Galatians 6:14

Gal_6:14

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

The glory of the Cross

The Cross of Christ is the key to St. Pauls life; and that life is itself the best human exponent of the Cross of Christ. He saw no ground for boasting, or rejoicing, or living, save in that. By the Cross is to be understood the atoning death of which it was the instrumental cause. It stands for Christ crucified.

I. The Cross of Christ the highest exhibition of the glory of God.

1. It exhibits in a special manner the justice of God.

2. It exhibits in a special manner the love of God.

3. It reveals in perfect harmony the justice and the love of God.

The pardon which God has provided for sinners is a propitiated pardon--a pardon for which a price has been paid, even the blood of the Son of God. Justice is thus upheld in its integrity: mercy is shielded from the charge of conniving at unrighteousness (Rom_3:21-26).

II. The Cross of Christ the best security for the happiness of man.

1. It secures pardon and reconciliation for the sinner. Nothing to be done, but to believe the overture of mercy, and become reconciled to God. Man has nothing to bring of his own, and nothing is asked for. The Cross provides a present salvation for all who believe in the crucified Son of God.

2. It supplies the believer with a two-fold power;

(1) the power of a new motive, viz., love;

(2) the power of a new life--the life of the spirit.

Henceforth the love of Christ constrains him; the law of the Spirit of life has made him free from the law of sin and death, and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in him who walks not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

III. Concluding inferences. The Cross of Christ may further be viewed--

1. As supplying the only safe rule for faith and practice.

2. As demanding courage in confession.

3. As securing grace for action. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)

The Cross of Christ the Christians glory

I. What is it to glory in any object, and what are the objects in which the apostle would not glory?

1. To glory in an object implies--

(1) That we have a sincere regard, a high esteem, and a real affection for it.

(2) That we are deeply interested in it.

(3) That the object affords us joy and consolation.

2. The objects in which the apostle would not glory.

(1) Worldly wisdom.

(2) Worldly riches.

(3) Worldly honours.

(4) Self righteousness.

(5) Eminency of gifts.

(6) His privileges as a Jew.

(7) His usefulness as a minister of the gospel.

II. The object in which he determined to glory. The Cross.

III. His reasons for thus glorying.

1. Because it gives a full and copious description of the Redeemers person.

2. Because it gives an ample relation of the blessings procured for man, by the life and death of Jesus Christ. Reconciliation with God; pardon, holiness, joy, victory over the world, eternal life.

3. Because it gives a glorious display of the Divine perfections. Divine love; infinite mercy; resistless power; incomprehensible wisdom; inflexible justice; spotless purity.

4. Because it gives a grand manifestation of the Divine Persons in the Godhead.

5. Because it gives a brilliant exhibition of the Redeemers conquest.

6. Because it procured the glories of heaven. (Robert Bond.)

The Cross our only boast

Strong language--the result of strong emotion. Used by St. Paul on hearing that the Galatians, among whom he had planted the standard of the Cross, were now trying to conceal its odium if not to abandon it altogether.

I. The meaning of the terms he employs.

1. The sacrificial, meritorious, victorious Cross.

2. Glorying. Not mere acquaintance, approbation, or cordial attachment; something higher than all this--exultation, boasting, rejoicing. Call me madman, he says, despise me, mock me, because I make my boast in the Crucified! seize me by the hand of violence, drag me to your dungeons, load me with chains, lead me to the stake: still I will rejoice. Among friends or foes, in liberty and in bonds, in life and in death, I will glory still in the Cross of Christ.

3. Only in the Cross will he glory. Not in his lineal descent, or his affinity to the Jewish Church; not in his literary attainments or learning: these are insufficient for the hope and salvation of guilty man.

(1) In nothing inconsistent with the Cross.

(2) All glorying consistent with the Cross must be made subservient to it.

When he glories in infirmities, tribulations, etc., it is because Christ is glorified in and by them. So also he would glory in the Advent of Christ, when He came to destroy the works of the devil; in the life of Christ, so immaculate, benevolent, useful; in the teaching of Christ, so wise, important, Divine; in the splendour of the miracles of Christ; in the triumphant resurrection of Christ; in the ascension of Christ, when He took human nature with Him into heaven; but only in so far as these looked forward or back to the sacrificial death of Christ, without which they would all have been in vain.

II. Reasons for this resolution.

1. The Cross is the grand consummation of all the preceding dispensations of God to man.

2. The splendid scene of a decisive victory over the Lords enemies and ours.

3. The meritorious, procuring cause of every blessing to Adams fallen race.

4. The most powerful and only effectual incentive to all moral goodness.

(1) The pattern of moral excellence there exhibited.

(2) We must have grace to imitate. (R. Newton.)

The Cross a glorious spectacle

Behold our Divine High Priest, offering up the great sacrifice required for the redemption of the souls of men; the very Son of God pouring forth His own blood upon the altar, an atonement for the sins of the whole world. Behold this, and you will acknowledge that though there was never any spectacle so sad, yet never was there any so glorious, so worthy of contemplation by men and angels. And consider to what mighty results that dark hour of His humiliation and anguish is giving birth; and despise the vain pomp of the world in comparison of the splendour of His sufferings. For there, as He hangs on the accursed tree, is the great Captain of our salvation fighting our battles and vanquishing our enemies; there is He, for us, bruising the head of Satan, taking the sting from death, robbing the grave of victory, disarming hell of its terrors. Surely the vain glories of earth, when in contrast with those real triumphs of the Saviours Cross, must lose their attraction in the view of every Christian; can we look on Him whom we have pierced and see Him stretched on His Cross, for us enduring the pain, despising the shame of it, and yet regard with satisfaction that scene of vanity and sin which occasioned Him thus to suffer? Can we love the world and the things that are in the world, while our view is fixed on Him who gave Himself expressly that He might deliver us from this present evil world; that He might see us free from the enchantment, the enslavement, of its false allurements and hollow delights? (Bishop Atterbury.)

The Cross reveals Gods heart

The real glory of the Cross, for a deep soul like that of Paul, consists in this--that it is the best revelation of the heart of God. It often seems much easier to get at the mind of God than at His heart. His mind is writ large for most of us in the nightly majesty and order of the starry heavens; but for His heart we search vainly in the bewildering labyrinths of external nature. As the intellect spells out each single word that tells it of the thoughts of God, the heart remains too often unsatisfied, and cries aloud with bewildered Job, Oh that I knew where I might find Him! Like some fainting and forlorn wanderer in a parched and arid desert, the heart still yearns for the fountain of living waters, still cries aloud, I thirst, I thirst. Unable to recognize its true God, its real Father, in those hard, unpitying laws which science reveals, the heart of man cries despairingly, like its great Lord on Calvary, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Now the teaching of Christs life and death is that God has a heart as well as a mind; that, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, love is the source and root of all things--stronger than hate, mightier than sin, more enduring than hell. Christianity dares to go down into the lowest hell of degradation, and preach the everlasting gospel to souls fast bound in the misery and iron of inveterate evil. In order to meet our very sorest needs, our religion reveals a Being who, needing nothing Himself, finds His deepest happiness in perpetually giving. Christianity boldly declares the naturalness of self-sacrifice in God; for this, surely, is the meaning of the declaration that God is love. And thus entrenched for ever in the very heart of God, the Christian spirit is not dismayed either at the stony-hearted apathy of nature or the manifold activity of the powers of evil. Even as the Christian pilgrim sinks down fainting in some cheerless wilderness, he is for ever heard exclaiming with one of old, If God be for us, who can be against us? (Alex. H. Craufurd, M. A.)

Self-renouncement through the Cross

I. The nature of his glorying. And the word itself is for most of us, at first thought, of evil odour and association. For where men and women have been given to boast and glory, it has ordinarily been assumed to be the outworking of personal pride or the dictate of personal vanity, a pretension to greatness or an aping of superiority that most men and moralists have resented as offensive and loved to discipline with contempt and humiliation. Now, I do not deny that there is a kind (I will not say a degree) of that self-appreciation, right and proper, not to be repressed in ourselves or censured in our neighbours; but in practice about one of the best safeguards in young or old, for nobility and purity of character. A man should always have so high an opinion of his own honour that he would not stoop to dishonour; and so good an estimate of his own worth that he will scorn to degrade himself by a mean or vulgar or discreditable action. But that opinion we all have a right to form of ourselves, simply as men, apart from any circumstances peculiar to us personally. Now, that is what we call the self-conscious type of glorying, which you know is very common, and is not by any means an insignificant force and factor in society, and among the ordinary working motives of men. And there are at least two natural checks to it which we must mention, though only incidentally and on our path to higher truths. First, consider the inconceivable littleness of the very best that you or I can be or do, compared with the immensities around us, in which we are less than a speck upon the mountain. What impression do I make in Europe? inquired a petty chief in the centre of Africa, from a daring traveller who visited his hut. Surrounded by barbaric honours, he little thought that two hundred miles away they had never heard his name. But, again, remember that what distinguishing qualities may be yours admit of two interpretations. Either you may regard them as lifting you up to superior honour, in which case of course you glory; or you may think of them as burdening you with unusual responsibility, which aspect of the matter can surely only work humility. For if God Almighty has given you peculiar endowments of mind or property, or appointed you a place where in some measure you will be the light and leader of men, ah! my friend, let others think it a glorious thing to be the pilot of a vessel amid the cruel rocks and breakers, where the safety of five hundred lives may depend upon your skill; or the captain of an army, where the destruction of tens of thousands may result from one trivial blunder. But for you, if in society you are in any sense a pilot or a captain, to strut in conscious self-appreciation, is to show yourself unworthy of the trust, incapable of realizing the responsibility, and self-condemned of moral inferiority before the eye of men. God forbid that in aught pertaining to myself I should glory. However, I find there is a saving clause in our text--Save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ--which redeems the matter of glorying from unqualified condemnation. Glorying, when selfish or in the least tainted with selfishness, is contemptible; when it is unselfish, it may simply be sublime. To take a simple example. Have you never known some leal-hearted old nurse, for instance, who in the days of her infancy attended some little boy for pay, and gave him besides a true affection that could not be rewarded by the gold she got then or ever for her services. He grew up in her hands, and passed out to a brilliant career at school, in college, and in the world. Those old affectionate eyes followed his bright course day by day. He was no child of hers. He was never likely to lift her from her lowly station. She had no claim or hope to share his renown. But every hour his name was on her lips; every paper was searched with eager hope to find some mention of his praise; and when it comes on to the hour of her sickness and pain and death (I am not imagining a story), the message from the far-away place of his fame will strengthen her heart for the last struggle, and the thought that he will come to follow her hearse forecasts a brightness on her grave. The old creature unselfishly glories in him who was her charge, and that boasting is not despicable, but humanly beautiful and even grand. So, who does not know that the poor swearing soldier may come so to glory in his countrys flag, and his regiments honour, and his captains renown, that he will step forward to be shot down into the ditch, that unpraised and unnoticed there his body may support the feet of gallant comrades on their way to victory. His glorying is unselfish, and for that reason not despicable, but sublime. And I am deeply convinced, brethren, that no life of yours or mine can ever be so fine and potent as it is capable of becoming, so long as it contents itself by merely restraining this Galatian vanity, and does not go on to replace it by apostolic enthusiasm. In other words, to make the best of our lives, they must be utterly consecrated to some cause outside themselves.

II. We pass on to consider the basis or subject of the apostles glorying. I glory in nothing but a cross. But this paradox, though at the time a stumbling-block and foolishness, is by no means a permanent difficulty of the gospel. For often and often throughout the course of history you find things that visibly were weak and contemptible transfigured by splendid principles behind them into a glory that has burned their image on the minds of men for ever. A simple example will serve. One of the notable traditions of the world is that of the gallant burgher of Flensburg, who, on his way to have his battle-wounds dressed, paused, with Sidneys very exclamation, Thy need is greater than mine, to empty the contents of his own flask into the lips of a dying enemy. But perhaps you have heard how, when his noble offer of help was replied to only by a desperate wound from the hand of him whom he was denying himself to befriend, he still persisted in his mercy; and just muttering, Rascal, I would have given you the whole bottle, but now you shall only have the half, drained off a part himself, and with the rest still eased the thirst of his unworthy foe. The wooden bottle, pierced with an arrow, which his king, on making him a noble, gave him as his armorial bearings, was itself of no great concern. But behind that trifle, you see, there lay a deed and a principle which have lifted it among the noblest emblems of chivalry, and made it a thing in which the heros sons might glory, while a whisper of his deed lingered in tradition or a tinge of his blood was in the veins of men. But what are those transfiguring principles behind the symbol? Of these two principles, love and sacrifice, the Cross is the external token, and from them, for the apostle and all men, it derived its meaning and its glory.

1. Love.

2. Sacrifice.

III. But now, in what sense was the world crucified to the apostle, and he to the world, by devotion to the Cross of the Saviour? What is the meaning of this language? Well, I fancy we have all seen, in common life, something very like it; and borrowing an illustration, it may be possible to paint the truth in other colours than its own. Perhaps you have known some young neighbour of yours very fond of singing, very fond of reading, very fond of drawing and sketching, and passionately fond of society. She is now only a few years older, nothing more. But how comes it that the only songs she cares for now are simple lullabies; and all the pictures she makes are little rapid ones, to be crushed the next hour by baby fingers; and tales of half a page are her only literature? Besides, she does does not now much care for society. There is a transformation, and by that infant life given in charge to her the world that once was hers is become dead to her and she dead to the world. Is not this something akin to the great apostles transformation? I repeat that the problem of the Christian life for you and me is likely somewhat different to what it was for this first great missionary. Him the Cross of Christ severed off entirely from the worlds pleasures and business. You and me it sends back with purified motives to the worlds pleasures and business. The question is, In what way should I be dead to the world, and the world dead to me? One often wonders why it is that men and women, capable of such high and varied enjoyments and with things so beautiful and good around them, are yet able on the whole to enjoy life so little, and in grasping natural good, find it become ashes in their hands; and the glory of what they coveted, when they have got it, becomes darkness to their eyes. I do not believe there are half the men of your acquaintance who have tried hard to make the most of the world, and have succeeded splendidly, who, if asked in private conference seriously, will not answer that substantial happiness rarely advanced with upward movement; and that their outward triumphs have very largely been inner disappointment. What is the meaning of that old lament on the folly of the sons of men? Is it Gods way of commentary on what apparently is the sentiment of our text, namely, that every mans good consists in dying to the ordinary affairs of time? I was just thinking over these commonplace matters last night, brethren, when, looking out of my own window, I saw a dark crescent creeping over the surface of our lovely full moon; on and on it spread, till it blotted out her whole mild light, leaving her a big ashy ball hanging out from the sky, and the earth in comparative darkness. The fault of last nights eclipse is not altogether to be charged upon the beautiful moon. It was our own earth that swung itself in between her and the sun, preventing the solar rays from getting at our attendant, and then, of course, she had a natural revenge upon us, in not being able to reflect them back upon ourselves again. But the darkness of the moon was just our own shadow falling upon her surface, and blotting out her beauty. Brethren, I could not help feeling it was a symbol of what often happens in my own life and that of thousands about me. This belief of my heart never wavers, that God Almighty has made all things of which the world is composed to bless and please and gladden the lives of His dear children. His love is reflected from every one of them. But we fling upon them the shadow of our own selfishness and vices, and then, in return, they throw back upon our hearts the dark eclipse-shade of sorrow and disappointment. For instance, we win wealth: and if we got it righteously, and used it nobly and usefully, let us not talk the common cant about its powerlessness to yield a pleasure that will not cloy, and afford a true and solid satisfaction. But we get it by shady dealing, or we use it selfishly, to the hardening of our own hearts, or cruelly, to the injury instead of the blessing of others; and is it wonderful that Gods love is not reflected in the glitter of our gold, and that the light of our prosperity is darkness? How much of the eclipse of our lawful joy is the shadow of our own guilt and selfishness? But I repeat again, it is not necessary, or even probable, that your call, like that of Saul of Tarsus, is to become, as if crucified by Christs Cross, dead to secular aims, common pleasures, and domestic comforts and attachments. Your vocation may be to live in and enjoy these for your own good and the benefit of men. And I know of no lawful business, the lowliest, that cannot be so administered as to do essential service to that gospel cause which is wide enough (if we were wide enough to understand it) to embrace all tendencies of good to the souls or the bodies of men; whose Author not merely taught the consciences, but fed the hunger of His followers, and to which every part of man is redeemed and precious. (John Irwin, M. A.)

