The Offence of the Cross to the Natural Man

"The world is full of do-gooders. these people are anxious to put things right. They set up an organization, they form a society and other people join it and they write protests and they are going to put the world right. And there is one thing they hate. It is this cross, which tells them that you can never deal with the problem like that, and that all are in the same position. There is not difference, there is none righteous, no, not one. It is a terrible thing to be told that all your effort comes to nothing. Let me put that in this form. The cross is an offence to the pride of the natural man, because it says that not only are we all sinners, not only are we all equally sinners, but it tells us that we are all equally helpless. We can do nothing at all. It tells us that all our righteousness is but as filthy rags. All we regard as best is dung and refuse, and absolutely useless. And it tells us, who believe in ourselves and in our capacity, that we can do nothing. That we are utterly and completely helpless and entirely hopeless. And here it offends us and hurts us, it damns all our efforts, it is an offence to the mind and to the heart. And it is equally an offence to the will of man. It tells him: I do not care what your will is, I do not care how powerful your will. I do not care what your resolutions are. Do all you will you will never save yourself."

Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfill thy law's demands:
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone,
Thou must save, and thou alone.

-A.M. Toplady

"It crushes us to the ground. It demolishes everything that we have ever believed in. It leaves us helpless and hopeless, lost, damned, hell-deserving sinners, and that is what it says about every one of us."

"And I say, that that is the offence of the cross to the natural man." (The Cross, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Good News Publishers 1986, pages 52-53)