"The OLD CROSS and the NEW"-by A.W. Tozer.
"The OLD CROSS and the NEW"-by A.W. Tozer.
All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.
From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique - a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.
The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His lifemotivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.
The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better. The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill-seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christianfellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.
The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.
The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.
The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.
That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.
We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him. What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.
Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.
To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the worldthrough the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God's approval. Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth?
Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.
All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.
From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique - a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.
The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His lifemotivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.
The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better. The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill-seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christianfellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.
The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.
The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.
The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.
That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.
We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him. What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.
Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.
To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the worldthrough the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God's approval. Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth?
Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.
5 Comments:
(proxy for Derek)
What always causes me to wince a bit is not Tozer's content (notably Pursuit of God), but his tenor and his somewhat overly harsh juxtapositions. It isn't hard to image, with some extension, Flannery O'Conner modeling
one of her heros on Tozer.
The 'old cross' is not opposed to the 'human race' (it is really radically for it), as if to annihilate our humanity, it is opposed to sin. He makes far to broad a stroke and in so doing wipes out what must remain; for the human race involves humanity and Jesus existed as fully human. Man is not nearly so black and white; sin is a disease not a complete hollowing of that
which is the image of God. Man still bears that image, however fallen and in desperate need of reconcilition and redemption.
Jesus never seems to bear this sort of harshness of tone when he preaches the kingdom of God to sinners. It isn't that his message penetrates to our
condition any less but that his love emerges, from his person and actions and teaching, as far more overwhelming. And without the ever so present
slight shrillness of voice.
Imagine being with C.S. Lewis or Chesterton and contrast that to being with Tozer and you will get the image. Tozer has a certain lessening of the
fullness of reality, a stripping down that is present in all his work. Chesterton and Lewis expand, Tozer contracts. Tozer seems to have been so lost in the transendence of God that he forgets to enjoy the fact that he lives incarnate and always will.
He may not be pounding his fist on the desk as he writes but it isn't hard to image that he is. He seems more like Isaiah than Jesus. All judgement
and fury and fire. The blast of his voice tends to make me feel as if there is an immense amount that I must overcome to get to where he is; the trumpet
call of Christ makes me forget all that and draws me with inexorable love and wonder toward that for which I was made.
Derek
(proxy for bruce)
Derek,
I love your respones and couldn't have worded it any better. I wholeheartedly agree with Tozer on several points. Where the church has "changed" the gospel in an effort to make it more palatible to sinners is wrong ie. prosperity theology, universalism, "no such thing as sin", etc.
However, at it's core the gospel IS GOOD NEWS and should be presented as such. That is very much the tone I see in Jesus' interactions with people.
I read a lot of prophetic stuff from David Wilkerson (and others) and he often has the same tone. He reaches against using movie clips in worship services, etc. following that same line of thinking "old cross / new
cross."
However, I imagine that the Pharisees condemned Jesus for "dumbing down the Torah" by using parables and simple stories to illustrate deep spiritual truths. I have found that many people's objections are not really with WHAT gospel is being presented, but HOW it is presented. They are not really doctrinal objections; they are really methodological objections. May God
help us to NEVER alter the Gospel and the cross in any way, but may God give us the grace to constantly adapt the way we present it in an ever-changing culture so "that nothing might hinder the gospel" as Paul said!
BTW - I read much of the book "Jack" (Biography of CS Lewis) last week during Thanksgiving, and Lewis was always "expanding" as you said, without compromising essential truth at all. And there is an element in his
writing that lovingly and convincingly draws the sinner to repentance before God, without compromising the cross at all.
Anyway, good word brother!
Bruce
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I think it's great the way God brings different perceptions from the same passage by the unique experience we have had in our lives. Derek sees the lack of compassion for the frailty of our human state and even the lack of acknowledgement that we are human. Bruce brings out that the Gospel is Good News no matter the presentation. Both encouraging and totally different thought processes from where I went with it.
I was struck by the contrast drawn between the Cross and the attempts of man to bring about the repentance of man. There is only one Cross, no old, no new and that Cross is opposed to the humanity of Adam within
us. It does seek to anihilate that old man which to me personally does seem black and white but maybe it's not?