False grounds of boasting

Putting out of sight their special reference, it will be a legitimate use of these words to regard them, in a general view, as condemnatory of all vainglory, as conveying to all persons who would boast themselves in things unworthy to be made ground of exultation. It is natural to man, in entire accordance with the law of his corrupt nature, thus to glory. He will pride himself on something that he has, or does, or is, too often unduly valuing himself on the score of it. Each human excellence, each worldly advantage, will, in turn, serve to elate the mind of its possessor. One man will esteem himself on account of his personal qualities, moral or intellectual; another will regard with complacency his rank and influence, his wealth, or other favourable outward circumstance. All which various things, unsuitable wherein to glory, are briefly summed up in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, and at the same time contrasted with that which is the one good and lawful ground of all human boasting: Thus saith the Lord: let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth (9:23, 24). Thus, no human worth or greatness, no earthly satisfaction or comforts, nothing in the shape of good, that our present mortal life can yield, may be acquiesced in as an end, and rejoiced in for its own sake; on the contrary, mans real satisfaction and rejoicing must be in his God. As a sinner, more especially, his joy will consist herein, that he has seen the salvation of God as revealed in the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ; and the language of exultation most becoming to him will be that uttered of old by the blessed Virgin: My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. But, although the talents, of whatever kind, which God has given to each of us, do not afford ground or excuse for self-complacency, still, rightly used, there is a lawful satisfaction in their possession. Recognized as from the hand of God, enjoyed in His fear and love, and diligently improved to His honour and glory, they may well be rejoiced in as the instruments of our happiness. It is only when they are thanklessly received, or used without reference to the purpose of Him who bestowed them, that they lose their value to us, or become worse than valueless. And the guilt of such ingratitude is only equalled by the folly of mens priding and vaunting themselves in the possession of that of which they have no certain tenure, and which, at any moment, may, in just judgment, be withdrawn from them. (John Bulmer, B. D. , Mus. Bac.)

No Christianity without the Cross

That celebrated divine, Jonathan Edwards, in giving his interesting diary of the life of Brainerd, the great American apostle, who was the means of converting thousands of the wild Indians, records that for some time poor Brainerd, in simplicity and not in guile, thought that the best way to make men sober was by preaching to them the attributes of God, laying hold of the functions of conscience, and keeping the Cross in the background. It is a remarkable fact that he found the whole system a failure; he could not produce one sober man. Then, he says, I bethought me that I would go and preach Jesus Christ; and many a hard face relaxed, many an eye shed tears that had never wept before, and I found that the best way to make men sober was to make them spiritual; and from henceforth he gloried in and held forth nothing but the Cross.

Mistaken concealment of the Cross

It is recorded of some of the Romish missionaries, that in their endeavours to bring over the heathen to Christianity, they scrupulously kept the crucifixion out of sight, considering.that such a topic would create prejudices with those whom they wished to convince; and it is well known that the Moravian missionaries--men of extraordinary piety and zeal--laboured for a long time in Greenland without at least giving prominence to the doctrine of the Atonement, believing it necessary to clear the way, and prepare mens minds, before they advanced the truth of Christs death--a truth so likely, as they thought, to give fatal offence, even to the most degraded and barbarous. In each case the same feeling was at work--the feeling that there is something very humiliating in the Cross, and that human reason, and yet more, human pride must recoil from the thought of being saved by One who died as a malefactor; and you must all be aware that this doctrine is not one which commends itself at once to those whom it promises to rescue; on the contrary, it almost invariably excites opposition, because instead of flattering any one passion it demands the subjugation of all. Yet Christianity is valuable and glorious on those very accounts on which, in common estimation, it must move the antipathies of its hearers. He who keeps back the doctrine of the Cross, is all the while withholding that which gives its majesty to the Christian religion, and is striving to apologise for its noblest distinction. Instead of admitting what may be styled the shame of the Cross, we should boldly affirm and exhibit its glory. The doctrine has only to be fairly exhibited and fully expanded, in order to its attracting the warmest admiration. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Meanness of self-boasting

If I were a pupil of Titian, and he should design my picture, and sketch it for me, and look over my work every day, and make suggestions, and then, when I had exhausted my skill, he should take the brush and give the finishing touches, bringing out a part here and there, and making the whole glow with beauty, and then I should hang it upon the wall, and call it mine, what a meanness it would be! When life is the picture, and Christ is the Designer and Master, what unutterable meanness it is to allow all the excellences to be attributed to ourselves! (H. W. Beecher.)

Christ crucified the preachers theme

The pulpit is intended to be a pedestal for the cross, though, alas! even the cross itself, it is to be feared, is sometimes used as a mere pedestal for the preachers fame. We may roll the thunders of eloquence, we may dart the coruscations of genius, we may scatter the flowers of poetry, we may diffuse the light of science, we may enforce the precepts of morality, from the pulpit; but if we do not make Christ the great subject of our preaching, we have forgotten our errand, and shall do no good. Satan trembles at nothing but the Cross: at this he does tremble; and if we would destroy his power, and extend that holy and benevolent kingdom, which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, it must be by means of the Cross. (J. A. James.)

Glorying in the Cross

The doctrine of the text is, that the death of Christ, as an expiatory sacrifice, is the glory of the true Christian. This is that great truth which there have been so many strenuous efforts in all ages to subvert. At first it was opposed by Jewish zealots, and by Gentile philosophers; and at present it is equally opposed by pharisaic speculatists in religion, who have no adequate views of the evil of sin, and the rights and honour of the Divine government. It is, however, the key-stone of the Christian arch; and it therefore becomes us to hold it in its place.

I. Reasons for glorying in the Cross.

1. We glory in the doctrine of the Cross--the justification of guilty men through a propitiatory sacrifice--because of its antiquity. Antiquity is no excuse for error. Its hoariness, like that of age, cannot of itself claim reverence. The oldness of an opinion is no proof of its truth. No opinion which affects the foundations of a religion, or stands connected with a sinners acceptance with God, can be true, if it be new; if it be not as old as the human race itself, considered as fallen creatures. We glory in the antiquity of this doctrine. It was taught by patriarchs and prophets; the law of ceremonies was its grand hieroglyphical record; the first sacrifices were its types; the first awakened sinner, with his load of guilt, fell upon this rock, and was supported; and by the sacrifice of Christ shall the last saved sinner be raised to glory.

2. We glory in the doctrine of the Cross, because it forms an important part of the revelation of the New Testament. This is indeed our principal reason for boasting in it; for that which is revealed by God must be truth and goodness.

3. We glory in the Cross of Christ as affording the only sure ground of confidence to a penitent sinner. When preached to the broken in spirit it strikes hope into the deepest darkness of despair. It is life to the dead.

4. We glory in the Cross because of its moral effects.

II. Let us attempt to derive some improvement from the whole.

1. Is there any person here, who, allured by the infidelity or semi-infidelity of the age, has denied or derided this doctrine? You are ashamed of the faith of your forefathers; and what do you glory in now? In your new rational discoveries?

2. But I address more who hold and respect this doctrine. But do you still cherish the love of sin, and live under its power? O the intolerable hell of the reflection, that you have slighted a Redeemer!

3. I grant that practically the doctrine of the Cross is too often made to encourage indifference to religion.

4. Lastly, I recommend you to consider, that the grand practical effect we are to expect from the death of Christ, after we have received remission of sins through His blood, is to become crucified to the world; and that the world should be crucified to us. Happy state of those who yield to the full influence of the Cross! (Richard Watson.)

The Cross a reality in our faith

Outwardly we make much of the cross; we place it, and we rightly place it (for we are not ashamed of the symbol of our salvation), over the sacred table of our Lord, remembering the sacrifice of His death. We carve it, in polished marble or beautiful stone, for the gables of our churches or the graves which contain the blessed dead. We emboss it in wood or ivory on our prayer-books. We wear it, in gold, or silver, or jet, or bronze, on our breast. The Victoria Cross is our most prized decoration. The Geneva Cross protects our ambulances. The Church of England Temperance Society adopts the cross as its badge. A combination of three crosses makes up the Union Jack, our national standard, our prints are set in cross frames. All sorts of notices have the cross for their border. Very many, following the early Christians, use the sign of the cross, in the midst of the congregation. Lovely flowers and ripened corn are put together into this shape for the harvest ornamentation of the sanctuary; and pictures of our dying Lord, as He hung for us upon the tree of shame, are common things in our homes. Yet, after all, do we, as a nation, do we, as a Church, do we, as individual Christians, really glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ?

I. Is faith in an unseen Saviour influencing thoroughly, or at least more and more, your daily life and conversation? The fact that Christ died for us--for you, for me--is just as true and certain for us as it was for St. Paul. But do we, as he did, make Christ the great reality of the spiritual world, and determine thankfully to live and die for Him?

II. Does the Cross become the true measure for our self-congratulation? How could we plume ourselves on our cleverness, or our quick progress, or our skill in music, or our power of language, or the influence which we have gained by money, or by eloquence, or by social talents, if we did but recollect that the triumph of the Son of God was won by His emptying Himself of His glory and bending to the lowest place--the death of the slave and the malefactor, apparently smitten of God and afflicted by the hiding away of His face? Truly, the higher we are, the more we are to humble ourselves, in order to grow like unto Him.

III. Is the Cross abasing us, specially in the place where Gods honour dwelleth, and wherein the presence of our once crucified, now glorious Lord, does chiefly manifest itself?

IV. Is the Cross my secret joy? Does it really represent the attitude of my soul towards God? How deeply many of us must feel, that we want less of the Cross on the heart, and more of it in the heart! We want, not so much the display of the form, as the proof that we are not ashamed of the thing, when we are with the men and women of the world.

V. Is the Cross our chief help in trouble--that whereon we can stay ourselves when all our earthly friends are taken away--because it invites us in our sorrow to the fellowship of His sufferings? (Canon G. E. Jelf.)

Three crucifixions

I. Christ crucified. In this Paul gloried so as to glory in nothing else, for he viewed it--

1. As a display of the Divine character (2Co_5:19).

2. As the manifestation of the Saviours love (Joh_15:13).

3. As the putting away of sin by atonement (Heb_9:26).

4. As the breathing of hope, peace, and joy to the desponding soul.

5. As the great means of touching hearts and changing lives.

6. As depriving death of terror, seeing Jesus died.

7. As ensuring heaven to all believers. In any one of these points of view, the Cross is a pillar of light, flaming with unutterable glory.

II. The world crucified. As the result of seeing all things in the light of the Cross, he saw the world to be like a felon executed upon a cross.

1. Its character condemned (Joh_12:31).

2. Its judgment, contemned. Who cares for the opinion of a gibbeted felon?

3. Its teachings despised. What authority can it have?

4. Its pleasures, honours, treasures rejected.

5. Its pursuits, maxims, and spirit east out.

6. Its threatenings and blandishments made nothing of.

7. Itself soon to pass away, its glory and its fashion fading.

III. The believer crucified. To the world, Paul was no better than a man crucified. If faithful, a Christian may expect to be treated as only fit to be put to a shameful death. He will probably find--

1. Himself at first bullied, threatened, and ridiculed.

2. His name and honour held in small repute because of his association with the godly poor.

3. His actions and motives misrepresented.

4. Himself despised as a sort of madman, or of doubtful intellect.

5. His teaching described as exploded, dying out, etc.

6. His way and habits reckoned to be puritanic and hypocritical.

7. Himself given up as irreclaimable, and therefore dead to society.

Conclusion:

1. Let us glory in the Cross, because it gibbets the worlds glory, and honour, and power.

2. Let us glory in the Cross, when men take from us all other glory. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Reasons for glorying in the Cross

It is a subject of rejoicing and glorying that we have such a Saviour. The world looked upon Him with contempt; and the Cross was a stumbling-block to the Jew, and folly to the Greek. But to the Christian this Cross is the subject of glorying. It is so because--

(1) of the love of Him who suffered there;

(2) of the purity and holiness of His character, for the innocent died there for the guilty;

(3) of the honour there put on the law of God by His dying to maintain it unsullied;

(4) of the reconciliation there made for sin, accomplishing what could be done by no other oblation, and by no power of man;

(5) of the pardon there procured for the guilty;

(6) of the fact that through it we become dead to the world, and are made alive unto God;

(7) of the support and consolation which go from that Cross to sustain us in trial; and

(8) of the fact that it procured for us admission into heaven, a title to the world of glory. All is glory around the Cross. It was a glorious Saviour who died; it was glorious love that led Him to die; it was a glorious object to redeem a world; and it is unspeakable glory to which He will raise lost and ruined sinners by His death. Oh, who would not glory in such a Saviour! (Albert Barnes.)

The Cross the foundation of the Bible

If you have not yet found out that Christ crucified is the foundation of the whole volume, you have hitherto read your Bible to very little profit. Your religion is a heaven without a sun, an arch without a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without spring or weights, a lamp without oil. It will not comfort you; it will not deliver your soul from hell. (Bishop Ryle.)

The glory of the Cross

Do not be satisfied with so many others only to know the Cross in its power to atone. The glory of the Cross is, that it was not only to Jesus the path to life, but that each moment it can become to us the power that destroys sin and death, and keeps us in the power of the eternal life. Learn from your Saviour the holy art of using it for this. Faith in the power of the Cross and its victory will day by day make dead the deeds of the body, the lusts of the flesh. This faith will teach you to count the Cross, with its continual death to self, all your glory. Because you regard the Cross not as one who is still on the way to crucifixion, with the prospect of a painful death, but as one to whom the crucifixion is past, who already lives in Christ, and now only bears the Cross as the blessed instrument through which the body of sin is done away (Rom_6:6, R.V.). The banner under which complete victory over sin and the world is to be won is the Cross. (Andrew Murray.)

