Glorying in the Cross — John Stott · All Souls

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

23 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #20

"Stott offers a concrete application: memorize Galatians 6:14 over the Easter weekend so that the congregation can say Paul's words together as their own confession."

Doctrinal loci· 8 surfaced

Soteriology · 10 Sanctification · 7 Christology · 4 Hamartiology · 3 Bibliology · 2 Ecclesiology · 2 Doxology / Worship · 1 Pastoral Theology · 1

Bible citations· 11

Illustrations· 3

historical example · unit #4 — Stott vividly illustrates the church's choice by cataloguing rejected alternatives—crib, carpenter's bench, boat, towel—each theologically significant yet passed over. The concrete examples of cruciform cathedrals and cross jewelry make the claim tangible and observable.
personal story · unit #8 — Stott introduces the first main point through a personal story from Durham Cathedral, using Professor Turner's self-posed question to surface the fundamental soteriological problem the cross addresses. The anecdote functions to make the theological question existentially urgent.
historical example · unit #15 — Stott invokes Dietrich Bonhoeffer—a man who literally died for following Christ—as an authority on the cost of discipleship. The quotation 'When Christ calls a man, he bids him die' crystallizes the unit's claim about cross-bearing as self-denial.

Theological claims· 7

The centrality of the cross was not Paul's peculiarity but derived from Christ's own understanding of His mission, as evidenced by His passion predictions and institution of the Lord's Supper. unit #2
The church was right to choose the cross as the emblem of Christianity. unit #3
We do not understand Christ until we understand His cross; Christ is to us what His cross is. unit #5
We cannot enter God's holy presence through our own moral effort; all who glimpse God's holiness shrink back in fear. unit #9
Only the Bible among the world's holy books insists that we are sinners under judgment, that self-salvation is impossible, and that our only hope is the cross. unit #10
We have a constant tendency to trivialize Christian discipleship into superficial religiosity that leaves the old self fundamentally unchanged. unit #16
Becoming and being a Christian involves a transformation so radical that only death and resurrection imagery can capture it—death to self-centeredness and sin, resurrection to holiness and love. unit #17

Quotations· 5

"Christ is to us just what His cross is. All that Christ was in heaven and 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 until you understand His cross." — P. T. Forsyth (unit #5)

"the cross was absent not only from the bodies of Roman citizens, but also from their mind, their eyes, and their ears" — Cicero (unit #6)

"How can I, a lost and guilty sinner, stand before a just and holy God?" — Professor H. E. W. Turner (unit #8)

"It is a sin to call a man a sinner. You are not sinners. You are children of God. You are angels." — Swami Vivekananda (unit #10)

"When Christ calls a man or woman, he bids them die." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer (unit #15)

Read it

Full transcript

12,822 characters 23 units ~14 min reading time

0 · Stott opens by framing Galatians 6:14 as Paul's most extraordinary statement, immediately elevating the stakes for the congregation and establishing the text as the sermon's singular focus

I want to invite you today to reflect with me on what conceivably is the most extraordinary statement made by the apostle Paul. He made a good many extraordinary statements, but I think this is more extraordinary than them all. It is the text that you have on your service paper, and I deliberately ask that it should be given in the old version, the Authorized Version, rather than the one you have in the Bible before you. Anyway it's Galatians 6. Paul's Letter to the Gal 6:14, and it goes like this, "God forbid that I should glory, in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified unto me, and I have been crucified unto the world."

1 · Stott performs a word study on the Greek verb behind 'glory,' unpacking its semantic range to establish that glorying denotes total life-orientation—obsession, horizon-filling devotion—not mere admiration

Well, there is no exact equivalent in English of the Greek verb that is translated to glory in. It means to boast in, to trust in, to revel in. In a word, our glory is our obsession. It dominates our mind and fills our horizons. And Paul tells us that for him this was the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ was the center of his faith, of his life, and of his ministry.

2 · Stott makes the crucial theological move of grounding Paul's cross-centrality in Christ's own self-understanding

And I venture to say that it should also be the center of ours, because the centrality of the cross was not a peculiarity of the apostle Paul's. On the contrary, the cross was central to the mind of Paul because it had been central to the mind of Christ. Did Jesus not repeatedly predict the necessity of His sufferings, saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be killed?" Did He not speak of His death as the hour for which He had come into the world? Did He not give instruction for His own memorial service, telling His disciples to eat bread and drink wine in memory of Him? So it's very clear that it was His death for which He wanted to be remembered, not His life, His birth, His teaching, His resurrection, but supremely His death on the cross.

