THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS

After His Resurrection, with His Disciples still not believing that He has risen from the dead, He suddenly appeared to two of His Disciples as they were going to a village called Emmaus. The Disciples did not recognize Who He was; they thought He was merely a stranger.

The Scripture says, “And He said unto them, What manner of communications are these that you have one to another, as you walk, and are sad?” (Lk. 24:17). They began to relate to Him all the things which recently had happened.

“Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken:
“Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Lk. 24:25-27).

The Cross of Christ is the foundation principle of all Biblical Doctrine. It is the foundation because it is the first principle of Redemption, brought about in the Mind of God even before the foundation of the world (I Pet. 1:18-20). This means that every single doctrine must be built on the foundation of Christ and the Cross, or else, in some way, it will be spurious. And that’s the problem with the modern Church; it is building doctrines on other foundations.  Paul addressed this by saying: “According to the Grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder (in essence Paul, under Christ, founded the Church), I have laid the foundation (Jesus Christ and Him Crucified), and another builds thereon (speaks of all Preachers who followed thereafter, even unto this very moment, and have built upon this foundation). But let every man take heed how he builds thereupon. (All must preach the same Doctrine Paul preached, in essence, “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.”)

“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid (anything other than the Cross is another foundation, and therefore unacceptable to the Lord)¸ which is Jesus Christ (Who He is, God manifest in the flesh, and what He did, Redemption through the Cross [I Cor. 3:10-11]).

In I Corinthians 1:17, which we have just quoted, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle tells us exactly what the Gospel is. To be brief, it is the “Cross of Christ.” As our Lord said to me, “The answer for which you seek is found in the Cross,” in effect, He actually said, “In the Cross, and only in the Cross.” 

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