The Cross of Christ

And we reckon it of importance, that we should occasionally shift the ground of debate: and that thus, in the place of admitting what may be styled, the shame of the Cross, we should boldly affirm and exhibit its glory. With all our admissions, that at the first hearing there would be something repulsive in the doctrine of Christ crucified; we believe that this doctrine has only to be fairly exhibited and fully expanded, in order to its attracting the warmest admiration.

I. The reasons why we should glory in the Cross of Christ.

II. The strength of the particular reason by which St. Paul justifies his boasting. Now we need hardly observe to you, that so far as Christ Jesus Himself was concerned, it is not possible to compute what may be called the humiliation, or the shame of the Cross. It is altogether beyond our power to form any adequate conception of the degree in which the Mediator humbled Himself when born of a woman, and taking part of flesh and blood. We read nothing of shame in His becoming a man; but we do read of His shame as dying as a malefactor. Indeed, we are not so to exult as to lose those feelings of godly contrition which a sight of the cross should always produce. But, nevertheless, though of all men perhaps St. Paul was the least likely to forget or underrate the cause of sorrow presented by the Cross, this great apostle could speak of glorying in the Cross--yea, could shun as a great sin, the glorying in anything beside. Why think ye was this? We would first observe, that the greater the humiliation to which the Son of God submitted, the greater is the demonstration of the Divine love towards man. We show you, then, the Cross! Aye, the blazing of the sun, or the milder shinings of the moon, or the processes of vegetation, or the seatings of mind, are not a thousandth part so demonstrative of the love in which sinners are beheld as this emblem of shame, this memento of ignominy. We proceed to observe to you, that although to the eyes of sense there be nothing but shame about the Cross, yet spiritual discernment proves it to be hung with the very richest triumphs. It is necessary to be admitted, that in one point of view there was shame, degradation, and ignominy in Christ dying on the cross; but it is equally certain that in another there was honour, victory, and triumph. We are told that through death Jesus Christ destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and that He made peace by the blood of the Cross. We know that in dying the Redeemer broke off the yoke from the neck of the human population, wrenched from Satan the sceptre which he had long wielded as the god of this world, and scattered the seeds of immortality amid the dust of the sepulchres. Indeed, I know you may tell me, that the result may be glorious, and yet the means through which it is effected degraded and ignoble; and we can well- believe, that had the Redeemer appeared at the head of the heavenly hosts; had He come the first time as He shall the second, with a thousand times ten thousand of ministering spirits; and had He met Satan and his angels with all the retinue of evil, and overthrown them in some such battle as that of Armageddon in the last day; we can well believe that those who now see little but shame in the Cross would have exulted in the victory of the Cross. Yet what is called shame is one great element of glory. It would have been comparatively nothing, that as the leader of the celestial army Christ should have overthrown the enemies of God and man. The splendid thing is, that He trod the wine-press alone, and that of the people there was with Him none. To have destroyed death by living would have been wonderful; but to have destroyed it by dying--oh, this is the prodigy of prodigies, the glory of glories! But hitherto we have spoken only comparatively: we have rather shown that we can have no such great cause for glorying as the Cross, than that we should glory in nothing but the Cross. It is to the latter extent that the apostle carries his determination. It is a truth which we have frequently laboured to set plainly before you, that we are indebted to the mediation of Jesus for all we have in the present life, as well as for all we hope for in the next. Yes, man of science, thine intellect was saved for thee through the Cross! Yes, father of a family, the endearments of home were rescued by the Cross! Yes, admirer of nature, the glorious things in the mighty panorama retain their place through the erection of the Cross! Yes, ruler of an empire, the subordination of the different classes, the links of society, the energies of government, are all owing to the Cross! And when the mind passes on to the consideration of spiritual benefits, where can you find one not connected with the Cross? If we can affirm all this of the Cross (and there is no exaggeration, for every blessing we have, and every hope we possess, is derived to us through the sacrifice of the Mediator), then to glory in the Cross is to glory that God giveth us all things richly to enjoy; that He heareth our prayers; and that to understand, to know Him aright, is to love Him. It is to glory that there is yet fertility in the soil, yet strength in the intellect, that grace is bestowed on us here, and that a kingdom is ready for us hereafter. I observe in the last place, that there is a special reason given by the apostle for his glorying in the Cross; and which, though perhaps included in those which have been advanced, yet demands from its importance, a brief and separate consideration. St. Paul gloried in the Cross, because by it the world was crucified unto him, and he unto the world. What are we to understand by this two-fold crucifixion? The world was to St. Paul as a crucified thing, and St. Paul was to the world as a crucified thing. They were dead one to the other. The apostle regarded the world, with its pomps, its shows, its pleasures, its riches, its honours, with no other feelings than those with which he would have regarded a malefactor fastened to a cross, and whose condition could present no desire for participation; or the world appeared no more glorious, no more attractive to Paul than it would to a man in the agony of dissolution, who, suspended on the cross, would look down with a kind of insensibility on objects which before were precious in his sight. Thus the world was to the apostle as a crucified thing; or, to express the same idea somewhat differently, the apostle was to the world as a crucified man: so that if we put away the metaphor, the thing affirmed is, that St. Paul was completely a new creature, with affections detached from things below, and fixed on things above; and he ascribes to the virtues of the Cross this change in himself, and then considers the change as a sufficient vindication of his resolution, that he would glory in nothing but the Cross. For a moment let us examine these points; they are full of interesting instruction. It is one of the great fruits of Christs passion and death, that the life-giving influences of the Holy Ghost are shed on us abundantly. It is, therefore, through the Cross that we become new creatures, crucified to the world, and the world crucified unto us; and it is through the sacrifice presented on the cross that those influences are derived to us, without which they could do nothing for our moral renovation. There is more to be said than this. Would you learn to despise the pomps and vanities of earth, to hate sin and to withstand evil lusts? Then must you be much on the mount of crucifixion; much with Jesus in His last struggle with evil. Who would yield to a corrupt passion, who would indulge himself in unlawful gratification, who would hearken to base temptations if his eye were on Christ, wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities? The sight of Jesus pierced by and for our sins is the great preservative against our yielding to the pleadings of corrupt nature. So true is it, that by the Cross of Christ the world is crucified to us, and we unto the world. Can a stronger reason be assigned why we should glory in the Cross of the Redeemer? By nature we are prisoners--we would glory in being free; we are powerless--we would glory in being mighty; we are doomed to eternal misery--we would glory in being heirs of happiness. Liberty, strength, immortality, all flow out of the crucifixion of the world to man, and of man to the world. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The Cross of Jesus Christ

;--To glory is one of the most characteristic propensities of our nature. It is seen in every class of society, and in every portion of the human race. From the highest dignitary to the lowest beggar, from the enlightened and refined citizen to the savage in whose mind scarcely a spark of reason appears, all discover something in which they think they can glory. And in what do they glory? In foolish toys, of which they should rather be ashamed than proud. God designed to give man something in which he could reasonably glory: He gave him the Cross of Jesus Christ. This meditation will be devoted to the examination of the new right of glorying which has been granted to man. On this subject there are two opinions: one is the apostles opinion, which we shall sustain. The other is the opinion of the world, which we shall refute.

I. The apostles opinion.

1. The first reason which led him to glory in the Cross was because he saw the character and glory of God fully displayed in it.

2. But if St. Paul gloried in the Cross of Christ because it revealed to him all the glory of God, he gloried in it quite as much because it taught him his own wretchedness. Let the proudest of men draw near; let him stand at the foot of that cross erected for his salvation, and what will become of his pride? The Cross destroys that deceiving glass which magnifies us in our own eyes.

3. He glories in it especially because it raises him to the level of true greatness.

4. But notice the motive which the apostle himself assigns. God forbid, he says, that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. This, my brethren, is indeed a glorious advantage of the Cross of Jesus Christ. Yes, my brethren, the death of the Redeemer is the only thing that can make you hate your own evil nature. It is the true remedy for your disease. But the Cross of Christ will also crucify the world to you; that is, it will destroy in you all the attractions of the vanities of this world. You cannot love both the Cross and the world. But the last motive which induced St. Paul to exclaim, as he was advancing into Asia, Greece, or Italy, or crossing the sea, that he desired no other glory, was his conception of the power of that Cross, and of the triumphs which await it. The great apostle knew that it was all-sufficient to give immortality to those who had fallen into the deepest misery. He knew that it had redeemed a great people, both in the cities of Galatia, to which he wrote, and in Greece, Rome, and Jerusalem. He knew its future destiny, that kings and nations would come and prostrate themselves before it, that the people would bring their sons and their arms; and that it had received the ends of the earth for an inheritance.

II. The opinion of the world. Is this your language? If such was St. Pauls opinion, what is yours? There is perhaps no truth which encounters so much opposition from the world as this. How many there are who say, on the contrary, I will glory in anything rather than the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! And why is it thus? Perhaps you ask, Is it necessary to think so much of the Cross, when there are so many other subjects in religion of more importance than this? Of more importance than the Cross! We might here remind you of what we have just said, but we prefer to refute you by your own words. You wish to set aside the Cross as a thing of little importance; and yet you exclaim, We cannot conceive of such a thing as that Cross, that expiatory death of Gods only Son; it is too much for our reason. How can such decisions be made to agree? How can the Cross be at once so contemptible and so astonishing? If it so greatly surpasses your comprehension, why do you esteem it so lightly? But, you will say, it is this that perplexes us. If the Cross be true, then it is certain that the foundation of all our pretensions must give way, and that we must glory in it alone. But is it true? But, without seeking a witness in heaven, is not earth itself sufficient? Think of the most striking events of antiquity; not a vestige of them remains, and it is only through the ancient chronicles which have been handed down to us that we are acquainted with their existence. But it is not so with the expiatory death of Christ; this fact is living in the world. The present state of the world bears testimony concerning it. It is from the blood which flowed from that cross that all those nations have sprung which have unfurled the sacred banner over the globe which they rule. Among them everything speaks of it. Shall we tell you why you will not know it? Because you do not feel the need of it. This is the point to which the whole case refers. We seize with eagerness the aid which we think to be necessary, but we despise it if we think it superfluous. The Cross of Jesus Christ is designed to purchase eternal happiness for you; but you would fain purchase it for yourselves. The Cross of Jesus Christ is designed to procure sanctification; but you would fain procure it yourselves. But perhaps you say--as some may say with truth--I do not deny the Cross of Christ. That is true; you believe it, but partially. You do not deny the fact, but you evade it. You dare not believe, fully and openly, that the Son of God was nailed to the cross for your sake; and therefore, so far as its influence on your heart is concerned, it is a fact of no importance. Forsake this ruinous semi-Christianity. Any form of Christianity of which Christ crucified is not the centre to which everything tends and from which everything proceeds is a false Christianity. Why should you not believe what St. Paul believed? (J. H. M. DAubigne, D. D.)

The methods of glorying in the Cross of Christ

I. First, I am to show that whatever excellencies, outward advantages, or privileges it may be our lot to enjoy, yet it misbecomes us, as we are Christians, to glory in them. I do not say that we are to be insensible of such advantages, to have no relish of them, no complacence in them; for neither reason nor religion require such a conduct from us. They are the good things of life, given us by the Author of all good, on purpose that we should, in due measure and season, enjoy them. They may be used, if they are not over-valued; if we do not suffer our affections to cleave too closely to them, and our minds to be in any degree elated and swelled by a reflection upon them. The Christian religion, by the tendency of all its doctrines (particularly that of Christ crucified), by the manner of its progress, and the mean characters of those who first promulgated and embraced it, seems to have been so throughout contrived as effectually to mortify and beat down any undue complacence we may have in ourselves on such occasions.

II. Secondly, it highly becomes us to glory in the Cross of Christ, as I proposed in the second place to show; for since by the alone merits of His Cross we gain all the advantages of the Christian dispensation, are reconciled to God, and made capable of heaven and happiness, we cannot but glory in that Cross, if indeed we value ourselves upon our being Christians.

III. Thirdly, by what methods, and in opposition to what enemies of the Cross of Christ, we are obliged to glory in it.

1. Now, the first step requisite towards our complying with this obligation is, frequently to meditate on the sufferings and death of Christ. We glory in nothing but what we esteem and value; and what we value much we shall be apt often and attentively to consider (1Ti_3:16). We should turn it on all sides, and consider it as the proper subject of our awe and wonder, our joy and pleasure, our gratitude and love, till we have warmed our hearts with a lively sense of the inestimable benefits conferred on us by the means of it.

2. A second step towards fulfilling our obligation to glory in the Cross of Christ is, if we endeavour to imitate the perfect example He hath set us, and to form in our minds some faint resemblances of those meek graces and virtues which adorn the character of our suffering Saviour. And this step is a natural consequence of the former; for imitation will in some degree spring from attention.

3. A third instance and proof of our glorying as becomes us in the Cross of Christ is, if we frequently and worthily celebrate the memorial of His death, the blessed sacrament of His body and blood.

4. In the fourth place, we may be said, very properly said, to glory in the Cross of Christ, when we zealously assert and vindicate the true doctrine of His satisfaction against all the enemies and opposers of it; against the false notions of the Jews, and the false religion of the Mahometans; against the mischievous opinions of some deceived or deceiving Christians; against the vain pretences of reason and philosophy; and against the proud insults and blasphemies of atheists and infidels. (Bishop Atterbury.)

The Suretys Cross

The death of the cross has always been, above every other, reckoned the death of shame. The fire, the sword, the axe, the stone, the hemlock, have in their turns been used by law as its executioners; but these have, in so many cases, been associated with honour, that death by means of them has not been reckoned either cursed or shameful. Not so the cross. Not till more than four thousand years had gone by did it begin to be rumoured that the cross was not what men thought it, the place of the curse and shame, but of strength and honour and life and blessing. Then it was that there burst upon the astonished world the bold announcement, God forbid, etc. From that day the Cross became a power in the earth; a power which went forth, like the light, noiselessly yet irresistibly, smiting down all religions alike, all shrines alike, all altars alike; sparing no superstition nor philosophy; neither flattering priesthood nor succumbing to statesmanship; tolerating no error, yet refusing to draw the sword for truth; a power superhuman, yet wielded by human, not angelic, hands; the power of God unto salvation. Let us look at the Cross as the Divine proclamation and interpretation of the things of God; the key to His character, His word, His ways, His purposes; the clue to the intricacies of the worlds and the Churchs history.

I. It is the interpreter of man. By means of it God has brought out to view what is in man. In the Cross man has spoken out. He has exhibited himself, and made unconscious confession of his feelings, especially in reference to God--to His Being, His authority, His character, His law, His love. The Cross was the public declaration of mans hatred of God, mans rejection of His Son, and mans avowal of his belief that he needs no Saviour. If any one, then, denies the ungodliness of humanity, and pleads for the native goodness of the race, I ask, What means yon Cross?

II. It is the interpreter of God. It is as the God of grace that the Cross reveals Him. It is love, free love, that shines out in its fulness there (1Jn_3:16). Nor could any demonstration of the sincerity of the Divine love equal this. It is love stronger than shame, and suffering, and death; love immeasurable, love unquenchable. Truly, God is love. But righteousness as well as grace is here. We learn Gods righteous character in many ways. We learn it from its dealings with righteousness, as in the case of all unfallen ones; we learn it still more fully from its dealings with sin, as in our fallen world; but we learn it, most of all, from its dealings with both of these at once, and in the same person, on the Cross of Christ; for here is the righteous Son of God bearing the unrighteousness of men.

