There is nothing like the cross! It stands in all its solitary greatness and grandeur in the center of eternity. It is the wonder of every intelligent creature, for on it is inscribed not only evil and hatred of fallen beings, but also the goodness and love of God. Out of the shadows of the past we see it looming in all its brightness and blackness, faithfulness and treachery, righteousness and sin, compassion and cruelty, love and hatred.

By its light the heart of heaven is recorded and we can discover the deepest depths of evil. There is the inky sea of human guilt but also the undefiled ocean of grace. Nothing else from the past can compare with it; neither can anything arise in the future to rival it. Contemplating it, we see the greatest sin man ever committed, but also the mightiest display of the infinite mercy of God. Man was there tested in all his moral being, and there the compassions of God were sounded to their tremendous depths.

The cross is where the hostile fallen creature lifts impious hands and strikes with deadly intent, but where the Creator answered with unspeakable and infinite love. There we see wickedness impossible to be exceeded by man, but also evidence of favor which God Himself could never repeat! Heaven itself shall not be vast enough to circumscribe all the love, all the grace, and all the mercy which have been expressed there on Golgotha.

As another has said, “Human thought is here confounded; ’tis too vast to comprehend.”