A Book Review of...

The Cross Centered Life
By C.J. Mahaney


This year at the Believers Fellowship High School Retreat, Derek Brown spoke his last message of the weekend on “Living in the Power of the Gospel.” In this message he discussed the importance of the gospel and how even believers need to hear it regularly. This talk got me thinking about living life each day under the influence of the gospel, and so I started to read The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney.

Mahaney starts his book by painting a vivid picture of Timothy reading what would be Paul’s last epistle, 2 Timothy. He portrays Timothy as looking for some final insight from his dear friend and mentor while he reads. And what he finds is Paul reiterating the one truth of the gospel. “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel.” (2 Timothy 2:8)

Mahaney then shows that “the cross was the centerpiece of Paul’s theology.” He quotes D.A. Carson as saying, “[Paul] cannot long talk about Christian joy, or Christian ethics, or Christian fellowship, or the Christian doctrine of God, or anything else, without finally tying it to the cross. Paul is gospel-centered; he is cross centered.”

Paul certainly is a prime example of a cross centered life. Paul’s theology was very deep; think of all the myriads of books on Pauline theology. However, he never moves on from the gospel. The cross certainly was the center of Paul’s theology, and not only that, it was the center of all that he did.

Throughout the first and second chapters, builds the theme for his book. Mahaney explains how the gospel should be our focal point. He says that the cross should be of first importance to us. He says the gospel is “one transcendent truth that should define our lives.”

I believe the theme of this book is accurate because it is also the theme of the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is built around the person of Jesus Christ and the good news of his redemptive work. Therefore the gospel should also be the center of our lives.

After building an accurate premise for the book, Mahaney discusses many practical ways having a cross centered life will affect us. In chapters four through six, he discusses three tendencies that will try and draw us away from the cross: legalism, condemnation, and subjectivism. In each chapter he makes good points. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on subjectivism, entitled “What you feel vs. What is real.” He says that we need to rely on biblical thinking instead of subjective feelings. My dad calls this talking to yourself instead of listening to yourself. We need to be reminding ourselves of the truth of the Scripture and the good news of the gospel instead of listening to the thoughts in our quite confused heads.

Mahaney also gives solid practical advice in a chapter called “The Cross Centered Day” on how we can “build a cross centered life one day at a time. One particular point that I thought was good was “Study the Gospel.” The truth of the gospel is simple, but its wonders are amazing and deep. We should never cease to study them.

In the final chapter entitled “Never Move On,” Mahaney says, “The gospel isn’t just for unbelievers. It’s for Christians, too.” This is very similar to what Derek Brown said when he first got me thinking about this topic, and I’m grateful for what I’ve learned and what I will continue to learn about the gospel. Indeed, we should never move on from the gospel. Too often we think that the gospel is something we master in a “Fundamental’s of the Faith” class, and then we move on to things like Marriage and Family, Personal Holiness, Bible Study, and the like. We should certainly study these things, but we should never move on from the gospel. Mahaney says, “The gospel isn’t just one class among many that you’ll attend during your life as a Christian—the gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in.”

The cross should be the center of our lives; we should never move on from the gospel. That is what C.J. Mahaney says in this book, and he is simply echoing the theme of the Bible.