III. It is the interpreter of law. It tells us that the law is holy, and just, and good; that not one jot or tittle of it can pass away. The perfection of the law is the message from Calvary, even more awfully than from Sinai. The power of law, the vengeance of law, the inexorable tenacity of law, the grandeur of law, the unchangeable and infrangible sternness of law--these are the announcements of the Cross.

IV. It interprets sin. The Cross took up the ten commandments, and on each of their Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots, flung such a new and Divine light, that sin, in all its hideousness of nature and minuteness of detail, stood out to view, as it never did before, the abominable thing which Jehovah hates. It showed that sin was no trifle which God would overlook; that the curse was no mere threat which God could depart from when it suited Him. It showed that the standard of sin was no sliding scale, to be raised or lowered at pleasure; that the punishment of sin was no arbitrary infliction; and that its pardon was not the expression of Divine indifference to its evil.

V. It interprets the gospel That good news were on their way to us was evident from the moment that Mary brought forth her first-born, and, by Divine premonition, called His name Jesus. Goodwill to men was then proclaimed. But not till the Cross is erected, and the blood is shed, and the life is taken, do we fully learn how it is that His work is so precious, and that the tidings concerning it furnish so glorious a gospel.

VI. It interprets service. We are redeemed that we may obey. We are set free that we may serve--even as God spoke to Pharaoh, Let My people go, that they may serve Me. But the Cross defines the service, and shows us its nature. It is the service of love and liberty; yet it is also the service of reproach, and shame, and tribulation. We are crucified with Christ. It is not His cross we bear. None but He could bear it. It is a cross of our own; calling us to self-denial, flesh-denial, and world-denial; pointing out to us a path of humiliation, trial, toil, weakness, reproach, such as our Master trod. (H. Bonar, D. D.)

Glorying in the Cross

Let us look for a very little to the expression, the Cross of Christ. This, my brethren, has different meanings in Scripture. Sometimes it signifies simply the wooden cross to which our Saviour was nailed--the accursed tree on which He hung; sometimes, again, it is used in a figurative sense, to signify those sufferings which our Saviour endured on the cross--the death which He died on it. In a wider sense still, it is employed to designate the whole of His sufferings both of His life and death, of which sufferings His death was the consummation. Lastly, the expression is not unfrequently used to denote the doctrine of Christs Cross; in other words, the way of salvation through a crucified Saviour; and it is in this sense chiefly that we are to understand it in the verse before us.

I. Let us consider the nature and description of Pauls feelings towards the Cress of Christ. God forbid, he says, that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. You all know, my brethren, what it is to glory in any object. It is just to have a very high esteem for it. For example, if we speak of a man glorying in his good name, his riches, or his friends, we just mean that he esteems these things very highly, that he sets a great value upon them. The consequence is that he thinks and talks continually about them, and nothing sooner excites his indignation than to hear them undervalued or dispraised. When Paul says, then, that he gloried in the Cross of Christ, you are simply to understand him as meaning that he placed a high value upon it, that he prized it greatly. The consequence was, that that Cross was the all-engrossing theme of his meditation, his conversation, and his preaching. Observe, however, more closely the nature of the apostles glorying, as described in the text: God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. This shows his glorying in the Cross to have been an exclusive glorying. The Cross not only appeared to him as an object worthy of esteem, but it appeared to him as the only such object. We often see men taken up with several objects at once. No doubt there cannot well be more than one object on which the mind is supremely set, but there may be others on which a considerable share of attention is at the same time bestowed, and for which a strong attachment is also conceived. It filled his whole soul; it displaced and shut out every lesser object. Some of the Judaizing teachers among the Galatians, while professing Christianity, were yet glorying more in some of the institutions of the law and in the proselytes they made than in the grand doctrines of the Cross; and Paul, with special reference to these, says in the text, God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross. The glory of the Cross appeared to him so great as to eclipse every other object. Although, as the Scriptures say, there is one glory in the sun, and another glory in the moon, and another glory in the stars, for one star differeth from another star in glory, yet such is the superlative glory of the sun, that when once it has risen and attained its meridian splendour all those lesser lights disappear.

II. Let us now point out some of the grounds of the apostles glorying, especially the one stated in the text. Notwithstanding the ignominy usually attached to the death of the cross, there was something transcendently glorious in the death of Christ. Never were the Divine perfections so conspicuously displayed as in that event. The mighty changes which the preaching of that Cross had produced, the wonderful effects which it had wrought on a dark and benighted world, might well have made him glory in its behalf. Was it not a glorious sight to see the wilderness and solitary place made glad, and the desert rejoicing and blossoming as the rose? to see the parched ground becoming a pool, and the thirsty land turned into springs of water? But while the apostle thus gloried in the effects produced by the Cross upon others, his glorying as mentioned in the text seems to have had especial reference to the effects it produced upon himself. By which, he says, the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. But what was it that produced such a change as this upon the aspect of the world to him? It was just, my brethren, the Cross of Christ. No sooner was it beheld by him than the world lost its charms. The light which shone from the Cross at once revealed to him the true nature of all earthly things; it showed him a hideousness and ugliness in them that he had never discerned before. Many things, you know, appear smooth and beautiful in the dark but once let in the light upon them, and they immediately wear a very different aspect. So it was in the case of Paul. He thought at one time that the world was all fair and lovely, because he viewed it through a thick and darkening medium, the veil of unbelief. But when that veil was taken away, and when the flood of light which streams from Calvarys Cross was let in upon his soul, what a changed aspect did the once lovely scene begin to wear! But this was not the only effect which the Cross of Christ produced on him. It not only made the world dead to him, but him likewise dead to the world: by which the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world. Not only did the world become changed to him, but he became changed towards it. Not only did it lose its charms, but he lost his desires after it. He now viewed its pleasures, its joys, its amusements, with as little relish and delight as a man hanging on a cross would view the richest delicacies and most inviting fruits that might be spread out before him. The current of his affections was completely changed, and the direction they had taken was just the very reverse of that in which they had formerly been flowing. (J. Philip.)

The glory of the Cross

This is the keynote of the Epistle, so that it may be called the Crucifixion Epistle. It reflects the glory of the Cross as presented in this chosen champion of the Cross. And how?

1. In Pauls conversion.

2. The preaching of Paul reflects the glory of the Cross. This is the centre and circumference of his thought.

3. The sufferings of Paul. He died daily.

4. The triumphs of Paul reflect the glory of the Cross. (W. H. Wardwell.)

The Cross of Christ: the highest object of glorying and the mightiest instrument of power

Every man has an object of glory--the avaricious, wealth; the vain, distinction; the ambitious, power; the self-righteous, virtue; the philosophical, wisdom; the Christian, his Lord.

I. The Cross is the highest object of human glory. Glorying implies--

1. The highest appreciation of it. Paul valued it more than talents, learning, connections, influence, life. He looked upon it--

(1) Theologically--upwards towards God.

(2) Morally--downwards on man.

2. A personal interest in it.

3. A delight in professing it.

II. The Cross is the mightiest instrument of human power.

1. What world it does not crucify.

(1) The physical.

(2) Philosophic.

(3) Artistic.

(4) Commercial.

(5) Social.

2. What world it does crucify--the corrupt moral world as animated by the spirit of--

(1) Practical atheism.

(2) Animalism.

(3) Selfishness. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The glories of the Cross

I. We have no occasion to glory in anything without this.

1. All men are naturally apt to glory in something.

2. There is nothing on earth but some one glories in it.

3. Many glory in wisdom, power, and riches (Jer_9:23-24); but

(1) these are folly, weakness, and poverty (1Co_1:26-29) in themselves;

(2) are only useful as they glorify God, their real owner (1Co_4:7).

4. Some glory in their good works, but these are nought save as wrought by the strength of the Cross, which, therefore, is the proper object of our glory through them.

II. What infinite cause we have to glory in the Cross, and in that only.

1. Its glory in itself consists in--

(1) The dignity of the Crucified.

(2) The atoning efficacy of the crucifixion.

(3) Its results, in the triumphant enthronement, intercession, and sovereignty of the Son of God.

2. Its glory in relation to us. Hereby--

(1) Our sins are pardoned.

(2) We are justified.

(3) God is reconciled.

(4) The blessings of the covenant ensured.

(5) The Holy Ghost given.

(6) The new creation effected. (Bishop Beveridge.)

Glorying in the Cross

I. Paul gloried in the Cross as a man glories in a great and wide-reaching truth.

1. There were truths in Judaism in which Paul once gloried, which possessed vast breadth and stimulating power.

2. But they all paled before this.

II. Paul gloried in the Cross as a man glories in a great truth which he has made his own.

1. Paul not merely possessed the truth.

2. It possessed him.

III. Paul gloried in the Cross because it was a great paradox.

1. He had a peculiar affinity for paradoxes (2Co_6:9; 2Co_12:10; 2Co_4:8).

2. This being Pauls tendency, the central paradox of Christianity was the very thing for him.

(1) It was the triumph of weakness.

(2) This weak and despised Cross was to destroy the world without, and

(3) to conquer the world within.

In conclusion:

1. There are four stages of assent which we can give to any truth like that of Christs Cross.

(1) Understanding it.

(2) Accepting it.

(3) Comforting ourselves by it.

(4) Glorying in it.

2. Ii is impossible to understand the cross fully until we glory in it.

3. It is impossible to glory in it unless we are willing that the world should be crucified to us and we to the world. (A. F. Ewing.)

It is not safe to judge by first appearances, otherwise we shall deem the Cross repulsive.

I. St. Pauls judgment on the Cross.

1. The Cross was not a thing to be tolerated, but to be exulted in.

2. The Cross exceeded all things within his knowledge.

(1) He knew the philosophy of the day.

(2) He had seen the achievements of its art,

(3) and the military force of Rome.

(4) He had been a Pharisee.

3. He chose the Cross in preference to them all.

II. The grounds on which it rested.

1. Not merely the supernatural manifestations which invested it with grandeur.

2. But mainly its spiritual significance.

(1) The Cross is a revelation of the glory of God. Gods glory does not lie in His power or possessions, but

(a) in His righteousness;

(b) His love. The Cross sets this forth.

(2) The Cross displays the true greatness of man--Love for God and man.

(3) The Cross is adapted to the chief exigency and other needs of men.

(a) Guilt;

(b) the need of a redeeming fact;

(c) the need of fellowship with a living person.

(4) Its actual results.

(a) Its first function in the apostolic age.

(b) Its ameliorating influence on the race at large. (J. C. Galloway, M. A.)

I. Almost all men have something wherein to glory.

1. Men glory so as to become boastful and full of vainglory.

2. Men are ruined by their glory.

3. Men glory in their shame.

4. Some glory--

(1) in physical strength, in which the ox excels them;

(2) in gold, which is only clay;

(3) in gifts, which are only talents which have been entrusted to them, and so glory in the transient and the trifling.

5. Men rob God of His glory.

II. Paul had a rich choice of things in which he could have gloried.

1. Amongst the Jews he

(1) might have been an honoured rabbi;

(2) might have gloried in his genius, religious attainment.

2. As a Christian he might have gloried in

(1) his sufferings;

(2) his zeal;

(3) his work for Christ.

III. Paul gloried in the Cross of Christ. He does not here say he gloried in Christ, though he did with all his heart. He might have gloried in--

1. The Incarnation.

2. Life.

3. Ascension.

4. Second advent.

Yet he selected the Cross as the centre of the Christian system. Learn:

1. The highest glory of our religion is the Cross.

2. To think of it till by the power of the Spirit we can say, God forbid, etc. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. The Cross is the true symbol of the Christian religion.

1. What it seemed to the Jew. A symbol

(1) of failure;

(2) of servitude.

2. What is it to the Christian?

(1) The culmination of the Incarnation;

(2) a means of partaking of the Divine love.

II. Glorying in the Cross is a sign of true religion. It is--

1. To believe that religion centres round a person.

2. To feel that Christ has entirely changed our relations to God.

(1) It has abolished circumcision.

(2) It has made the new nature the desideratum.

III. Glorying in the Cross is an evidence of practical religion.

1. By it the Christian is crucified to the world and the world to the Christian.

2. By it the believer obtains deep and lasting satisfaction.

3. By it is evolved the love which is the inspiration of self-sacrifice. (S. Pearson, M. A.)

The Cross

I. Justifies the fact of the incarnation to the reason and commends it to the heart.

II. Contains the highest and fullest revelation God has made of Himself to man.

III. Is the only fountain whence flows a supply adequate for the deepest needs of humanity.

IV. Is the mightiest instrument in the hands of man for the uplifting of his brother. (W. Jackson.)

Christ the means of self-crucifixion

I. By his mighty working within us.

II. By looking upon him as an effectual engaging example.

III. By beholding in Him infinitely more and better things than the world can afford.

IV. By pondering that it was our sinful living in the world for which Christ was crucified.

V. By accepting Christ as our surety, who died for us to the world, undertaking that we should die in Him. (D. Clarkson.)

Moral crucifixion

I. Of the world.

II. To the world. (Owen.)

The double sacrifice

The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ refers to His vicarious sacrifice. By which the world is crucified unto me, etc., refers to his own interior crucifixion in the fellowship of Christ to all things outside the new creation. But the two are now one; and the sanctified apostle glories in the Cross because, through its virtue, condemnation is gone and sin destroyed in the unity of his Christian experience This is the pith and heart of this grand apostrophe, too often forgotten by those who fail to mark that it is the conclusion of the whole matter. Some there were who despised the vicarious death of Christ, and made it of none effect; some there were who, unduly trusting in that, explained away the necessity of an interior passion. Against both this apostle of the Cross protests with holy vehemence. And the force of this protest is this--that the one without the other is not enough: that each is the complement of the other, and that their union is their perfection. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)

Our Cross

The Cross of Christ is divided through the world. To each his portion ever comes. Thou, therefore, O my soul, cast not thy portion from thee, but rather take it to thee as thy most precious relic, and lay it up, not in a gold or silver shrine, but in a golden heart--a heart clothed with gentle charity, with patience, and suffering submission. (Luther.)

