Offense of the Cross (Galatians 5:11)

“And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased.” (Galatians 5:11)

Why does the cross of Jesus Christ offend the learned and wise of the world? The cross is where the Lord Jesus Christ was put to death. The best man who had ever lived on the face of the earth is Jesus. Yet he was pronounced to death in the court of heaven when the Father imposed the sin of the world upon Him. That’s the offense to the world. No one can stand on his own no matter how he has been educated, achieved, and earned. In order to have life everyone must stand on the cross. There is no other ground than the cross to come into full riches of life.

Cross is the symbol of excruciating and unbearable humiliation, shame, guilt, pain, agony, and death. People don’t want that at all. Rather, everyone wants to be exalted, adulated, praised, commenced, and honored. We all are good at it. We hate to be humiliated, ashamed, isolated, insulted, and offended. That’s what the cross does even to our Lord Jesus Christ when he was made sin in our place. Why is the offense of the cross the way to life? It’s because as the best man must be crucified to death man is deadly poisoned by the lie that he can run his life without God. It is not true and will not be true that man can handle his life on his own. Man is not made that way. We are made in His image and His likeness to be His eternal indwelling residence.

Since the fall of Adam, man lost His likeness to function and operate as God intended him to function and operate. Natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” (Romans 8:7) “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” (Galatians 5:17) That’s the mystery of lawlessness. As Paul cried out, so also we cry out, saying “What a wretched man I am!” No value whatsoever is found in man to earn the righteousness of God. Total bankruptcy is the reality of humanity in the sight of Holy God.

The cross of Christ forever stands as the offence and the stumbling block to the stubborn and the self-righteous. “Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and, ‘A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.” (2 Peter 2:7-8) The cross of Christ forever stands as the way to the Father, rivers of living water to the humble and the contrite in heart. “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." (John 7:38) The cross leads us to eternal life. “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2:15)