48. Chapter 7: The Mold of the Cross

The Mold of the Cross

Chapter 7 The subject I want to discuss in this message is, “The Molding Power of the Cross,” and I shall begin atPhp 3:10, the last clause of that verse, which I shall quote from the translation by Conybeare, “Sharing the likeness of His death.” Our Lord Jesus Christ has just one mold for producing Christian character, and that is the cross. You and I cannot reach our goal except in the way in which He reached His goal, and the cross is the mold through which He puts each one who is to represent Him here and who is to reign with Him hereafter. For the cross is the only place where we get rid of dead things that hinder us and hinder Him, and the place where we enter into a deep and an ever deeper conformity with Him, sharing in the likeness of His death, having His image impressed upon our character. When I use the word “mold” let there be no mistake. I do not mean that each one of us becomes the facsimile of every other one. There is this which differentiates the mold of the cross from every earthly mold, that while the cross is the only mold which He uses, it has no stereotyped pattern. Our Lord never trespasses against the law of personality. Just as you will not find two members of the same family exactly alike, or two blades of grass in the same plot similar, so in the new creation the cross does not produce a monotony of spiritual character, which would make the world an intolerable place in which to live, but a variety of natures, each bearing its own mark of individuality, and all of them together revealing the marvelous manifoldness of the divine mind and the divine spirit.