Salvation at the Cross

I have read how, in the burning desert, the skeletons of unhappy travellers, all withered and white, are found, not only on the way to the fountain, but lying grim and ghastly on its banks, with their skulls stretched over its very margin. Punting, faint, their tongue cleaving to the roof of their mouth, ready to fill a cup with gold for its fill of water, they press on to the well, steering their course by the tall palms that stand full of hope above the glaring sands. Already, in fond anticipation, they drink where others had been saved. They reach it. Alas! sad sight for the dim eyes of fainting men, the well is dry. With stony horror in their looks, how they gaze into the empty basin, or fight with man and beast for some muddy drops that but exasperate their thirst. The desert reels around them. Hope expires. Some cursing, some praying, they sink, and themselves expire. And by and by the sky darkens, lightnings flash, loud thunders roll, the rain pours down, and, fed by the showers, the treacherous waters rise to play in mockery with long fair tresses, and kiss the pale lips of death. But yonder, where the cross stands up high to mark the fountain of the Saviours blood, and heavens sanctifying grace, no dead souls lie. Once a Golgotha, Calvary has ceased to be a place of skulls. Where men went once to die, they go now to live; and to none that ever went there to seek pardon, and peace, and holiness, did God ever say, Seek ye Me in vain. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 6:14. But God forbid that I should be actuated by any such selfish or worldly views, or should glory — Should boast of any thing I have, or am, or do, or rely on any thing for my acceptance with God; save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ — In what Christ hath done and suffered for me; by whom — Or, as the words may be understood, by which cross; the world is crucified to me — All the things and persons in it are to me as dead things, and therefore as nothing; and I unto the world — I am dead to all worldly pursuits, cares, desires, and enjoyments. Or, as Dr. Doddridge paraphrases the clause, By the reliance which I have for justification on Christ’s sufferings and death, and by the believing views I have thereof, I am made indifferent to all things here below; “so that I view the world, as little impressed by all its charms, as a spectator would be by any thing which had been graceful in the countenance of a crucified person, when he beholds it blackened in the agonies of death; and am no more affected by the objects round me, than one who is expiring would be struck with any of those prospects which his dying eyes might view from the cross on which he was suspended.” Or, more concisely, the world is crucified to believers, in that, by the firm expectation of eternal life, grounded on Christ’s cross, that is, on his death and resurrection, the world, like the dead carcass of a crucified malefactor, is stripped to them of all its vain allurements. And they are crucified to the world by Christ’s cross, in that “it inspires them with such principles, and leads them to such a course of life, as renders them, in the eyes of the world, as contemptible, and as unfit for their purposes, as if they were dead carcasses. All believers, therefore, after the apostle’s example, justly glory in the crucifixion of their Master, not only as it is the foundation of that assured hope of pardon which they entertain, but as it is an effectual principle of their sanctification.” — Macknight.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Gal_6:14. God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross.—The great object of shame to them, and to all carnal men, is the great object of glorying to me. By whom the world is crucified unto me.—By His cross, the worst of deaths, Christ has destroyed all kinds of death. Legal and fleshly ordinances are merely outward and elements of the world. To be crucified to the world is to be free from worldliness, and all that makes men slaves to creature fascinations.

Gal_6:15. But a new creature.—All external distinctions are nothing. The cross is the only theme worthy of glorying in, as it brings about a new spiritual creation.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gal_6:14-15

Glorying in the Cross—

I. Because of the great truths it reveals.—“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal_6:14). “The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” is a comprehensive phrase signifying the whole redeeming work of Christ—the salvation effected for the race by His crucifixion and death upon the cross. The problem how God can forgive sin without any breach in His moral government, or dimming the lustre of His perfections, is solved in the cross. God is great in Sinai. The thunders precede Him, the lightnings attend Him, the earth trembles, the mountains fall in fragments. But there is a greater God than this. On Calvary, nailed to a cross, wounded, thirsting, dying, He cries, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!” Great is the religion of power, but greater is the religion of love. Great is the religion of implacable justice, but greater is the religion of pardoning mercy. The cross was the master-theme of the apostle’s preaching and the chief and exclusive subject of his glorying.

II. Because of its contrast to effete ceremonialism.—“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision” (Gal_6:15). To the Jew circumcision was everything. By the cross Judaism, as a means of salvation, is utterly abolished. Uncircumcision includes all Gentile heathenism. Before the cross all heathen religions must perish. The Gentile cultus was never intended to supplant Jewish customs; both are excluded as unavailing in human salvation. The devotees of form and ceremony are apt to develop into bigotry and pride; the foes of ritualism are in danger of making a religion of their opposition; and both parties indulge in recriminations that are foreign to the spirit of Christianity. “Thus I trample on the pride of Plato,” said the cynic, as he trod on the philosopher’s sumptuous carpets; and Plato justly retorted, “You do it with greater pride.” Ceremonialism is effete, and is not worth contending about. It is nothing; Christ is everything, and the cross the only subject worthy of the Christian’s boast.

III. Because of the moral change it effects.—“But a new creature”—a new creation (Gal_6:15). In the place of a dead ceremonialism the gospel plants a new moral creation. It creates a new type of character. The faith of the cross claims to have produced not a new style of ritual, a new system of government, but new men. The Christian is the “new creature” which it begets. The cross has originated a new civilisation, and is a conspicuous symbol in the finest works of art. Ruskin, describing the artistic glories of the Church of St. Mark in Venice, says: “Here are all the successions of crowded imagery showing the passions and pleasures of human life symbolised together, and the mystery of its redemption: for the maze of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at last to the cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone, sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapped round it, sometimes with doves beneath its arms and sweet herbage growing forth from its feet; but conspieuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse. It is the cross that is first seen and always burning in the centre of the temple, and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, or returning in judgment.” The true power of the cross is not artistic or literary or political, but moral. It is a spiritually transforming force that penetrates and guides every form of human progress.

IV. Because of personal identification with its triumph over the world.—“By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal_6:14). As the world of feverish pleasure, of legal ordinances, was conquered by the cross, so the faith of the apostle in the crucified One gave him the victory over the world, so that it lost all power to charm or intimidate. The world of evil is doomed, and the power of the cross is working out its ultimate defeat. I have seen a curious photograph of what purports to be a portrait of the Saviour in the days of His flesh, and which by a subtle manipulation of the artist has a double representation. When you first look upon the picture you see the closed eyes of the Sufferer, and the face wears a pained and wearied expression; but as you gaze intently the closed eyes seem to gently open and beam upon you with the light of loving recognition. So as you gaze upon the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ it seems to you the symbol of suffering and defeat, but as you keep your eyes steadily fixed upon it the cross gradually assumes the glory of a glittering crown, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.

Lessons.—

1. The cross is the suggestive summary of saving truth.

2. The cross is the potent instrument of the highest moral conquests.

3. The cross is the loftiest theme of the believer’s glorying.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Gal_6:14. Christ Crucified.

I. By Christ crucified we have reconciliation with God, remission of sins, and acceptance to eternal life.

II. We have the peace of God, peace with men, with ourselves, with the creatures.

III. We recover the right and title which we had in creation to all the creatures and blessings of God.

IV. All afflictions cease to be curses and punishments, and become either trials or corrections.

V. Those who can truly glory in the cross are dead to the world and the world to them.

VI. We are taught to carry ourselves in the world as crucified and dead men, not to love, but to renounce and forsake it.—Perkins.

Glorying in the Cross of Christ.

I. We glory in the doctrine of the cross—the justification of guilty men through a propitiatory sacrifice—because of its antiquity.—It was taught by patriarchs and prophets, the law of sacrifice was its grand hieroglyphical record, the first sacrifices were its types, the first awakened sinner with his load of guilt fell upon this rock and was supported, and by the sacrifice of Christ shall the last sinner saved be raised to glory.

II. Because it forms an important part of the revelation of the New Testament.

III. As affording the only sure ground of confidence to a penitent sinner.

IV. Because of its moral effects.—Not only in the superstitions and idolatries it has destroyed, the barbarous nations it has civilised, the cruel customs it has abrogated, and the kindly influence it has shed upon the laws and manners of nations; but in its moral effect on individuals, producing the most ardent love to God and kindling benevolence towards all.—Richard Watson.

The True Glory of the Christian.

I. The disposition of mind denoted by the expressions—“The world is crucified unto me; I am crucified to the world.”—

1. The nature of it—a total rupture with the world.

2. The gradations of which it admits. Deadness to avarice and pride—in respect of exertion and actual progress—in respect of hope and fervour.

3. The difficulty, the bitterness, of making a sacrifice so painful.

II. In such a disposition true glory consists.—Comparison between the hero of this world and the Christian hero. The hero derives his glory from the greatness of the master he serves, from the dignity of the persons who have preceded him in the same honourable career, from the brilliancy of his achievements, from the acclamations his exploits excite. How much more the Christian hero!

III. The cross of Christ alone can inspire us with these sentiments.—If we consider it in relation to the atrocious guilt of those who despise it, in relation to the proofs there displayed of Christ’s love, in the proofs it supplies of the doctrine of Christ, and in relation to the glory that shall follow.—Saurin.

The Cross a Burden or a Glory.

I. There is the constant, ordinary discipline of human life.—Life when it is earnest contains more or less of suffering. There is a battle of good and evil, and these special miseries are the bruises of the blows that fill the air, sometimes seeming to fall at random and perplexing our reason, because we cannot rise to such height of vision as to take in the whole field at once.

II. There is the wretchedness of feeling self-condemned.—Law alone is a cross. Man needs another cross—not Simon’s, but Paul’s. He took it up, and it grew light in his hands. He welcomed it, and it glowed with lustre, as if it were framed of the sunbeams of heaven.

III. The same spiritual contrast, the same principle of difference between compulsory and voluntary service, opens to us two interpretations of the suffering of the Saviour Himself.—Neither the cross of Simon nor the cross of Paul was both literally and actually the cross of Christ. Its charm was that it was chosen. Its power was that it was free. The cross becomes glorious when the Son of God takes it up; there is goodness enough in Him to exalt it. It was the symbol of that sacrifice where self was for ever crucified for love.—F. D. Huntington.

The Cross—

I. The sinner’s refuge.

II. The sinner’s remedy.

III. The sinner’s life.

The Glory of the Cross.

I. The cross was the emblem of death.

II. Christ was not only a dead Saviour, but a condemned Saviour.

III. A disgraced Saviour, because the cross was a disgraceful kind of punishment.

IV. Paul gloried in the cross because it is an exhibition of the righteousness of God.

V. Because it proclaims His love.

VI. The contemplation of Christ’s cross helps us to conquer the world.—Newman Hall.

Glorying in the Cross.

I. The subjects in which the apostle gloried.—

1. He might have gloried in his distinguished ancestry.

2. In his polished education.

3. In the morality of his former life.

4. In his extraordinary call to the apostleship.

5. In his high ecclesiastical position.

6. He did not glory in the literal cross.

7. Nor in the metaphorical cross.

8. But in the metonymical cross (1Co_1:17; Col_1:20).

II. The characteristics of the apostle’s glorying.—

1. His glorying was not merely verbal, but practical.

2. Not sectarian, but Christian and catholic.

3. Not temporary, but permanent.

III. The reasons of the apostle’s glorying.—

1. Here he saw a grander display of the divine character and perfections than elsewhere.

2. This was the scene of the most glorious victory ever witnessed.

3. It was the centre of all God’s dispensations.

4. The cross was the most powerful incentive to true morality.

5. Hence flowed all the blessings of the gospel economy.

6. Here was made an atonement equal to the needs of our fallen world.

Lessons.—

1. Let us here see the purity of the moral law and the heinousness of sin.

2. Let the sinner come to the cross for pardon, purity, peace, and joy.—W. Antliff.

Glorying in the Cross.

I. Paul’s enthusiasm as expressed in the exclamation of the text.

II. One main source of his zeal lay in the subject of his enthusiasm.—

1. The cross is a fit subject for glory as symbolising an infinite, boundless truth.

2. Because it is an eternal fact.

3. Because it is the ground of man’s justification and the symbol of his redemption.

III. Look at the result—crucifixion to the world.—The true solution of the Christian’s relationship to the world lies in the fact that it is a separation not in space but in spirit.—J. Hutchison, in “Scottish Pulpit.”

Gal_6:15. Scriptural View of True Religion.

I. What true religion is not.—

1. It is not circumcision nor uncircumcision.

2. It is not an outward thing.

(1) You are not religious because you have been baptised.

(2) Because you are called a Christian, and have been born of Christian parents.

(3) Because you frequent the Church, attend the Lord’s Supper, and are regular at your devotions.

II. What true religion is.—

1. It is not an outward but an inward thing. It is not a new name, but a new nature. A new creation describes a great change in man.

2. The greatness of this change shows also the power by which it is wrought. Creation is a divine work.

3. The rite of circumcision taught the necessity of the change. Though it was a seal of the righteousness of faith, it was also a sign of the inward renewal and purification of the heart. Baptism in the Christian Church teaches the same truth. The texts of Scripture which set forth the evil nature of man set forth the necessity of this great change.—Edward Cooper.

The New Creature.—The new creature is the only thing acceptable to God. It is the renovation of the whole man, both in the spirit of our minds and in the affections of our heart. Neither the substance nor the faculties of the soul are lost by the Fall, but only the qualities of the faculties, as when an instrument is out of tune the fault is not in the substance of the instrument, nor in the sound, but in the disproportion or jar in the sound; therefore the qualities only are renewed by grace. These qualities are either in the understanding or the will and affections. The quality in the understanding is knowledge; in the will and affections they are righteousness and holiness, both which are in truth and sincerity. Holiness performs all the duties of piety, righteousness the duties of humanity, truth seasoning both the former with sincerity.—Ralph Cudworth.

The Necessity of a New Nature.—The raven perched on the rock where she whets her bloody beak, and with greedy eye watches the death-struggles of an unhappy lamb, cannot tune her croaking voice to the mellow music of a thrush; and since it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh, how could a sinner take up the strain and sing the song of saints?—Guthrie.

The New Birth begins our True Life.—A stranger passing through a churchyard saw these words written on a tombstone: “Here lies an old man seven years old.” He had been a true Christian only for that length of time.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

6:14 In contrast with the false teachers (6:12-13), Paul’s motivation was to increase, not his own reputation, but God’s glory. Boasting about law-keeping would detract from recognition of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. • In the Greco-Roman world, the cross was a senseless scandal to those who did not believe (5:11; 1 Cor 1:23; cp. John 6:53-61), but it is the basis for a Christian’s faith and hope (1 Cor 1:17-18; 15:3; Phil 2:8-11; Col 1:20-22; 2:14-15).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gal 6:14. Ἐμοὶ δὲ, but as for me) I should be sorry to be a partaker of such things as those.—μὴ γένοιτο καυχᾶσθαι) Jos 24:16, חלילה, μὴ γένοιτο ἡμῖν καταλιπεῖν Κυριον, God forbid, that we should forsake the Lord.—καυχᾶσθαι, to glory) We have a specimen of this sort of glorying, 2Co 5:15-19; Php 3:8, etc.—ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ, in the cross) which has nothing to do with circumcision of the flesh. To glory in the cross[64] is an Oxymoron.—ΔΙᾺ ΟὟ, by which) the cross: for the apostle is speaking here chiefly of the cross; and if the διʼ οὗ should even be referred to Christ, still the cross must be regarded as the ground on which this reference would be made. That, by which anything whatever is such as it is, possesses the same nature in a higher degree.—κόσμος ἐσταύρωται, the world has been crucified) The world, with its ‘elements,’ has no longer dominion over me; ch. Gal 4:3. There is a gradation from the flesh [Gal 6:13] to the world [in this 14th verse].—κᾀγὼ τῷ κόσμῳ, and I to the world) The world is at variance with me: I could not, though I were willing, henceforth gain any favour from the world. This cross includes death, Col 2:20.

