter 2:24 says "That He in His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree."  He bore our sins in His body.  He paid our penalty.  2 Corinthians marvelous verse, Chapter 5, verse 21, listen, "For He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."  Christ became our substitute.  Christ took our place on the cross.  Beloved, it was the act of the love of God that sent Jesus to die on the cross.  The love toward us that was also the act of the justice of God that made the penalty be realized.

That's why Paul glories in the cross.  You see, watch this, because the cross provides for the expiation or the covering for sin or the removal of sin better.  The cross provides for the removal of sin, something that no man could ever provide for himself, no matter how good you are, no matter how religious you are, you could never be holy as God is holy until Jesus died on the cross, paid the entire penalty for your sin and God when you believe in Christ imputes to you the very righteousness of Christ and God looks at your as righteous as He sees His own Son.  Marvelous miracle.  This is love.

And God's love is meaningless if the cross is meaningless.  You know, all these liberals say, well God loves us and it's so wonderful how he loves us and oh when Christ died on the cross that was a nice wonderful display of God's love.  But they're not willing to admit that a man needs to be totally redeemed by the cross.  They want to allow for a salvation of works.  Let me show you how stupid that is.  The same liberal who gets up and preaches about the love of God and also preaches that you can save yourself has got a real problem.

Say I'