Much more is meant by the “cross of Christ” than the means of pardon for the sinner. To treat it only as the great remedy for man’s need, however true as far as it goes, is to rob it of an immense deal of its importance as well as to obscure the truth and shut out God’s glory.

For in that most stupendous of all facts, what has not come to issue? God’s holy hatred and judgment of sin; His amazing love of the sinner; the infinite grace, humiliation, and suffering of the Savior; the audacity and craft of Satan; the abominable wickedness of man, under the best possible circumstances; and spite of the greatest benefits, without cause to justify or excuse to palliate—all met, as nowhere else, in the cross.

There the pretensions of man are crushed; sin condemned and put away; Satan defeated and vanquished; judgment borne; and God glorified in Christ who knew no sin made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him. There only indeed divine attributes and ways, which our sin had otherwise seemed to set aside or at variance, are now conciliated forever on behalf of those that believe, and a firm basis laid for the ruined creation, as well as the people of God, to be made new and shine unto eternal ages to the glory of God.