3 · Stott draws out the ecclesiological implication: the church's historic choice of the cross as its emblem was theologically correct, not arbitrary

So the church has been right in its choice of logo or emblem for Christianity, namely the Cross.

4 · Stott vividly illustrates the church's choice by cataloguing rejected alternatives—crib, carpenter's bench, boat, towel—each theologically significant yet passed over

It could have chosen a good many others. It would have been appropriate, like the crib in which the baby Jesus was laid, emblem of the incarnation. It could have chosen the carpenter's bench at which Jesus labored giving dignity to manual labor. It could have been the boat from which He taught the people, or the towel with which He washed and wiped the disciples feet. And that we think of specially today and Mondy Thursday. And you probably heard on the news that both the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury will be washing the feet of twelve poor people as emblems of humble servitude. So I could go on with a great list of possible logos, but instead the church passed them all by and chose the cross. And you see it everywhere in Christendom. For example, in the massive medieval cathedrals in Europe that are deliberately built in the shape of a cross, with the transepts and the nave making the cathedral cruciform in the shape of a cross. And of course, there are many Christian ladies who wear a cross on the pendant or a necklace, and men often wear one on their lapel, so it is an acceptable emblem or logo of Christianity.

5 · Stott marshals P

And theologians have increasingly come to recognize this. Let me quote one, a man called P. T. Forsyth, congregational minister at the turn of the last century. He wrote, "Christ is to us just what His cross is. All that Christ was in heaven and 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 until you understand His cross."

6 · Stott provides historical-cultural context on crucifixion's horror, citing Cicero and referencing Mel Gibson's film to establish how shocking Paul's glorying would have sounded in the ancient world

But we, of course, know very well, especially from the movie The Passion of the Christ, that crucifixion was a horrible and a brutal death. It's not surprising, therefore, that in the Roman Empire, Roman citizens were never crucified, nor was the cross mentioned in polite society in the Empire. Cicero, the famous Roman orator, went so far as to say that the cross was absent not only from the bodies of Roman citizens, but also from their mind, their eyes, and their ears. That his citizens would never watch a crucifixion, never listen to people talking about it, never even imagine one, so horrific was it.

7 · Stott transitions from the paradox to the sermon's main structure, announcing two reasons for glorying in the cross and signaling his hermeneutical method of contextual interpretation within Galatians

So because of that, how is it possible that the apostle Paul could glory in this object of shame? Can we elaborate what he meant? Yes, we can. It is, as I'm sure you know, a basic principle for interpreting the Bible that we allow the context to determine the meaning of the text. And since my text comes from the end of the Epistle to the Galatians, we look into earlier passages of Galatians to understand what Paul meant. So I bring you two meanings only

8 · Stott introduces the first main point through a personal story from Durham Cathedral, using Professor Turner's self-posed question to surface the fundamental soteriological problem the cross addresses

One, we glory in the cross for our acceptance with God. Indeed, there is no other way of acceptance or forgiveness but the cross. Some years ago, I found myself on a Sunday morning worshipping in the massive Norman Cathedral of Durham that dominates the city and the university. And the preacher on that particular morning was a well-known New Testament scholar called Professor H. E. W. Turner. And I was arrested when, in the middle of his sermon, he asked himself an embarrassing question. I say I was arrested because university professors don't usually ask themselves embarrassing questions in public. But he did, and this was his question: How can I, a lost and guilty sinner, stand before a just and holy God? How can I, a lost and guilty sinner, stand before a just and holy God? It's a good question. It's conceivably the most important of all questions. And if we've never asked it ourselves, I think we must be very short sighted indeed.

9 · Stott asserts the impossibility of self-commendation before God, appealing to the universal experience of those who have glimpsed divine holiness

One thing is certain, and that is, that we cannot enter the holy presence of God in the tattered rags of our own morality. And all those who've caught even a momentary glimpse of the glory and the holiness and the majesty of God have not been able to bear the sight. They shrunk away like Moses at the burning bush because he was afraid to look upon God.

10 · Stott contrasts the biblical doctrine of human sinfulness and the impossibility of self-salvation with the consensus of ethnic religions that self-effort can secure divine acceptance

Well, now, by contrast to that, the ethnic religions, Judaism and Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism and so on, the ethnic religions assure us with one voice that it is perfectly possible for us to gain acceptance with God, that we can accumulate merit and commend ourselves to God and get there to heaven by our own effort. To give you one example of that, there was a Hindu reformer called Swami Vivekananda, who was one of the main speakers at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in the 1890s, who in the course of his address in Chicago said, "It is a sin to call a man a sinner. You are not sinners, he went on. You are children of God. You are angels." But we have to disagree with Swami Vivikananda, because sinners is exactly what we are. And only the Bible of all the world's holy books insists that we are sinners under the judgment of God, that self salvation is an impossibility, and that our only hope is in the cross.

