C.J. Mahaney’s, Christ Our Mediator, is a wonderful short mediation on the glorious cross of Jesus Christ. He quotes his “historical hero, Charles Spurgeon, who wrote, ‘Abide hard by the cross and search the mystery of His wounds” (12).
In chapters three and four, Mahaney writes about how Jesus saved us from God’s wrath on the cross. Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath, so that, “today you and I find ourselves with another cup in our hands. It’s the cup of salvation. From this precious new cup we find ourselves drinking and drinking–drinking consistently, drinking endlessly, drinking eternally…for the cup of salvation is always full and overflowing” (57).
In the closing chapter of his book, Mahaney shows how Christians can have assurance and joy in this life, in the midst of our own sufferings, because of Jesus’ suffering on the cross. He implores the reader that the cross must be our daily focus. He writes:
In your own times of severe distress, which are you more aware of–your suffering or your salvation? What the Puritan Thomas Watson recognized will always be true for us: “Your sufferings are not so great as your sins: Put these two in the balance, and see which weighs heaviest.” We can rejoice even amid affliction when we recognize the seriousness of our sins and their just penalty, and the forgiveness and salvation we’re so graciously granted through Christ’s death (89).
In his book, Mahaney includes a number of wonderful cross-centered quotes from church history, including one from the great Reformer, Martin Luther. Luther “once wrote that he taught the gospel ‘again and again, because I greatly fear that after we have laid our head to rest, it will soon be forgotten and will again disappear’” (92). Oh, that daily we would preach the gospel to ourselves, even as we seek to proclaim that same glorious gospel to others!
