I had intended to post an article that would flow out from the one last week. However, my rather lengthy response to a friend’s question addresses an issue from which I believe others will benefit. The query raised was generated out of the inquisitor’s hearing my four lectures a few weeks ago at the Common Slaves Fall Conference where my theme was “Let Us Run the Race with Perseverance and Assurance.”
I think that I understand your concern. As I read your correspondence, the following statement leaps out to me: “In any case, I feel funny about it because it seems I’ve been trained to view the cross as the only thing in life or death worth really focusing on, or as the old line goes, beat a path to the cross since everything flows that direction.” I think that the issue that nags at you is the same one that I observed many years ago while listening to a sermon by a preacher whose fame was on the rise. I distinctly remember that while I sat and listened to that sermon I was frustrated with what struck me as needless obscuring of what should have been clear to anyone who occupies the pulpit and which the preacher should have made clear with relative ease if he had given sufficient attention to how the Apostle Paul expresses his thoughts. Some preachers, however, seem to have an uncanny knack for rendering biblical texts unduly complex and complicated.
The preacher was preaching on Galatians 6:14—“May it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” What troubled the preacher is the exclusivity of the cross as the only thing in which the Apostle Paul would boast, yet elsewhere the Apostle seems to be boasting in other things. He was troubled by other texts where Paul uses the same word for “boast” or “exult” to speak of boasting or exulting in other things. He cited the following passages as sources of his disquiet.
- We exult in hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2).
- We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that they produce patience and approvedness and hope (Romans 5:3).
- Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9).
- Who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you?” (1 Thessalonians 2:19).
Thus, the preacher wondered, “So, if the Apostle can boast and exult in all these things, what does he mean when he claims that his exclusive boast is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? Does Paul engage in double-talk? Is he contradicting himself by saying that he is exulting only in one thing but also exulting in other things?”
As I reflect on that sermon, it took many needless minutes for the preacher to reach some resolution of the tension, and yet, his resolution was neither sufficient nor satisfying as he presented it. Yes, he eventually did make the point that all our boasting or exulting should be exultation in the cross of Christ by affirming that exulting in the hope of God’s glory, exulting in tribulations, exulting in weaknesses, etc. should be an exulting in the cross. Why was it not sufficient or satisfying? The answer troubled me immensely as I listened to the sermon and it still troubles me because I heard him preach the same sermon on another occasion. That subsequent sermon showed that the preacher still did not understand the point that I am about to make. While I sat there in the pew listening intently to the sermon, I thought, “How is it that a highly educated preacher does not seem to grasp the literary nature of what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians? How is it that a seminary educated preacher fails to apprehend the figure of speech that the Apostle Paul is using in Galatians 6:14? How simply and how clearly the preacher could have answered his own puzzlement and question and resolved the tension if he had simply assisted the pew people to understand that Paul is using a figure of speech in the passage, that Paul uses synecdoche when he mentions the cross of Jesus Christ just as he does elsewhere. How simple and clear it would be if only he would show the people that Paul uses ‘the cross’ as a principal aspect of the gospel by way of synecdoche for the gospel.”
Galatians 6:14 is not the only place where Paul uses “the cross” as an aspect of the gospel by way of synecdoche for the whole gospel (synecdoche—a part used to represent the whole). Even more vividly Paul synecdoche in 1 Corinthians 1:17-18—“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Here, it is obvious that Paul substitutes “the gospel” with “the cross of Christ,” by way of synecdoche, when he mentions the cross again, he expands it to “the message of the cross.”
Without any doubt, the preacher eventually got it right in his sermon concerning why our boast must be in the cross of Christ. The reason is that everything, whether good or bad (for in God’s purposes all things work together for our good for all who are in Christ Jesus) was secured by the cross of Christ Jesus. Without his crucifixion, every one of us would receive nothing but divine punishment. Without the cross, ours would be only condemnation. Consequently, everything that we enjoy in Christ is due to the cross. Apart from the cross, there is no blessing at all.
