"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' Galatians 6:14
The word cross is the short term for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ whereby He satisfied divine justice, brought in everlasting righteousness, put sin away and redeemed all those for whom He died. Paul gloried in this doctrine of substitutionary redemption. The very truth which was so distasteful to the Jews was Paul's greatest source of joy! While they wanted to conceal the cross, Paul proclaimed it boldly. Though they were ashamed of it and sought to push it over to the side, Paul delighted in it and brought it out in the open – even to the very center of his preaching! He wrote to one church and said, "I am determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:2). Paul preached that Christ "was delivered for our offenses" and that "He died for our sins," and that in Him "we have redemption through His blood." He boldly declared that Christ was made "sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." He preached "We who are far off were brought nigh by the blood of His cross" and that Christ "gave Himself for us, a sacrifice and an offering, that He might bring us to God." This was the constant theme of his ministry. The doctrine that Paul gloried in is that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree."