This conception of the cross reappears in Col 1-°, where Jesus is said to have made peace and recon- ciliation with God possible according to the good pleasure of God ' through the blood of his cross.' The word ' blood ' is probably used here to empha- size, against the early Docetic Gnostics, the reality of the human nature of Jesus. So in Col 2''' by a vivid image the Law itself is represented as nailed to the cross with the body of Christ, and so taken out of the way and no longer binding on us as a means of salvation (cf. Ro ']''). In Eph 2"" the cross is presented as the basis for a double reconciliation, both with God and so with each other, ' through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.' So both Jew and Gentile have ' access in one Spirit unto the Father,' and the middle wall of partition is broken down. They form one body in Christ, the Church of all the elect of which Christ is head, one new man. 'The word of the cross' (1 Co 1'"), then, is St. Paul's message to men. It was to proclaim this truth that Christ sent him forth (1 Co 1") ; and this he will do by holding fast to the great essential fact rather than by tine-spun theories (1 Co 1" 2^), lest the gospel be emptied of all real power {KevuBrj).
i. The shame of the cross. — It was a real shame that Jesus underwent when He suttered on the cross as a common malefactor. The Jews con- sidered as accursed one whose dead body merely was hung upon a gibbet, and St. Paul recognized this shame as belonging to Jesus (Gal 3"). Jesus not only foresaw the fact and the character of His death, but was fully aware of the shame of the cross. This death, called by Cicero 'crud- elissimum teterrimunique ' (in Verr. v. 64), had its side of glory to Jesus, who saw the joy in store at the end {dfrl) of the race, and so consciously despised the shame (He 12=). Here cravpds is used without the article, as in Ph 2*, ' in order to fix attention on the nature of the death ' (Westcott). It is in Ph '2* that the cross is used to express ' the very lowest point of Christ's humiliation' (Vin- cent). Jesus became obedient /H^XP' Oaydrov, Bavdrov U ffravpov. It is the bottom rung in the ladder that led down from the throne of God. The cros.s was a real stumbling-block to the disciples them- selves till they were convinced of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It remained to the unbelieving Jews an insuperable barrier. It was so when Jesus spoke of it before the event (Jn 1232-3-' ' AVho is this Son of man?'). St. Paul found that Christ crucified was to tlie sign-seeking Jews a stumbling-block (ICo 1=-). The writer of Hebrews (13'') urges Christians to go outside the camp of Judaism, as Jesus suflered outsitle the gate, when it was clear that the two ways must part, ' bearing his reproach.' The follower of Jesua must not be ashamed of the shame of the cross. Some of the Judaizers, indeed, were not willing to ' be persecuted for the cross of Christ ' (Gal 6'"), but St. Paul did not seek to escape ' the stumbling- block of the cross ' (Gal 5"). Indeed, some carried
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their dislike of the cross to the point of enmity (Ph 3'*). These men would endure neither persecu- tion nor self-denial. But the philosophical Greeks took the matter more lightlj', and considered the preaching of the cross to be foolishness (1 Co !'*• ^), though in truth the cross reveals the hitherto hidden wisdom of God (1 Co 2*'-).
While the Christian is to share the shame of the cross, he is not to add to the sufi'erin" of Christ by crucifying Him afresh {ava<rravp6u. He 6").
5. The triumph of the cross over the flesh and the ivorld. — In a mystic, yet real, sense the Christian is crucified Avith Christ on the cross : Xpiarii awe- (rravpu/iai, St. Paul said of himself (Gal 2™). It is 'a real crucifixion of heart and will' (Kendall). This spiritual crucifixion of the old man on the cross is the common experience of all genuine believers (Gal 5'-^ Ro 6") who have died to sin and have entered into the new life in Christ as sym- bolized by baptism. In a word, the power of "the world over St. Paul's fleshly nature is broken by tlie cross of Christ. There is a double crucifixion between him and the world (Gal 6"). The world in its sinful aspects is dead to him and lie to it. Hence not only is St. Paul not ashamed of the cross of Christ, as the Judaizers are who are seek- ing to enslave the Gentiles to the ceremonial law (Gal 6'=), but he finds his only ground of glorying in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 6"). This sublime mysticism does not degenerate into magic and crucifixes. The true philosophy of the cross lies in the spiritual interpretation of man's victorious conflict with sin, which is made possible by the shameful death of the Son of God on the cross as the supreme expression of the love of the Father for sinful men, and as the propitiatory sacrifice on the basis of which the repentant soul can find access to the Father. The ' blood of the cross ' lies at the root of redemptive grace as set forth by Jesus (Mt 26=»), by St. Peter (1 P P), by St. Paul (Ro 3-^'-), by the writer of Hebrews {9'\ and by St. John(lJn 1').