The Cross our Glory (sermon 1859)

Here is Spurgeon at the heart of his ministerial and pastoral calling: glorying in the cross of a crucified Christ. Here is the essential power of all his preaching, and here is the delight of his own soul. Unpacking the sermon methodically, and finding his time running out as he expands upon this theme, Spurgeon begins with the cross itself, and what the apostle meant when he thought of it and spoke of it. He had in mind the fact of the cross, the bare reality of the incarnate Son of God dying for sinners. He had in mind the doctrine of the cross, and all it means, and the cross of the doctrine, the very centre and core of true Christianity. And why did Paul glory in this? Spurgeon ranges across the attributes of God, highlighting the ways in which God is manifested and magnified in the salvation accomplished in the death of his beloved Son, as well as speaking of the particular delights and comforts and stirrings which it brings to those who glory in it. And then, says our preacher, Paul had felt all its impact on his own soul and on his own life. The world had been emptied of all its attraction, all its enticements, all its glories, by the glory of the cross. Oh that the glory of the cross would have the same impact on us today, that the death of Christ would slay in us both self and the world, and so hold our hearts that no-one and nothing else would ever draw us, but that Christ in all the matchless mercy of his atoning sacrifice would be and remain our all-in-all.