Christ bears his marks. Thomas in unbelief asked to see those marks. The Lord in love for Thomas showed him the print of the nails in his hands and the spear hole in his side. Those are the splendid marks of the crucifixion that Christ bears eternally as the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. He will bear those marks for all ages as the Lamb exalted upon his throne. Those marks were given to him by men as they vented their hatred on him. He turned those marks into the signs of his glory as the crucified Christ. It is his glory that he in love for God, in love for his plan of salvation, and in love for his people submitted himself to the bitter and shameful death of the cross. Now the believer glories in nothing save the cross of his Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to the believer and he to the world.

The servant is not greater than his master. Paul speaks of marks left on his body. They were given to him by men who hated him and the gospel that he preached because they hated the Christ of that gospel. Their glory was not in the cross of Christ, but they gloried in that which is shameful. They gloried in circumcision. They gloried in their works. They gloried in their faithfulness. But in the cross of Christ, they did not glory. The wisdom of God displayed in the cross, they could not understand. The truth and power of that cross, they could not grasp. Those enemies of the cross also would not bear the shame and reproach that those who confess Christ must bear in a world that hates him. They crafted their theology and their confessions to avoid all suffering in order to be accepted by the world and the false church. The very lack of those marks of reproach in their bodies indicated that they were not of Christ.

And in their rejection of Christ, they heaped reproach on the apostle Paul as the world today still heaps reproach on the church. They accused him of having evil intentions and wicked motives. They maliciously mischaracterized his theology to make it appear foolish and wicked. They hounded him from city to city.

What did the apostle say? “In stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned…in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city…in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:23–28).

The marks were given, indeed, by men, but they were the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. Caesar branded his soldiers. Christ brands his. Thus those marks were the traces left in the apostle’s body by the hardships, imprisonments, scourgings, and beatings endured by him for the cause of Christ. Those scars and bruises on his body marked him as Christ’s faithful and approved soldier and refuted all the wicked calumny of the enemies of Christ raised against his servant.

So it must come to all who glory in nothing save the cross of Jesus Christ. Because you are Christ’s, the world hates you. Because you speak Christ, the false brethren slander, ridicule, and despise you. And bearing those things, you may say with the apostle, “Henceforth let no man trouble me. Show me your marks of Jesus Christ, and I will believe that you are his.”