Therefore, I am arguing that the conflict you are experiencing, as expressed in the statement I cite above, is no real conflict at all. Your own comment captures this well when you query, “Maybe it’s best thought of as a mental shift from cruci-centricity to a more fully-orbed Christocentricity?” My response to your query is this: To be cruci-centric is to be Christo-centric. Why? Because any proper featuring of the cross is not essentially a crucifix, the cross with Christ Jesus still on it. Rather, any proper featuring of the cross necessarily entails synecdoche, as the Apostle Paul conceives of the gospel, by featuring a principal aspect of Christ’s work, namely his sacrificial death on the cross, for the whole of Christ’s work. It is to feature an aspect of the gospel as a representative of the whole gospel. Any proper mention of the cross of Christ necessarily points to God’s Last Day verdict brought forward into the midst of history by Christ Jesus who brought forward both the verdict of God’s judgment and the vindicating life of resurrection from the Last Day. Thus, when Christ Jesus was crucified, he endured the wrath of God’s Last Day judgment on behalf of everyone who is in him. Likewise, when he was raised from the dead, his resurrection assured that all who are in him will most certainly rise from the dead unto eternal life on the Last Day, the Day Resurrection.
Thus, our prospective gaze upon Christ Jesus that we might lay hold of (Philippians 3:12-14) does not in the slightest diminish our cruci-centric affirmation. Rather, as the Apostle Paul instructs us that when we eat the bread of the Holy Meal and drink from the cup of that same meal we simultaneously remember and anticipate if we are mindfully engaged concerning the infused symbolism of the meal. “‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:25-26). Apart from the cross of Christ, there is no anticipation, there is no hope of God’s glory, no hope in our tribulations, no hope in our weaknesses, no hope or joy or crown of exultation. At the same time, we must not fixate upon Christ’s crucifixion as if it and it alone were the gospel. To become so consumed with the crucifixion yields the crucifix and all the lore that attaches to it. Yes, the cross, the crucifixion is essential to the gospel, the good news as it is in Jesus, but it is not the whole of it. It is sufficiently central so that it serves well as a synecdoche for the whole gospel, as the Apostle Paul uses it in at least two places (1 Corinthians 1:17-18; Galatians 6:14). However, nowhere does the Apostle Paul or any other of Christ’s apostles reduce the gospel to Messiah’s crucifixion. This is manifestly clear in what Paul tells the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:1-6).
Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, which is his being afflicted with the condemnation of God’s Last Day judgment on behalf of us, followed by his resurrection, which is his justification on our behalf (1 Timothy 3:16), establishes the good news which entails the public pronouncement of God’s Last Day verdict already, in advance of the Last Day. This is what the Apostle John means when he writes, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light and will not come into the Light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God” (John 3:16-21). (Take note that I capitalize Light because it is not speaking merely of the counterpart to darkness but of the One who is Light, the True Light, Jesus Christ.)
So, I trust that readers now understand how crucial it is to recognize the language conventions that the writers of the Scriptures employed. Synecdoche is not an uncommon figure of speech. Even folks who do not know the proper names or designations of various figures of speech use them every day. When a gloating male says, “Check out my new wheels,” even the most uncultured male does not kneel to inspect either the rims or the tires. He realizes that wheels, an important part, represent the whole vehicle. Likewise, when a young man asks his girlfriend’s father, “May I have your daughter’s hand in marriage?”, the father may recoil but not because he infers that his daughter’s hand will be severed if he answers in the affirmative. Of course, he realizes that the “hand” is mentioned to represent the whole young woman to whom the young man made his marriage proposal and that “hand” signifies the symbolic anticipated placement of a wedding ring.
Thus, when the Apostle Paul expresses his intention never to boast in anything “except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he is not speaking of the cross alone, and certainly not of the wooden stipes (upright) and the patibulum (crossbeam), the instrument of Christ’s crucifixion, though this is not excluded. Rather, by way of a figure of speech, Paul is referring to the whole gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which features at its center his crucifixion, which plants in the midst of history God’s verdict of the Last Day, triumphantly followed by Jesus’ resurrection, which at the center of history announces the sure and undaunted conquest of God’s Kingdom, his Redemptive Rule over all creation.