◄ Church Plight ►

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27).

In regard to the external Cross, the obvious fact is that "Christ died for our sins." As to the internal Cross, while not so obvious, it is still a fact that we are to be "always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4:11).

"Popular Fundamentalist theology has emphasized the utility of the Cross rather than the beauty of the One who died on it. The saved man's relation to the Lord Jesus has been made contractual instead of personal. The work' of Christ has been stressed until it has eclipsed the Person of Christ. Substitution has been allowed to supersede identification. What He did for us seems to be more important than what He did to us." -A.W.T.

"The death of the Lord Jesus was not only an atonement for sins, but a triumph over sin. By faith we see our sins not only on His head for our pardon, but sin under His feet for our deliverance. Multitudes who glory in the outward Cross know nothing of that inward crucifixion which it has also made possible, whereby they are delivered from the power of self and sin, the world, the flesh, and the devil. That they do not know: That their old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, so that they should no longer be in bondage to sin' (Rom. 6:6)." -G.M.

"We are not only to take by faith the fact that the Lord Jesus died for us to pay the price and penalty of our sins, but we are to appropriate by faith the fact that He also took us to the Cross with Him. In Christ, God put to death our old man that we might be delivered from the power and dominion of sin in our lives. So the story of the pathway of faith begins with Calvary and our identification with the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus." -G.M.

"You were set free from the tyranny of sin" (Rom. 6:18, Wey.).