[64] The cross, and to glory, being contraries.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal_6:14. By way of contrast, not to the national vanity of the Jews (Hofmann, in accordance with his interpretation of Gal_6:13), but to the καυχάσθαι which the pseudo-apostles had in view, Paul now presents his own principle: from me, on the other hand, far be it to glory, except only in the cross of Christ.

ἐμοὶ μὴ γένοιτο καυχ.] mihi ne accidat, ut glorier. On this deprecating expression with the infinitive, comp. LXX. Gen_44:7; Gen_44:17; Jos_22:29; Jos_24:16; 1Ma_13:5; 1Ma_13:9-10; Ignat. Eph. 12; Xen. Cyr. vi. 3. 11: ὦ Ζεῦ μέγιστε, λαβεῖν μοι γένοιτο αὐτόν, Anab. i. 9. 18; Dem. 33:25; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 366.

In the words εἰ μὴ ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ down to κόσμῳ, observe the defiant enthusiasm, which manifests itself even in the fulness of the expression. How very different the conduct of the opponents, according to Gal_6:12! Nothing but the cross of Christ is to be the subject of his καυχᾶσθαι; nothing, namely, but the redemption accomplished on the cross by Christ constituted the basis, the sum, and the divine certainty of his faith, life, hope, action, etc. Comp. Php_3:7 ff.; 2Co_5:15 ff.; 1Co_1:23; 1Co_2:2, et al. Thus it is a truly apostolic oxymoron: καυχᾶσθαι ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ. The cross is τὸ καύχημα τῶν καυχημάτων, Cyril.

διʼ οὗ ἐμοὶ κόσμος ἐσταύρ. κἀγὼ τῷ κόσμῳ reveals the cause why he may not glory in anything else: through whom the world is crucified to me, and I (sc. ἐσταύρωμαι) unto the world, that is, by whose crucifixion is produced the result, that no internal fellowship of life longer exists between me and the world: it is dead for me, and I for it. By Calvin, Bengel, Winer, Usteri, Hofmann, Holsten, Matthias, Reithmayr, and others, διʼ οὗ is referred to the cross. But it is more pertinent to refer it to the fully and triumphantly expressed subject immediately preceding, τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Vulgate, Erasmus, Beza, Luther, and many others, including de Wette, Ewald, Wieseler): through whom, that is, according to the context, by means of whose crucifixion. This effect is dependent on the inward fellowship with the death of Christ (Gal_2:19 f.; Romans 6) commenced by faith, and maintained by the Holy Spirit. By this fellowship Paul is transplanted into an entirely new relation of life, and feels that all the previous interests of his life are now stripped of their influence over him, and that he is now completely independent of them. Comp. Php_3:7 ff.

ἐμοί] for me, denotes the ethical reference of the relation. See Bernhardy, p. 84.

κόσμος (without the article; see Winer, p. 117 [E. T. 153]) finds its explanation from Gal_6:15 (οὔτε περιτομὴ, αὔτε ἀκροβυστία), namely, the organic totality of all relations aloof from Christianity, looked upon, indeed, as a living power, which exercises authority and sway over the unconverted, but in the case of the converted has become dead through his admission into the fellowship of faith and life with the crucified Lord; that is, has ceased to influence and determine his thoughts, feelings, and actions. Thus the world is crucified to him by means of the crucifixion of Christ. Comp. Col_2:20; Eph_2:2 f.; 1Co_7:31; 1Co_7:33-34; Jam_4:4; 1Jn_2:15 f.

κἀγῶ τῶ κόσμῳ] for the cessation of the mutual fellowship of life is meant to be expressed, and the matter to be thus wholly exhausted. Comp. 1Co_6:13; 2Th_1:12; nec malis illius territor, nec commodis titillor, nec odium metuo, nec plausum moror, nec ignominiam formido, nec gloriam affecto, Erasmus, Paraphr.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 6:14 . Paul contrasts his own spirit with that which his rivals are manifesting. They are animated by selfish desires to glory over the flesh of others, he will glory only in the triumph of the cross over his own flesh, whereby the power of the world over him, and his carnal love of the world, are both done away.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He sticketh not to compare himself with them, showing that on the contrary part he rejoiceth in those afflictions which he suffereth for Christ’s sake, and as he is despised of the world, so doth he in like sort esteem the world as naught: which is the true circumcision of a true Israelite.

When Paul useth this word in good sense of part, it signifieth to rest a man’s self wholly in a thing, and to content himself therewith.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Translate, "But as for me (in opposition to those gloriers 'in your flesh,' Gal 6:13), God forbid that I," &c.

in the cross--the atoning death on the cross. Compare Phi 3:3, Phi 3:7-8, as a specimen of his glorying. The "cross," the great object of shame to them, and to all carnal men, is the great object of glorying to me. For by it, the worst of deaths, Christ has destroyed all kinds of death [AUGUSTINE, Tract 36, on John, sec. 4]. We are to testify the power of Christ's death working in us, after the manner of crucifixion (Gal 5:24; Rom 6:5-6).

our--He reminds the Galatians by this pronoun, that they had a share in the "Lord Jesus Christ" (the full name is used for greater solemnity), and therefore ought to glory in Christ's cross, as he did.

the world--inseparably allied to the "flesh" (Gal 6:13). Legal and fleshly ordinances are merely outward, and "elements of the world" (Gal 4:3).

is--rather, as Greek, "has been crucified to me" (Gal 2:20). He used "crucified" for dead (Col 2:20, "dead with Christ"), to imply his oneness with Christ crucified (Phi 3:10): "the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 14. But God forbid that I should glory] Whatever others may do, or whatever they may exult or glory in, God forbid that I should exult, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; in the grand doctrine, that justification and salvation are only through Christ crucified, he having made an atonement for the sin of the world by his passion and death. And I glory, also, in the disgrace and persecution which I experience through my attachment to this crucified Christ.

By whom the world is crucified unto me] Jewish rites and Gentile vanities are equally insipid to me; I know them to be empty and worthless. If Jews and Gentiles despise me, I despise that in which they trust; through Jesus, all are crucified to me-their objects of dependence are as vile and execrable to me, as I am to them, in whose sight these things are of great account.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. But God forbid that I should glory. The designs of the false apostles are here contrasted with his own sincerity. As if he had said, “To avoid being compelled to bear a cross, they deny the cross of Christ, purchase with your flesh the applause of men, and end by triumphing over you. But my triumph and my glory are in the cross of the Son of God.” If the Galatians had not been utterly destitute of common sense, ought they not to have held in abhorrence the men whom they beheld making sport of their dangerous condition.

To glory in the cross of Christ, is to glory in Christ crucified. But something more is implied. In that death, — so full of disgrace and ignominy, which God himself has pronounced to be accursed, and which men are wont to view with abhorrence and shame, — in that death he will glory, because he obtains in it perfect happiness. Where man’s highest good exists, there is his glory. But why does not Paul seek it elsewhere? Though salvation is held out to us in the cross of Christ, what does he think of his resurrection? I answer, in the cross redemption in all its parts is found, but the resurrection of Christ does not lead us away from the cross. And let it be carefully observed, that every other kind of glorying is rejected by him as nothing short of a capital offense. “May God protect us from such a fearful calamity!” Such is the import of the phrase which Paul constantly employs, God forbid

BY WHICH the world is crucified. As the Greek word for cross, σταυρὸς, is masculine, the relative pronoun may be either rendered by whom, or by which, according as we refer it to Christ or to the cross. In my opinion, however, it is more proper to apply it to the cross; for by it strictly we die to the world. But what is the meaning of the world? It is unquestionably contrasted with the new creature. Whatever is opposed to the spiritual kingdom of Christ is the world, because it belongs to the old man; or, in a word, the world is the object and aim of the old man.

The world is crucified to me. This exactly agrees with the language which he employs on another occasion.

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Philippians 3:7, 8.)

To crucify the world is to treat it with contempt and disdain.

He adds, and I unto the world. By this he means that he regarded himself as unworthy to be taken into the account, and indeed as utterly annihilated; because this was a matter with which a dead man had nothing to do. At all events, he means, that by the mortification of the old man he had renounced the world. Some take his meaning to be, “If the world looks upon me as abhorred and excommunicated, I consider the world to be condemned and accursed.” This appears to me to be overstrained, but I leave my readers to judge.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(14) God forbid that I should glory.—There is a stress upon the pronoun “I,” which, in the Greek, stands first, in emphatic contrast to the party who had been the subjects of the last verse. They make their boast in a mere external; but for me—far be it from me to make my boast in anything but the cross of Christ.

The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ—i.e., “in the death and passion which Christ underwent for me.” The Apostle is aware that in this he is putting forward a startling paradox. The cross of Christ was “to the Jews a stumbling-block.” They attached to it only ideas of ignominy and shame, and yet it is precisely this of which the Apostle is most proud. He is proud of it as the ground of his salvation, and therefore as the cardinal object of all his hopes and aims.

By whom.—It seems better, on the whole, to adopt the marginal rendering: whereby. The antecedent is thus not Christ, but more especially the cross of Christ. It is the intense contemplation of a crucified Saviour through which the Christian dies to the world.

The world.—By this is meant here the world of sense, the sphere of outward and sensible things, at once with its manifold temptations to sin and with its inadequate methods of escaping from them—mere external rites, such as circumcision.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. We might have expected that St Paul would have named ‘the Spirit’ or ‘the new creature’ as the object of his boasting, in immediate contrast with ‘the flesh’, the seat of the outward rite, in which the false teachers gloried. He does mention it at the end of Gal_6:15. But he here names that which is the root and source of ‘peace and mercy’ in this present life and of eternal salvation in the life to come. There is nearly the same contrast in Php_3:3 with the verbal substitution of ‘Christ Jesus’ for the ‘Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’.

but God forbid that I] The personal pronoun stands first in the Greek and is emphatic. ‘Others would find cause for boasting in a fleshly rite: but for my part, God forbid that I should glory &c.’ See ch. Gal_2:17, note.

in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ] ‘in the atoning death, as my means of reconcilement with God’ Alford. ‘Not in my suffering for Christ, but in His sufferings for me’. Lightfoot. Compare the well-known hymn, ‘When I survey the wondrous Cross &c.’. It is a death of shame and ignominy, pronounced to be accursed of God, in which St Paul will glory—nay, he rejects every other ground of boasting but this alone. Such a declaration would be the raving of a maniac, unless Jesus were the Son of God, the Saviour of the world.

by whom] R.V., ‘through which’. Commentators are not agreed as to the antecedent to the relative pronoun. Is it the Cross, or Christ Himself? The Greek admits of either. We have few data by which to decide. But practically it matters little. The Cross does not, it cannot mean the material Cross on which our Saviour died. That has long ago ceased to exist in its original form, even if the tradition of its discovery could be historically established. (See an interesting Article by the Rev. R. Sinker in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, on the Finding of the Cross.) If we read ‘by which’, the reference is not to a cross, but to the Cross, i.e. the atoning death of Christ; if ‘by whom’, it is not Christ as the glorified Son of Man, but Christ crucified that is referred to.

the world is crucified] Lit., ‘has been crucified’. It is not easy to define exactly the meaning of the term ‘world’. Alford explains it as ‘the whole system of unspiritual and unchristian men and things’. Its force may be inferred from St Paul’s use of it elsewhere, e.g. 1Co_2:12; Eph_2:2. Comp. Jas_1:27; Jas_4:4; 1Jn_2:15-16; 1Jn_5:19.

The world with its passing interests, its narrowly limited aims, its sordid gains, its perishable treasure, its hollow show, its mockery of satisfaction—is to me like yon felon slave, nailed to the cross dying by a certain and shameful, if a lingering death. And I too am so regarded by the world. It is an object of contempt and relinquishment to me, and I to it. We seem to hear the echo of our Saviour’s own words, words so hard to understand, so much harder to act upon, Luk_14:26.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For in Christ Jesus,.... These words are omitted in the Syriac and Ethiopic versions; See Gill on Gal 5:6, Co1 7:19, they contain a reason why the apostle gloried in a crucified Christ, and looked upon the world as dead to him, and he to that, in every state of it; particularly as it may design "the worldly sanctuary" of the Jews, and all the rites and ceremonies appertaining to it; and among the rest

circumcision, which availeth not anything; neither as a command, type, or privilege; or in the business of salvation, being abolished by Christ:

nor uncircumcision; being now no bar to the Gospel, Gospel ordinances, or a Gospel church state; or to any of the blessings of the everlasting covenant, which come upon the uncircumcision, as well as the circumcision. But to apply these words to baptism and non-baptism is a wretched perversion, and making a very ill use of them, whereby the minds of men are worked up to an indifference to a Christian institution; for though baptism is of no avail in the business of salvation, yet it cannot be said of it, as of circumcision, that it avails not anything as a command; for it is a standing ordinance of Christ; or as an emblem and sign, for it is significative of the death and burial, and resurrection of Christ; or as a privilege, for it is of use to lead the faith of God's people to his blood and righteousness for pardon and justification; for he that believes, and is baptized, shall be saved; and it is necessary to church communion: and, on the other hand, it cannot be said that non-baptism avails not; it is a bar to church fellowship; and a neglect of baptism in those who are the proper subjects of it, is resented by Christ, and is a rejecting of the counsel of God against themselves; which was the case of the Pharisees, in the time of John the Baptist:

but a new creature. The phrase is Rabbinical; See Gill on Co2 5:17 by which is meant, not a new creation of a man, as a man, of the members of his body, or of the faculties of his soul; nor of an external reformation, or a walking in newness of life, which is the fruit and effect of this new creation work; but an internal principle of grace, a good work of God begun in the soul, called the hidden man of the heart, the new man, Christ formed in us, of which faith that works by love is a part: this is called a "creature", and so not of man, but God; for none can create but himself; and in which work man is purely passive, as the heavens and the earth were in their creation: it is "but" a creature, and therefore needs divine support, fresh strength from God, and frequent supplies of grace to maintain and preserve it; nor is it to be trusted in, but the grace which is in Christ, from whence it comes, and by which it is secured. This is a "new" creature, in opposition to the old man; and because it is a principle in man, which never was there before; it consists of a new heart and spirit, of new eyes, ears, hands, and feet, expressive of new principles and actions, of new light, life, love, desires, joys, comforts, and duties: now this is of avail; it is a branch of the new covenant of grace, which God has therein promised to bestow on his people; it is an evidence of interest in Christ, the new and living way to the Father, and eternal life; such are newborn babes, regenerated persons, and have a right and meetness for the kingdom of God; shall possess the new Jerusalem, shall dwell in the new heavens and new earth; they are called by the Lord's new name, the adopted children of God; and have a new song put into their mouths, which none but redeemed and newborn souls can sing; and shall drink the new wine of endless joys and everlasting pleasures with Christ, in his Father's kingdom. These words are said to be taken out of the Apocalypse of Moses, a spurious book, but without any foundation.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

14 But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Ver. 14. But God forbid, &c.] The saints keep a constant counter motion, and are antipodes {a} to the wicked. They thus and thus, but I otherwise.