11 · Stott expounds Galatians 3:13 to explain penal substitution: Christ bore the curse of the law in our place

Well, let me remind you how Paul explains this in Galatians. It's now 3:13. He says, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse in our place." In other words, the only way that we can be freed or redeemed from the curse of the law, that is, from the judgment which God's law pronounces on those who disobey it, is that Christ bore this judgment, this curse, in our place. He endured in His own innocent person the condemnation that our sins most righteously, have deserved. And it's only because He bore our sin that we can receive His forgiveness. Of course, we must hedge this truth round with every possible safeguard. We must never suggest, for example, that God the Father was reluctant to come to our aid, or that Jesus Christ was a third party who intervened between us and God. No, no, it was God Himself who took the initiative. In His holy love for us. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. But what God did in and through Christ was to bear our sins, to endure our curse, to die our death, in order that we may be forgiven the most marvelous and wonderful truth.

12 · Stott transitions from the first point (acceptance) to the second (discipleship), signaling the structural pivot and restating both dimensions of glorying in the cross

So let me move on now to the second thing for a few more moments. I've suggested that we glory in the cross for our acceptance with God. But secondly, we glory in the cross for our daily discipleship. The cross is not only the way of holiness, it is also the way of forgiveness.

13 · Stott unpacks the three crucifixions embedded in Galatians 6:14—Christ's, the world's to us, and ours to the world—drawing on Galatians 2:20 and 5:24 to explain Paul's symbolic language of being crucified with Christ and crucifying the flesh

I wonder if you've noticed in my text that although one cross is mentioned, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, there are three crucifixions on it. Not only the crucifixion of Jesus, but the crucifixion of the world unto us and our crucifixion unto the world. What on earth did he mean by these things? Well, he's indicated a bit earlier in Gal 2:20, he says, "I have been crucified with Christ." Again, an extraordinary statement. Of course, he didn't mean literally crucified, but symbolically crucified with Christ. Again, 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ have crucified their fallen selfish nature with all its passions and its desires."

14 · Stott traces Paul's crucifixion language back to Jesus' call to take up one's cross, providing historical context on what cross-bearing would have signified in Roman Palestine—a condemned man walking to execution

Well, these phrases are Paul's elaboration of the teaching of Jesus. Jesus, I'm sure you'll remember, invited His followers to come and take up their cross and follow me. Now, if we'd lived in Roman occupied Palestine, and if we'd seen a man walking down a country lane carrying a cross, or what is called the petibulum, the wooden cross bar of the cross, we would not have needed to run up to him and tap him on the shoulder, say, excuse me, sir, but what on earth are you doing? We would, on the contrary, have recognized immediately who he was. We would have identified him as a man condemned to death by crucifixion and compelled by a Roman court to carry his own cross to the place of execution. Christ calls us to take up our cross and follow Him. And if we're following Christ and carrying a cross, there's only one place that we can be going, and that is the place of crucifixion, or the place of execution. Crossbearing and crucifixion are Jesus dramatic images of self denial.

15 · Stott invokes Dietrich Bonhoeffer—a man who literally died for following Christ—as an authority on the cost of discipleship

I'm sure you know the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a Lutheran pastor during the Second World War who was executed by direct orders of Heinrich Himmler in the Flossenborg Concentration Camp in April 1945. He knew what suffering was, and he wrote in one of his books, "When Christ calls a man or woman, he bids them die." When Christ calls a person, he bids them die.

16 · Stott diagnoses the contemporary tendency to trivialize discipleship as superficial religious veneer rather than fundamental transformation

Now, I think that this is an extremely important truth, because it is so often overlooked or contradicted, because we have a constant tendency to trivialize Christian discipleship. People think of it as if it's nothing more than becoming a bit religious, you know, and adding a thin layer of piety to an otherwise secular life and then scratch the surface or prick the veneer. And there is the same old pagan underneath. Nothing fundamental has changed.

17 · Stott asserts the central theological claim of the second section: authentic Christian conversion and discipleship require transformation so radical that only death-and-resurrection language is adequate—death to self and sin, resurrection to holiness and love

But now, I have to say to you this afternoon that becoming and being a Christian involves a change, a transformation so radical that no imagery can do it justice but death and resurrection. Death, that is, to the old life of self centeredness and sin and resurrection, to a new life of holiness and love in which the world has been crucified unto me and I have been crucified unto the world.

