The Old Cross and The New

[Christ's Free Servant]

The Old Cross And The New

by A.W. Tozer, 1946

Man: The Dwelling Place Of God, Published 1966

NOTE: This article first appeared in The Alliance Witness in 1946.  It has been printed in virtually every English-speaking country in the world and has been put into tract form by various publishers, including Christian Publications, Inc.  It still appears now and then in the religious press.

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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, 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 life motivation 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 thrillseeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship." 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 goodbye 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 bearers.  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 world through 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.

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[IslandRose]

Exactly!

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Luke 13:5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

[Leonard]

Sorry, but I thought it was legalistic tripe!

[Christ's Free Servant]

Sorry, but I thought it was legalistic tripe!

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Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. I agree that small parts of it could appear legalistic, but take a deeper look, because this writing is rich in biblical truth and although written in the 1940's is quite culturally accurate to the spiritual condition of today's church.

[Christ's Free Servant]

Exactly!

Matthew 4:17  From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Luke 13:5  I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

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Thank you for your response. This article has been a favorite of mine, so I thought I would share it on here for the enjoyment and encouragement of others.

[Leonard]

I think there are a few who could fit the description in that article. Mostly it struck me as a 'holier than thou' trying to make himself feel big at the expense of mostly-imaginary 'others.' He erected a straw man then bravely devastated it!

[nebula]

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him.

[Christ's Free Servant]

It's what happens when the modern philosophical view of "tolerance" sneaks its way into the theology of the church.

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Absolutely! And, it has sneaked its way into more churches than you can imagine.

I think sometimes we think of "tolerance" in terms only of tolerating homosexuality or sexual promiscuity, etc. among the members of our church, but what I think we ignore often is what is coming right into our living rooms.

We might teach holy living in our churches, but then we invite the devil right into our homes through our television sets. I am not against TV, but I have to say that I have not found much redeeming value in anything on it other than the news, and even that is questionable now days.

I turned the TV on the other night to get some news and the news was R rated, so I flipped a few channels just to see what was on and found a documentary of sorts and then it had bad language and sexual content so I changed to another station and immediately heard bad language (stuff that used to be reserved for R rated movies) and then another channel had more sexual content and I must have gone through 8 to 10 regular (not cable) channels and could not find anything decent. This is why I don't watch TV anymore.

[Leonard]

Well, I AM against TV. I have my favorite shows, but it is mostly just brain-rotting, morals corrupting garbage! For more than 20 years, I have tried to get it out of my home, but my wife LOVES TV. It is true she tends to watch wholesome shows (except when she's watching the 'Wife-Beater Channel'--I think it's called 'Lifetime TV'???), but I still think we'd be much better off without it.

[Christ's Free Servant]

Well, I AM against TV.  I have my favorite shows, but it is mostly just brain-rotting, morals corrupting garbage!  For more than 20 years, I have tried to get it out of my home, but my wife LOVES TV.  It is true she tends to watch wholesome shows (except when she's watching the 'Wife-Beater Channel'--I think it's called 'Lifetime TV'???), but I still think we'd be much better off without it.

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Thanks, Leonard, for your input.