Whereby the world is crucified] I look upon the world as a dead thing, as a great dunghill, &c. That harlot was deceived in St Paul, in thinking to allure him by laying out those her two fair breasts of profit and pleasure; he had no mind to be sucking at those botches; he was a very crucifix of mortification. And in his face (as one said of Doctor Raynolds) a man might have seen veram mortificati hominis idaeam, the true portraiture of a mortified man.

And I to the world] q.d. The world and I are well agreed. The world cares not a pin for me, and I (to cry quittance with it) care as little for the world.

{a} Of or pertaining to the antipodes; situated on the opposite side of the globe. ŒD

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But God forbid - See the note at Rom 3:4. “For me it is not to glory except in the cross of Christ.” The object of Paul here is evidently to place himself in contrast with the judaizing teachers, and to show his determined purpose to glory in nothing else but the cross of Christ. Well they knew that he had as much occasion for glorying in the things pertaining to the flesh, or in the observance of external rites and customs, as any of them. He had been circumcised. He had had all the advantages of accurate training in the knowledge of the Jewish law. He had entered on life with uncommon advantages. He had evinced a zeal that was not surpassed by any of them; and his life, so far as conformity to the religion in which he had been trained was concerned, was blameless; Phi 3:4-8. This must have been to a great extent known to the Galatians; and by placing his own conduct in strong contrast with that of the Judaizing teachers, and showing that he had no ground of confidence in himself, he designed to bring back the minds of the Galatians to simple dependence on the cross.

That I should glory - That I should boast; or that I should rely on any thing else. Others glory in their conformity to the laws of Moses; others in their zeal, or their talents, or their learning, or their orthodoxy; others in their wealth, or their accomplishments; others in their family alliances, and their birth; but the supreme boast and glorying of a Christian is in the cross of Christ.

In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ - In Jesus the crucified Messiah. It is a subject of rejoicing and glorying that we have such a Saviour. The world looked upon him with contempt; and the cross was a stumbling-block to the Jew, and folly to the Greek. Notes, 1Co 1:23. But to the Christian, that cross is the subject of glorying. It is so because:

Of the love of him who suffered there; Of the purity and holiness of his character, for the innocent died there for the guilty; Of the honor there put on the Law of God by his dying to maintain it unsullied; Of the reconciliation there made for sin, accomplishing what could be done by no other oblation, and by no power of man; Of the pardon there procured for the guilty; Of the fact that through it we become dead to the world, and are made alive to God; Of the support and consolation which goes from that cross to sustain us in trial; and, Of the fact that it procured for us admission into heaven, a title to the world of glory. All is glory around the cross.

It was a glorious Saviour who died; it was glorious love that led him to die; it was a glorious object to redeem a world; and is is unspeakable glory to which he will raise lost and ruined sinners by his death. O who would not glory in such a Saviour! Compared with this, what trifles are all the objects in which people usually boast! And what a lesson is here furnished to the true Christian! Let us not boast of our wealth. It will soon leave us, or we shall be taken from it, and it can aid us little in the great matters that are before us. It will not ward off disease; it will not enable us to bear pain; it will not smooth the couch of death; it will not save the soul. Let us not glory in our strength, for it will soon fail; in our beauty, for we shall soon be undistinguished in the corruptions of the tomb; in our accomplishments, for they will not save us; in our learning, for it is not that by which we can be brought to heaven. But let us glory that we have for a Saviour the eternal Son of God - that glorious Being who was adored by the inhabitants of heaven; who made the worlds; who is pure, and lovely, and most holy; and who has undertaken our cause and died to save us. I desire no higher honor than to be saved by the Son of God. It is the exaltation of my nature, and shows me more than anything else its true dignity, that one so great and glorious sought my redemption. That cannot be an object of temporary value which he sought by coming from heaven, and if there is any object of real magnitude in this world, it is the soul which the eternal Son of God died to redeem.

By whom the world is crucified unto me ... - See the notes at Gal 2:20.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

As for my part, I will glory in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, but in Christ crucified. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

For my part I have no such ends, I have no ambition to glory in you as my converts; all that I desire to glory in, is in the doctrine of the gospel, and my sufferings for the propagation of it, and my conformity to Christ in suffering for preaching the gospel. By the cross of Christ

the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world; I care no more for the world than it careth for me; the world despiseth and contemneth me, and the doctrine of the cross which I preach and publish in it, and I contemn it, with all its vain pomp and splendour. And this I do through the

cross of Christ, remembering how the world dealt with Christ, and how little he regarded the world: or, through the grace of Christ, who hath enabled me to it, for the particle translated

by whom, may be indifferently translated by whom or by which.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. Glory—Their glory is converting you to circumcision; my glory is the shame and suffering of the cross. The world, which you court, with all its glory.

Is crucified—Is ignominiously reduced to death, as regards me.

I unto the world—So that the world and I are even; we are nothing to each other, so far as our seeking glory from each other is concerned. Paul uses the word crucified with a prompt boldness; as if to face down the scorn that salutes the victim of that shameful death.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (ejmoi de mhnoito kaucasqai eij mh ejn) but as for me, God forbid, etc. For the construction of the dative ejmoi with genoito, Alford cites Act_20:16, Opwv mhnhta aujtw cronotribhsai, and Meyer Xenophon, "Cyrop." 6:3. 11, W Zeu megiste labein moi genoito aujton. But neither passage matches the tone of abhorrence which attaches to the phrase, mhnoito, on which see note on Gal_2:17. Here only in the New Testament does it form a syntactical part of a sentence. But in the Septuagint this construction is of repeated occurrence, following the Hebrew construction of chalilah with a dative and an infinitive verb with min. Thus Gen_44:7, Mhnoito toiv paisi sou poihsai k.t.l..; id., 17. Sondalon, Jos_24:16. The pronoun ejmoi is strongly emphasized both in this first clause of the verse and in that which follows. The apostle is vividly contrasting his own feeling and behaviour in relation to the cross of Christ with those of the leaders of the circumcision party whom he has been denouncing. They would fain put the cross as far as possible out of sight, not to offend the Jews they were so anxious to conciliate that "obnoxious object" (ska 1Co_1:25) itself, as well as the inferences which the apostle taught them to draw from it in relation to the ceremonial law: their kauchma, that whereof they would glory, should be in preference the mutilated flesh of their misled Galatian brethren; his boast, rejoicing, glory, was, and God helping him should ever be, the cross of Christ that, and that alone. It quite emasculates the energy of his utterance to paraphrase "the cross" as being "the doctrine of the cross or of Christ"s atonement." Rather, it is the cross itself which rivets his admiring view; sneered at by Gentile, abhorred by Jew, but to his eye resplendent with a multiplicity of truths radiating from it to his soul of infinite preciousness. Among those truths, one group, which to us is apt to appear of but small interest, was to the apostle"s heart and conscience productive of profoundest relief. In former days he had experienced the burden and the chafing or benumbing effect of the Law, both as a ceremonial institute and as a "letter" of merely imperative command. It was the cross which released him, as from the guilt and servitude of sin , so also from all the worry and distress of bondage to ceremonial prescriptions. And this group of truths, as well as those relating to man"s reconciliation with God, he felt it to be his mission, even perhaps his own most especial mission, boldly and frankly to proclaim; not only to rejoice in them on his own behalf, but to hold them forth to the view of others, as replete with blessing to all mankind; to glorify and vaunt them. His motive at present in thus vehemently protesting his own rejoicing in the cross of Christ was doubtless to rouse into fresh activity the slumbering sympathy with those feelings which had probably in some degree once animated his Galatian converts. Therefore it is that he writes, "the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," instead of "the cross of my Lord," which it would else have been in this case natural to him to say, as he does in Php_3:8, "for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord," and according to the tone of Gal_2:20 of this Epistle. This "our" hints to the Galatians that they have as much reason as he has to glory in the cross as redeeming God"s people alike from sin and from the Law. By whom (or, whereby) the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world (dij ou eJmoismov ejstaurwtai, kajgw kosmw Receptus, tw kosmw); through which the world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world. The omission of tw before kosmw, which is now generally agreed in, adds to the terseness of the sentence. The article is wanting before kosmov elsewhere, as 2Co_5:19; Php_2:15; Col_2:20; 1Ti_3:16. The construing of the passage which takes the relative ou= as reciting "our Lord Jesus Christ," loses sight of the image which is now the one most prominent to the apostle"s view: this surely is not Christ himself, but his cross; as in 1Co_2:2 the apostle determines the more general term, "Jesus Christ," by the more specific one, "and him crucified." The reference of the relative is to be determined, here as often elsewhere, not by the mere propinquity of words in the sentence, but by the nearness of objects to the writer"s mind at the moment. In language of singular intensity the apostle bespeaks the all-involving transformation which, through the cross of Christ, his own life had undergone. The world, he says, had become to him a thing crucified: not only a dead thing, ceasing to interest or attract him, but also a vile, accursed thing, something he loathed and despised. And conversely, he himself had become a crucified thing unto the world; not only had he ceased to present to the world ought that could interest or attract it, but also become to it a thing scouted and abhorred; as he says 1Co_4:13, "We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things." The whole context of those words in the Corinthians (vers. 9-13) is here compressed into the single clause, "I have been crucified unto the world." "The world;" the term denotes unregenerate mankind taken in connection with that entire system of habits of life and of feeling in which man, as un-quickened by the Spirit of God, finds his sphere and home. As the apostle is speaking of his own personal experience, we must understand him as referring in particular to all those circumstances of civil, social, and religious being which had once surrounded him, the honoured Jew and Pharisee. These he enumerates at length in qhn Php_3:5, 6. To these we might add, though it would, perhaps, have hardly occurred to Paul"s own mind to add it, the ordinary possession of worldly comforts and immunity from want and suffering. All, he proceeds in that passage to say, he had "forfeited" (ejzhmiw) (Php_3:8) Nor did he look back upon his loss with regret: "I do count them as dung (skubala)." This twofold description, "I forfeited all things," and "I do count them all as dung," is here summarized in the phrase, "the world is a crucified object to me." The world, further, thus described as crucified to him, included in particular the entire system of Jewish ceremonialism, so far as it existed apart from the vitalizing influence of the Spirit of God. The "natural man (yucikov anqrwpov)" sets great store by religious ceremonialism; it is to him, in fact, his religion. The apostle has himself felt it to be so. But his sentiment now is the very opposite: he accounts it a dead, lifeless thing; nay, even loathsome and abhorred, whenever in the smallest degree placed even by a Christian Jew in the category of Christianly obedience. That he did regard such religious ceremonialism as belonging to the "world," from which as in Christ he had become dissevered, is plain, both from Gal_4:3, "in bondage under the rudiments of the world," and from tou, Col_2:20, "why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourself to ordinances, Handle not," etc. That this particular ingredient in the whole system recited as "the world" was at this moment present to the apostle"s mind, appears from his singling out circumcision for mention in the next verse. While, however, this was a part of the "crucified world" just now prominent to his view, this term comprised to his consciousness much beside; namely, the entire mass of ungodliness and vice which appertains to "the course, or age, of this world" (aijwsmou tou) (Eph_2:2) from which aijwn, the Christian is by the daily transforming of his character to be removed. (Rom_12:2) (See above, Gal_1:4, and note.) "Through which;" in various ways was the cress of Christ the means of effecting this mutual crucifixion between the apostle and the world. It is apparent, from the whole tenor of his Epistles, that Christ crucified, as manifesting both Christ"s love to sinful men in general, and to his own self in particular, "the chief of sinners," and likewise the love of God his Father, wrought with so mighty an attraction upon his whole soul intellect, conscience, affections that all other objects which were only not connected with this one lost to him their whole zest and interest, while all other objects which clashed with the moral and spiritual influence of this became absolutely distasteful and repulsive. And, on the other hand, the world at large met the man who was animated with this absorbing devotion to God as manifested in a crucified Christ, with just that estrangedness and aversion which might have been anticipated. The influence exercised by the cross in crucifying the world and the apostle to each other was intensified by the especial bearing which, in the apostle"s view, the cross had towards Jewish ceremonialism. (see Gal_2:19, Gal_2:20, and notes) The vivid, intense manner in which the apostle proclaimed such sentiments alienated from him the adherents and champions of Judaism, and made him of all Christians the one who was to them the most obnoxious. And how this affected his standing, even in the Gentile world, there have been above repeated occasions for noting.

The true ground of the apostle"s glorying.

for me far be it to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

1. This is not, as Romanists say, the wooden cross. It would be beneath the good sense of the apostle to say that he gloried in a piece of wood.

2. It was not the metaphorical cross borne by believers afflictions. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me". (Mat_16:24)

3. It was the atoning death of Christ. The apostle did not glory in this because of its moral influence upon his life, nor even because it was a manifestation of Divine justice and love, but because Christ, through his expiatory sufferings on the cross, procured for us eternal life, which he applies by his Holy Spirit.

II THE ATTITUDE OF THE APOSTLE TOWARD THE CROSS. He gloried in it.

1. It implied that he had abandoned the way of righteousness by the Law.

2. It implied that he trusted in the atoning death of Christ for salvation.

3. It implied the exclusion of all other elements in which errorists might trust as grounds of salvation.

III THE EFFECTS OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. "By which the world has been crucified to me, and I unto the world." It is not material whether the double crucifixion here described is referred to Christ or to his cross; for as it is only Christ crucified whom the apostle preached, it is through him the believer is crucified to the world. Christ"s cross has sundered the relationship between Paul and the world. They are dead to each other. Luther says, "The world and I are well agreed. The world cares not a pin for me, and I, to cry quittance with it, care as little for the world." Consider:

1. What is the world? It is that sphere of things in which the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life find their natural development. It is the world as opposed to God. "The friendship of this world is enmity with God". (Jam_4:4)

2. How is the world trucked to the apostle. " It is not that the apostle regards

(1) the world as useless.

(2) Nor as a place to be abandoned, in a spirit of monkish austerity. Luther says, "The monks dreamed that the world was crucified to them when they entered into their monasteries; but by this means Christ is crucified, and not the world. Yea, the world is delivered from crucifying.

(3) Nor as a scene upon which he is to wreak his morbid spite or bitter misanthropy. But

(4) it implies that the world had lost its attractions for him, its power over him, its influence to lead him astray. There was a time when he was not so crucified he was "alive once;" but death in Christ and with Christ was his death to the world and the death of that world to him.

3. How is he crucified to the world? The world regards him as a dead man, who has no longer any attractions that it should desire him. It regards him no longer as its own, and therefore hates him to the point of persecution. This inter-crucifixion came about through his union with Christ, and that union was effected by the cross. Well, therefore, might the apostle glory in the cross!

The cross of Christ.

I THE CROSS AS AN OBJECT OF GLORYING.

1. St. Paul can glory in nothing else. Yet he had whereof to glory. His birth, his education, and his religious devotions had been sources of pride to him. His Christian attainments, his apostolic authority, his missionary triumphs, and his brave endurance of persecutions, might be taken as reasons for self-glorification. But he rejects the whole. Plainly no Christian inferior to St. Paul can have anything in himself to be proud of.

2. The glorying only begins in looking away from self to Christ. Men talk of glorying in their crosses. But St. Paul boasted, not in his own cross, but only in the cross of Christ. He made nothing of his sufferings for Christ; all his interest was absorbed in Christ"s sufferings for him. All the brightness of Christian experience centres in Christ.

