MORE THOUGHTS ON THE CROSS

Below are several quotes on the centrality and uniqueness of the Cross taken from John Stott's The Cross of Christ

"Christ is to us just what his cross is. All that Christ was in heaven or on earth was put into what he did there... Christ, I repeat, is to us just what his cross is. You do not understand Christ till you understand his cross."

P.T. Forsyth The Cruciality of the Cross

"On this interpretation of the work of Christ (sc. the Pauline doctrine of reconciliation) the whole Church rests. If you move faith from that centre, you have driven the nail into the Church's coffin. The Church is then doomed to death, and it is only a matter of time when she shall expire."

P.T. Forsyth The Work of Christ

"In Christianity faith in the Mediator is not something optional, not something about which, in the last resort, it is possible to hold different opinions, if we are only united on the 'main point'. For faith in the Mediator - in the event which took place once for all, a revealed atonement - is the Christian religion itself; it is the 'main point'; it is not something alongside of the centre; it is the substance and kernel, not the husk. This is so true that we may even say: in the distinction from all other forms of religion, the Christian religion is faith in the one Mediator... And there, is no other possibility of being a Christian than through faith in that which took place once for all, revelation and atonement through the Mediator.

The Cross is the sign of the Christian faith, of the Christian Church, of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ... The whole struggle of the Reformation for the sola fide, the soli deo gloria, was simply the struggle for the right interpretation of the Cross. He who understands the Cross aright - this is the opinion of the Reformers - understands the Bible, he understands Jesus Christ."

Emil Brunner The Mediator