18 · Stott begins his conclusion by recapitulating the two main points: glorying in the cross for acceptance with God and for daily discipleship

So let me recapitulate for a moment and conclude. We have suggested, or I've suggested that for our acceptance with God and for our daily discipleship, we, like Paul, should glory in nothing but the cross.

19 · Stott applies the sermon by diagnosing the universal human tendency to boast and forcing the choice: either we glory in self-achievement or in Christ's achievement on the cross

So what are we boasting in, I wonder? The truth is that we human beings are born boasters. There is something in our inherited disposition which inclines us to boast. We seem to need to boast or glory in something in order to inflate our ego. So we boast in our job or our home, in our possessions, or our computer skills, or our education, or our success in sport. But, you know, in the last resort, there is only one alternative. Either we glory in ourselves and in our own achievements, or we glory in Jesus Christ and in His achievement on the cross. There is no possibility of compromise. And the hallmark of an authentic Christianity is that we glory only in the cross.

20 · Stott offers a concrete application: memorize Galatians 6:14 over the Easter weekend so that the congregation can say Paul's words together as their own confession

I wonder if some of you would consider learning this text by heart over this coming Good Friday and Easter weekend. And then we would be able to say together, echoing the words of Paul, "God forbid that I should glory in anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified unto me and I have been crucified unto the world."

21 · Stott transitions from application to closing prayer, inviting the congregation into a posture of reflection

Let's remain seated and have a few moments of reflection and prayer.

22 · Stott closes with a prayer addressed to Christ, thanking Him for the cross, confessing neglect of it, and asking for understanding and transformation so that the cross becomes the center of the congregation's lives

Let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, we desire to thank you together for your cross. We ask your forgiveness at the times we have entirely overlooked it, left it out of our lives and our thinking. We pray that you will help us to understand the meaning of the cross as we glory in it for our acceptance with the Father and for our daily discipleship. Grant that these things may come to mean to us what they should mean and be at the center of our living. These things we ask the glory of your great and worthy name. Amen.

Where this fits

More from John Stott

The other sermons stewarded in this John Stott set.

II Timothy - Part 3 - Guard the Gospel

The gospel—God's eternal purpose of grace manifested in Christ's victory over death—has been entrusted to believers who must communicate it, suffer for it, and guard it faithfully regardless of their natural inadequacies.

2 Timothy 1

Great Commission - Part 2

The Great Commission rests upon and flows from Christ's universal authority over heaven and earth, and only those who believe this authority and obey the command to go will inherit the promise of his abiding presence.

Matthew 28:16-20

April 8 · This sermon

Glorying in the Cross

The cross of Christ must be the singular object of the Christian's boasting because it alone secures both our acceptance with God and the pattern for authentic discipleship.

Galatians 6:14

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

Paul says he glories only in the cross of Christ—not in his own accomplishments, credentials, or moral progress. What does the word 'glory'…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we meditate on why the cross alone is worthy of our boasting—first, as Christ's own passion and our sole means of acceptance; then, as the pattern for radical daily discipleship that dies to self and rises to holiness.

Family table

What Are We Boasting About?

This prompt invites your family to notice what they naturally take pride in—grades, skills, accomplishments—and then to consider what it mea…

Couples

Glorying in the Cross Together

What aspect of Christ's cross—His bearing our curse, His pattern for us, or His call to die to self—stirred your heart most deeply, and why…

Memorize

Galatians 6:14

This verse is the theological and textual anchor of the entire sermon—it is Paul's definitive declaration that the cross alone is worthy of Christian boasting and the singular center of faith and life. Memorizing it embeds both the exclusivity of Christ's saving work and the pattern of daily crucifixion to self that Stott establishes as the dual dimensions of authentic discipleship.

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

This week we meditate on why the cross alone is worthy of our boasting—first, as Christ's own passion and our sole means of acceptance; then, as the pattern for radical daily discipleship that dies to self and rises to holiness.

Monday Mark 8:31

Jesus Himself predicted His suffering, rejection, and death—the cross was not an afterthought but the appointed center of His mission. As we read these words, we see that when Paul declares we must glory in the cross, he is simply echoing the Savior's own valuation of His work. The cross is central because Christ made it central.

Tuesday Galatians 3:13

Paul writes that Christ "became a curse for us"—bearing the judgment we deserve so that we might escape it. This substitutionary reality is the singular ground of our standing before a holy God; no amount of personal righteousness can bridge the chasm between our sin and His holiness. We boast in the cross because it alone has accomplished what we could never accomplish for ourselves.

Wednesday 2 Corinthians 5:19

God was reconciling the world to Himself through Christ's work—not by ignoring our sin but by laying it upon His Son. Every doctrine about Christ, every hope we have in Him, flows directly from this reconciling action on the cross. To know Christ is to know Him as the One who bore our alienation and purchased our peace.

