Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.
Author: J.C. Ryle Source: The Cross: A Call to the Fundamentals of Religion.
A man who covers up the cross though he may be an intellectual man, and draw large crowds will have no ilk there, and his church will be but a gilded sepulcher.
Look at that Roman soldier as he pushed his spear into the very heart of the God-man. What a hellish deed! But what was the next thing that took place? Blood covered the spear! Oh! thank God, the blood covers sin. There was the blood covering that spear-the very point of it. The very crowning act of sin brought out the crowning act of love; the crowning act of wickedness was the crowning act of grace.
It is said that old Dr. Alexander, of Princeton College, when a young student used to start out to preach, always gave them a piece of advice. The old man would stand with his gray locks and his venerable face and say: "Young man, make much of the blood in your ministry? Now, I have traveled considerable during the past few years, and never met a minister who made much of the blood and much of the atonement but God had blessed his ministry, and souls were born into the light by it.
Look at Him at Gethsemane, sweating as it were great drops of blood; look at Him on the cross, crucified between two thieves; hear that piercing cry, "Father, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." And as you look into that face, as you look into those wounds on His feet or His hands, will you say He has not the power to save you? Will you say He has not the power so redeem you?
If, then, escape is to be open to us, it is not to come to us somehow, vaguely. We are not to hope for anything startling or mysterious. It is a definite opening along certain lines which are definitely marked by God, which begin at the Cross of Christ, and lead direct to Him.
Author: Henry Drummond Source: Natural Law, Degeneration, p. 117.
There is an infinite distance between God and His creatures, and it is an act of sheer grace for Him to take notice of earthly things. Christ, as God, is completely self-sufficient in His own eternal blessedness. How great, then, is the glory of His self-humiliation in taking our nature that He might bring us to God! Such humiliation was not forced on Him; He freely chose to do it.
Author: John Owen Source: Meditation on the Glory of Christ, 1684, ch. 4.
There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.
Author: John Owen Source: A Puritan Golden Treasury
To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.
That the sinless Son of God must die upon the Cross to redeem us shouldn't make us feel good about ourselves but ashamed, for it was our sins that nailed Him there.
The New Covenant is the bond between God and man, established by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, under which all who have been effectively called to God in all ages have been formed into the one body of Christ in NT times, in order to come under His law during this age and to remain under His authority forever.
Author: Tom Wells Source: New Covenant Theology, page 75-76
Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.