The Apostle Paul says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ.” Why glory in the cross?—or, why not glory in his miracles, in his feeding five thousand, his calming the sea, raising the dead, opening the eyes of the blind, or giving hearing to the deaf?—or, why not glory in his own resurrection, his ascension, coronation, and being crowned Lord of all? Because it was not at any of these points Peter denied him; it was not here that he was condemned; it was not here that he suffered—that he was put to shame—that he was mocked, derided and despised. But Paul looks at him when he was on trial, when Peter denied him, when he was condemned; when he was delivered into the hands of enemies, despised and degraded; when he was nailed to the cross, crowned with thorns, and buffeted; when all his friends had forsaken him; when all the angels had withdrawn, and the Almighty Father had turned his face away—had forsaken him—and he was in his blood—in the agonies of death, with the sins of the world upon him; we say, Paul looked upon him here, and gloried in him. It was not the cross that he gloried in, literally. The expression is metonymical. The cross stands for Him who hung upon the cross. “God forbid that I should glory, save in him who hung upon the cross.” We are not to glory in men; neither in Paul, Apollos, nor Cephas, but in Christ. THE PARDONING POWER IS ONLY IN GOD. In precisely the same way, the appointment in the case of Naaman, in itself, had no virtue to cure leprosy. If another leper had gone to the place the next day, and dipped himself, he would not have been healed. Naaman did not go home praising the waters of Jordan, nor exulting in his dipping, nor his faith, but he said: “Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.” II. Kings v. 15. The Lord purposely selected an appointment that had not in it, in itself, any curative efficacy, that the man might know the cure came directly from God, and might believe and put his trust in the God of Israel. The same is true of the appointment for the Israelites, bitten of the fiery serpent. The Lord wisely selected something that all men would know had no efficacy, in itself, to heal the bite of the serpent, that the glory might be given to God and not to the brazen serpent. It is no question about whether the Lord _could_ have saved the Israelites in some other way. No one doubts that he _could_. But the question, in this case, is simply about what _he did_. The people did not heal themselves. Their faith did not heal them. Their prayers did not heal them. Their looking did not heal them. The brazen serpent did not heal them. _God healed them._ When did he do it? When they obeyed him. Where did he do it? In his own appointment.