(3) But again; the Cross of Christ is not only a condemnation of sin, not only a pledge of forgiveness; it is likewise an obligation of self-sacrifice. ‘God forbid,’ says S. Paul, ‘that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ But what next? Not ‘whereby I am saved in spite of myself,’ not ‘whereby I am spared all personal exertion,’ but ‘whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.’ This conformity to Christ’s death, this crucifixion of self with Christ, always forms part of the doctrine of the Cross in S. Paul’s teaching. The dying with Christ, the being buried with Christ, is the absolute accompaniment of the atoning death of Christ. We cannot be at one with Christ, unless we conform to Christ. The work done for us necessitates the work done by us. The potentiality of our salvation—of yours and mine—wrought through the Cross of Christ can only then become an actuality, when Christ’s death is thus appropriated, realised, translated into action by us—by you and by me. But it remains still the work of God’s grace. Human merit is absolutely excluded still, as absolutely as by the baldest and most unqualified doctrine of substitution.