Meditations on the Cross - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

Behold the Lamb of God!

I have glorified Thee on the earth.
John 1:36; John 17:4

Meditations on the Cross
As the Lamb of God, Christ perfectly glorifies God in John 13; as the Son, He perfectly glorifies the Father in John 14.

It is a wonderful thing, the cross; there, and there only, was God fully glorified.

Where do we find the love of God in all its fullness? At the cross: "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us" (1 Jn. 3:16). Where do we find perfect righteousness against sin? At the cross: "He made Him to be sin, for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Where do we find absolute obedience? At the cross, where Christ was before God in the very place of sin: "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Where was the majesty of God fully vindicated? Nowhere but at the cross: "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." The more we look into the cross—and we must come to it first as poor sinners that need salvation—the more we shall wonder at God's love. We get in the cross man in absolute hatred to God and all the power of Satan; Man, much more than man, in absolute obedience; and God in perfect righteousness against sin. All man was in goodness in Christ; all man was in badness; and all God was in love and righteousness, came out at the cross.

Every question of good and evil was settled at the cross. The new heaven and new earth are founded on it. Though all our blessing is wrapped up in it, "God's Lamb" is for God's glory—for Himself and according to what He is.

J. N. Darby