The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference

The Gaither Vocal Band's “The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference” is a song of before-and-after stories. The first verse describes “a life filled with aimless desperation,” a man without hope who is touched by “a hand with a nailprint stretched downward,” and then “just one touch, then a new life began.” The chorus gives the claim: “the old rugged cross made the difference in a life bound for heartache and defeat.”

The second verse moves into a home. The “barren walls echoed harshness and anger,” and little feet ran “in terror to hide,” but now “those walls ring with love, warmth and laughter, since the giver of life moved inside.” The third verse goes to a funeral room of “sad, ashen faces” where death has wrapped the mourners in gloom, yet beside a saint there is rejoicing, “for life can't be sealed in a tomb.” Each picture is domestic and specific, and the same cross is the cause of each turnaround.

The cross as the power of God to the saved is 1 Corinthians 1:18. The nailprint hand recalls John 20:27, where Thomas is shown the wounds, and a new life in Christ is Galatians 2:20. Life not sealed in a tomb is the resurrection of Matthew 28:6.