3. The grand source of glorying is the cross of Christ. The cross was the symbol of shame; it has become the token of what we most reverently adore. So complete is the transformation of ideas that we can with difficulty understand the paradox as it would strike the contemporaries of St. Paul when he spoke of glorying in the cross. It is as though we spoke of priding ourselves on the gallows. This cross, this instrument of shameful death has become the emblem of Christianity. Gleaming in gold on the spires and domes of our cathedrals, it typifies the most vital truth of Christianity. The glory of the cross is not a merely mystical sentiment. It springs from evident facts:

(1) the fidelity of Christ as the good Shepherd, who would not forsake the flock and flee before the wolf;

(2) the patience, gentleness, and forgiving spirit of Christ on the cross; but

(3) chiefly the love of Christ in suffering shame and anguish and death for us. There are some who would dispense with the doctrine of the cross; but a crossless Christianity will be a mutilated, impotent gospel, robbed of all efficacy, shorn of all glory.

II THE CROSS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF DEATH. The cross does not change its nature by winning its glory. Still, it is a cross tool of pain and death. It is no less than this to the Christian as it was no less to Christ. For Christianity is not a calm acceptance of what Christ has done in our stead; it is union with Christ, first in his death and then in his victory.

1. The cross means the death of the world to us. Before that glory of Divine love in human passion all lesser lights fade and perish. As we look upon the cross the world loses its hold upon us. In the vision of truth and purity and love even to death, the threats of the world"s hurts lose their terror and the fascinations of its pleasures their charm.

2. The cross means our death to the world. Joined with Christ by faith, we have the old self killed out of us. Hitherto the power of the lower world has dragged us down to sin and trouble. But in proportion as we are united to the Crucified we cease to have the feelings and interests which chain us to the earthly. St. Paul describes a magnificent ideal. No man on earth has fully realized it. It must be the aim of the Christian more and more to be one with Christ, that the cross may pass more deeply into his soul till all else melts and fades out of experience.

These two aspects of the cross its death-power in us, its glory in Christ are directly related. For it is only after it has been the instrument ofdeath to us that we can rise in the new life and see it as the one absorbing object of glory. W.F.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But God forbid that I should glory - Should boast of anything I have, am, or do; or rely on anything for my acceptance with God, but what Christ hath done and suffered for me. By means of which the world is crucified to me - All the things and persons in it are to me as nothing. And I unto the world - I am dead to all worldly pursuits, cares, desires, and enjoyments.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

VERSE 14. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"God forbid," says the Apostle, "that I should glory in anything as dangerous as the false apostles glory in because what they glory in is a poison that destroys many souls, and I wish it were buried in hell. Let them glory in the flesh if they wish and let them perish in their glory. As for me I glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." He expresses the same sentiment in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where he says: "We glory in tribulations"; and in the twelfth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: "Most gladly, therefore, will l rather glory in my infirmities." According to these expressions the glory of a Christian consists in tribulations, reproaches, and infirmities.

And this is our glory today with the Pope and the whole world persecuting us and trying to kill us. We know that we suffer these things not because we are thieves and murderers, but for Christ’s sake whose Gospel we proclaim. We have no reason to complain. The world, of course, looks upon us as unhappy and accursed creatures, but Christ for whose sake we suffer pronounces us blessed and bids us to rejoice. "Blessed are ye," says He, "when men shall revile you, and persecute you. and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad." (Mat 5:11-12.)

By the Cross of Christ is not to be understood here the two pieces of wood to which He was nailed, but all the afflictions of the believers whose sufferings are Christ’s sufferings. Elsewhere Paul writes: "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church." (Col 1:24.)

It is good for us to know this lest we sink into despair when our opponents persecute us. Let us bear the cross for Christ’s sake. It will ease our sufferings and make them light as Christ says, Mat 11:30, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

VERSE 14. By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

"The world is crucified unto me," means that I condemn the world. "I am crucified unto the world," means that the world in turn condemns me. I detest the doctrine, the self-righteousness, and the works of the world. The world in turn detests my doctrine and condemns me as a revolutionary heretic. Thus the world is crucified unto us and we unto the world.

The monks imagined the world was crucified unto them when they entered the monastery. Not the world, but Christ, is crucified in the monasteries.

In this verse Paul expresses his hatred of the world. The hatred was mutual. As Paul, so we are to despise the world and the devil. With Christ on our side we can defy him and say: "Satan, the more you hurt me, the more I oppose you."

Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.

world

kosmos = world-system. Eph 2:2; Joh 7:7. (See Scofield "Rev 13:8") .

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Having shown what it was that the false apostles gloried in, he next shows what it was that he himself gloried in; namely, in the cross of Christ; that is, in his preaching Christ crucified, and the necessity of faith in him who died as a sacrifice upon the cross. The cross of Christ is taken three ways in scripture, materially, metaphorically, and metonymically.

The material cross of Christ is that which he died upon at Jerusalem: this the church of Rome glories in greatly, but not the apostle.

The metaphorical cross of Christ, is afflictions, Luk 9:28. Let him take up the cross; that is, submit to any afflictions. God oft-times sanctifies this cross, for the crucifying the hearts of his people to the world.

But the cross of Christ is taken metonymically for the gospel, the doctrine of the gospel, or of him that died upon the cross.

Now Christianity, or the doctrine of the gospel, crucifies us to the world: first, by discovering to us the great vanity and emptiness of the world and all the perishing satisfactions of it; secondly, by propounding such arguments to crucify the world, as were never heard of from all the philosophers and wise men that ever lived in the world; namely, arguments taken from the glory of God, from the death of Christ, from the dignity of the soul, &c.

Learn hence, That such a Christian as doth experimentally find his heart and affections daily more and more crucified to the world, by the cross of Christ, has unspeakable cause and reason sufficient for spiritual glorying and rejoicing.

Question, Wherein consists not our crucifixion to the world?

Answer, It consists not in a vile esteem of the world, as useless or hurtful; or in casting off all care and concern for the things of the world, as sinful and unnecessary; nor is every degree of desire after, love unto, or delight in, the things of the world, inconsistent with our being crucified to it: nor doth it consist in, or oblige us to, the withdrawing ourselves from all society and conversation with the men of the world.

But, positively, crucifixion to the world consists in a crucified judgment and opinion of the world; in crucifying our love and affections to the world; in crucifying our hopes and expectations from the world; in crucifying our care and concern for the world; in crucifying our delight in, and our endeavour after, the world.

Question. How doth a Christian’s being crucified to the world, afford him cause for unspeakable rejoicings?

Answer. Thus: We may, and ought to, glory in the blessed effect and fruit of Christ’s death in re-stamping the image of God upon the soul, in the certain tokens of the love of God: we may glory in the death of Christ’s enemy, and our soul’s enemy: we may glory in that wherein God is glorified, and in that which is the earnest of our own glorification. Now crucifixion to the world, by the cross of Christ, is this, all this, and therefore warrantably to be boasted of, and gloried in.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world. [Let these glory if they will, in their wicked activity against the cross, but God forbid that I should glory save in that very cross against which they lift their hands, the cross by which the world has died to me, so that it no longer allures me with its false glories, or terrifies me with its frowns and threats; and by which I, in my turn, have died with Christ as to the world, so that I no longer enjoy or take part in its sinful lusts, and no longer rest under its sentence of condemnation.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. But God forbid. Not only will he not glory in what does away with the cross (5:11), but God forbid that he should glory in anything but the cross. By whom. By this cross he also is crucified, so crucified that he is dead to the world. It is separated from him.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

But may I never boast except in the cross

"I do not ever want to boast in anything other than the cross" or "May I boast only in the cross"

the world has been crucified to me

This can be stated in active form. AT: "I think of the world as already dead" or "I treat the world like a criminal God has killed on a cross" (See: Active or Passive)

I to the world

The words "have been crucified" are understood from the phrase before this. AT: "and I have been crucified to the world" (See: Ellipsis)

I to the world

Possible meanings are 1) "the world thinks of me as already dead" or 2) "the world treats me like a criminal that God has killed on the cross"

the world

Possible meanings are 1) the people of the world, those who care nothing for God or 2) the things that those who care nothing for God think are important.

counts for anything

"is important to God"

a new creation

Possible meanings are 1) a new believer in Jesus Christ or 2) the new life of a believer.

peace and mercy be upon them, even upon the Israel of God

Possible meanings are 1) that believers in general are the Israel of God or 2) "may peace and mercy be upon Gentile believers and upon the Israel of God" or 3) "may peace be upon those who follow the rule, and may mercy be upon even the Israel of God."

translationWords

proud

cross

lord

Jesus

world

crucify

circumcise

circumcise

create

peace

mercy

Israel

God

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

14. ἐμοὶ δὲ. Emphatic position for contrast with those of whom he has just spoken.

μὴ γένοιτο. With dative[170], see Gen 44:7; Jos 24:16 and cf. Mat 15:28.

[170] Is affixed to a word it means that all the passages are mentioned where that word occurs in the New Testament.

καυχᾶσθαι εἰ μὴ ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ κ.τ.λ. Which the false leaders dread (Gal 6:12). Luther strangely understands the phrase to mean our sufferings for Christ. Chrysostom is especially good here.

διʼ οὖ. The antecedent is probably σταυρός, cf. Gal 5:24. It was this in which he boasted.

ἐμοὶ (emphatic as before). κόσμος, “the world.” Anarthrous as in 2Co 5:19; 2Pe 2:5; Rom 4:13. But although as a translation “a world” is somewhat grossly inaccurate, yet the absence of the article (occurring, as this does, so very frequently with κόσμος) does suggest that the world at present, by its very constitution, is contrary to spiritual things. For the thought of the passage cf. Php 3:7. “The world … is to me like yon felon slave, nailed to the cross, dying by a certain and shameful, if a lingering death. And I too am so regarded by the world” (Perowne).

ἐσταύρωται κἀγὼ κόσμῳ. Chrys. writes οὐδὲν τῆς νεκρώσεως ταύτης μακαριώτερον· αὕτη γάρ ἐστι τῆς μακαρίας ζωῆς ἡ ὑπόθεσις. Contrast the power of the world mentioned in Gal 4:3.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14.] But to me let it not happen to boast (on the construction, see reff. Meyer quotes Xen. Cyr. vi. 3. 11,—ὦ Ζεῦ μέγιστε, λαβεῖν μοι γένοιτο αὐτόν), except in the Cross (the atoning death, as my means of reconcilement with God) of our Lord Jesus Christ (the full name for solemnity, and ἡμῶν to involve his readers in the duty of the same abjuration), by means of whom (not so well, ‘of which’ (τοῦ σταυροῦ) as many Commentators; the greater antecedent, τοῦ κυρ. ἡμ. Ἰ. χ., coming after the σταυρῷ, has thrown it into the shade. Besides, it could hardly be said of the Cross, διʼ οὗ) the world (the whole system of unspiritual and unchristian men and things. Notice the absorption of the article in a word which had become almost a proper name: so with ἥλιος, γῆ, πόλις, &c.) has been (and is) crucified (not merely ‘dead:’ he chooses, in relation to σταυρός above, this stronger word, which at once brings in his union with the death of Christ, besides his relation to the world) to me (ἐμοί, dative of ethical relation: so μόνῳ Μαικήνᾳ καθεύδω, Plut. Erot. p. 760 a: see other examples in Bernhardy, p. 85), and I to the world. Ellic. quotes from Schött., ‘alter pro mortuo habet alterum.’

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. ἐμοὶ δὲ μὴ γένοιτο καυχᾶσθαι εἰ μὴ ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ διʼ οὗ ἐμοὶ κόσμος ἐσταύρωται κἀγὼ κόσμῳ. “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom a world hath been crucified to me and I to a world.” In striking contrast with the boasting of the judaisers, which has its sphere and basis in the mere material flesh of men, the apostle sets forth as his ground of boasting—note ἐμοί emphatic by position—the central fact of his gospel, the cross of Christ (cf. Rom 1:16, 1Co 1:23f.) which has wrought a complete revolution in his own life. τῷ σταυρῷ undoubtedly has the same significance as in v. 12. See in v. 15 the clear evidence that the doctrine of the cross is there also the antithesis to legalism. κόσμος is quite certainly employed here in the fifth of the meanings indicated in the note on Στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου, p. 514, viz., “the mode of life characterised by earthly advantages.” But the particular earthly advantages which the apostle has in mind are not, as in 1Jn 2:15, etc., the sensual pleasures of riches and other like things, but, rather, those of which he speaks in Php 3:3, Php 3:4. Paul’s world, κόσμος, with which he severed his relation, when the cross of Christ acquired for him its new significance, was that of Israelitish descent, circumcision, the rank and dignity of a Pharisee, the righteousness that is in law, touching which he was blameless. To this world he became dead by the cross of Christ, because in Christ’s death on the cross he saw a demonstration that God’s way of accepting men was not on the basis of works of law, but on that of faith in Christ. Cf. 2:19, 20, 3:13, 4:4, 5, Rom 3:21ff. Rom 3:4:25, Rom 3:5:18, Rom 3:19. For evidence that the significance of the cross is in what it proves respecting God’s real attitude towards men, see the extended discussion of 3:13. The fulness of the expression τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ adds weight to the utterance and reflects the emotion with which the statement is made; cf. detached note on the Titles and Predicates of Jesus, p. 393. As to what the apostle means by “boasting in the cross,” see 1Co 1:18ff. Rom 5:2, Rom 5:3, Rom 5:11.

On μὴ γένοιτο, see on 2:17. On the use of the dative with γένοιτυ (here only in N. T. with μὴ γένοιτο), cf. Luk 1:38; see also Mat 8:13, Mat 9:29. The infinitive does not occur elsewhere in N. T. after μὴ γένοιτο, but is common in Lxx; cf. Gen 44:7, Gen 44:17, Jos 22:29, Jos 22:24:16, 1Ki 20:3 (21:3) 1 Mac. 9:10, 13:5 (cited by Ltft.); for the inf. after other forms of γίνομαι, cf. Act 9:32, Luk 6:12, Mat 18:13. The use of κόσμος and κόσμῳ without the article gives to both words a qualitative emphasis; cf. Rom 11:15, 1Co 3:22, 2Co 5:19. ἐμοί and κόσμῳ are datives of relation; see on νόμῳ, 2:19 and cf. Rom 6:2, Rom 6:10, Rom 6:11, Rom 6:7:6. δἰ οὗ, characterising the cross as that through the instrumentality of which he had wholly severed connection with his old world of Pharisaic dignity and legalism, leaves undescribed the process by which the cross achieved this result. For this unexpressed element of the apostle’s thought, see on 2:19, 20, and especially on 3:12, 14.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Contrast of Paul 's own boasting and its ground with those of the false apostles.

By whom [δι ου] . The relative may refer either to the cross, by which, or to Christ, by whom. The cross was a stumbling - block to the Jews (ch. 3 13), and it is the crucified Christ that Paul is emphasizing. Comp. ch. Gal 2:20; Gal 5:24.

The world [κοσμος] . See on Joh 1:9; Act 17:24; 1Co 4:9.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.