Thursday Matthew 16:24

Jesus calls His followers to deny themselves and take up their cross daily—to embrace a symbolic death to self-centeredness and sin. This is no superficial religiosity but a fundamental reorientation where the old self is crucified and a new life rises in its place. The cross is not only the means of our salvation; it becomes the pattern and emblem of our transformed living.

Friday Galatians 2:20

Paul declares, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." This vivid statement calls us to the same choice Paul made: the abandonment of self-boasting and the embrace of Christ-exaltation alone. As we close the week, we are pressed to ask which glory we pursue—and to find in the cross the inexhaustible object of our joy.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

Paul says he glories only in the cross of Christ—not in his own accomplishments, credentials, or moral progress. What does the word 'glory' mean in this context, and why do you think Paul felt compelled to make such an exclusive, singular claim?

Galatians 6:14

→ Can you think of areas in your own life where you're tempted to boast in something other than the cross—whether achievement, status, spiritual maturity, or moral effort?
According to the sermon, this wasn't simply Paul's personal preference or quirk, but something rooted in Christ's own understanding of His mission. What evidence did the preacher present that the cross held this central place for Christ Himself?

Mark 8:31
The sermon emphasizes that we cannot enter God's holy presence through our own moral effort—that 'all who glimpse God's holiness shrink back in fear.' What does this suggest about the human condition that makes the cross necessary rather than optional?

→ Does this diagnosis of our spiritual helplessness feel true to your own experience, or does it challenge how you typically think about your relationship with God?
Paul speaks of the cross as both the means of our acceptance with God and the pattern for our daily discipleship. How does the sermon explain the connection between these two dimensions—why does the cross that saves us also call us to 'die daily'?

Galatians 2:20
The sermon names a constant tendency in all of us: to trivialize Christian discipleship into superficial religiosity that leaves the old self fundamentally unchanged. What would it look like this week to let the cross reshape not just your theology but your actual patterns—your ambitions, your relationships, your use of time or resources?

Matthew 16:24

→ What specific area of 'the old self' do you sense the Spirit inviting you to bring to the cross?
At the sermon's close, Stott presents a choice: we either boast in our own achievement or in Christ's achievement on the cross, with no middle ground. How does the gospel—Christ bearing our curse and securing our forgiveness—actually free us to stop striving and competing for acceptance, and instead to live differently?

Galatians 3:13

Couples · three questions over coffee

Glorying in the Cross Together

What aspect of Christ's cross—His bearing our curse, His pattern for us, or His call to die to self—stirred your heart most deeply, and why did it resonate?
Where do we as a couple tend to glory in our own efforts or achievements rather than resting in Christ's finished work, and how might that pattern show up in how we relate to each other?
How can we pray for one another this week to grow in daily crucifixion to self-centeredness and to experience the freedom that comes from boasting only in the cross?

Sunday-evening family table

What Are We Boasting About?

For the parent

This prompt invites your family to notice what they naturally take pride in—grades, skills, accomplishments—and then to consider what it means to glory only in the cross of Christ. Listen for how your children understand the difference between earthly pride and gospel joy; this opens the door to talking about why Christ's sacrifice, not our performance, is our truest boast.

At dinner today, think about something you did this week that made you feel proud or happy—maybe you did well at school, or helped someone, or got better at a sport. Now, what do you think it means that Paul says the only thing Christians should boast about is the cross of Christ? Why would that be more important than all those other good things we do?

works for ages 8+

Memory verse this week

Galatians 6:14

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Why this verse: This verse is the theological and textual anchor of the entire sermon—it is Paul's definitive declaration that the cross alone is worthy of Christian boasting and the singular center of faith and life. Memorizing it embeds both the exclusivity of Christ's saving work and the pattern of daily crucifixion to self that Stott establishes as the dual dimensions of authentic discipleship.

Where this was preached

About the preacher

John Stott

All Souls · Langham Place
Read the Guild Hall profile · All three stewarded sermons

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# All Souls · Langham Place

Significant sermons by John Stott, stewarded by Sermon Steward as a sample.

## Sermons
- [II Timothy - Part 3 - Guard the Gospel (2 Timothy 1)](/SignificantSermons/stott/sermons/ii-timothy-part-3-guard-the-gospel)
- [Great Commission - Part 2 (Matthew 28:16-20)](/SignificantSermons/stott/sermons/great-commission-part-2)
- [Glorying in the Cross (Galatians 6:14, 2004-04-08)](/SignificantSermons/stott/sermons/glorying-in-the-cross-2004-04-08)

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