I have just finished Dear Friends, an inspiring collection of pastoral letters from Jonathan Fletcher to his congregation at Emmanuel Church Wimbledon (Jonathan spoke at our church weekend away in 2008). They are full of warm, pithy, biblically-rooted and pastorally-applied wisdom. In the letter for November 2011, he pays tribute to John Stott, who died in July 2011. John Stott chose for his funeral a Bible reading from Galatians, specifically for these words from the apostle Paul: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).
Why did he – and why should we – want to keep the cross so central? There is nothing like the cross to humble us and at the same time to exalt God (and those two things always go together). Without the cross, we will forever be making much of ourselves and little of God. “The cross of Christ … tells us of our need for a substitute to die in our place. For God to permit a substitute was very merciful; to provide a substitute amazing grace – but to become the substitute is grace beyond all measure.” The cross shows us that we cannot bear our own sins; someone must bear them for us if we are not to be lost forever. The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament demonstrate that God not only allows, but actually provides, a substitute. But it takes the fullness of God’s revelation in the New Testament to learn that, in Christ, God actually becomes the substitute we need. That is truly “grace beyond all measure.”