I was brought to the point of thinking of my own journey with Christ and how he destroyed the man that I used to be through that Cross that would not waver. Specifically:
" It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more."
Maybe Tozer went to far with "human being" and should have thought more from the spiritual perspective that it is the old man that was brought to an "abrupt" and "violent" end. I reminisced of the day after Christ
slaughtered that man. The day when I sat with my friend and explained to him that "my life" was over but that the new had come in such a fashion that was almost indescribable. The Cross made no compromise when it was laid in front of me. It didn't seek good terms with me or my friends but brought about cruel and hard measures to ensure that I would be here today standing in the light.
sojourning,
Robb
In my response to all that I have read from Derek, Bruce and Robb is press forward. I am so encouraged by the flow of truth through the _expression of giftedness.
I believe that Tozer was stressing the importance of preaching the whole gospel when some of his counterparts were sharing just portions of the gospel. For example, many were saying that the gospel is good news and would leave out the part where Christ would say forsake all that you have, come and follow me or take up your cross and follow me. Many were preaching Christ will accept you just as you are and there was no mention of commitment to following Christ. When Charles Finney was preaching it seemed to be about numbers and Tozer is saying that the numbers are in the hands of the Father and we are commissioned to preach the whole gospel. This may be why he seems so harsh.
As for what Derek was saying concerning Tozer:
The 'old cross' is not opposed to the 'human race' (it is really radically for it), as if to annihilate our humanity, it is opposed to sin. He makes far to broad a stroke and in so doing wipes out what must remain; for the human race involves humanity and Jesus existed as fully human. Man is not nearly so black and white; sin is a disease not a complete hollowing of that which is the image of God. Man still bears that image, however fallen and in desperate need of reconciliation and redemption. I believe Tozer’s view is one that says it is not about the human that comes to a realization of his need for God. Humanity is lost and in a dead condition without the help of the Father to make one alive they will remain in this state. This is birthed in him by the sole work of the Father. Tozer does embrace the man’s response to reconciliation, repentance and renewal (renewing your mind in Christ Jesus).
Jesus never seems to bear this sort of harshness of tone when he preaches the kingdom of God to sinners. What about the time when he preached to the Pharisee’s (sinner’s) that their father was the devil? The Pharisee’s were religious but they were also lost – sinner’s. It isn't that his message penetrates to our condition any less but that his love emerges, from his person and actions and teaching, as far more overwhelming. And without the ever so present slight shrillness of voice.
What ever method we use to share the gospel it will be good news to those who have ears to hear. I have been very impressed how we at TC@HC have used different methods to share the truth and not compromised on the gospel. All will approach the gospel with a different emotion but the truth be told all will and should be convicted to preach the whole gospel.
Why did Jesus say to the women caught in adultery go and sin no more and to the rich man He said go and sell all that you have and come and follow me? The whole gospel is preached according to the setting at the time. That is why it is so important that we be still and hear from the Father.
Someone may come to one Sunday worship service and hear, "you without sin cast the first stone." We are not saying we minimize the importance of repentance from sin. The whole message of truth is not conveyed in one sitting. Just like Christ who took 2 1/2 to 3 years to share truth with his followers. We are all on a journey. The journey is to embrace truth within every circumstance. So in one day you may share the importance of embracing Christ because He is for you and the next day you may share the importance of dying to self. Both are inclusive of the gospel.
The whole frame work of this discussion can be summarized in one word – relationship. Christ was fully dependent upon the Father and He had the capacity to know the heart of every person He preached the whole gospel suitable to the person at the time. For us, or I should say for me, I’m not sure about the heart of everyone I come in contact with and I may share with them the gospel as is needed for them at this time in their life. But as I build this relationship with them further aspects of the gospel are shared as we journey together. Hopefully I will communicate the whole gospel with clarity filled with grace, truth and love.
I love the journey the Father has each one of us on, and I embrace all of you for the cause and glory of Christ.
Keith
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