The Cross

Nelson's (11/20/02-11/23/02)

Prior to Jesus' death, and its significance to Christianity, the Greek stauros was used to refer to the pointed stakes that made up a stockade. From these stockade walls, execution victims would have been publicly displayed to mock the enemy. Over time, the practice moved to executing the victims on the wall stakes. Later crossbars were added.

• Ge 40:19 Within three days Pharaoh will have you beheaded and hung on a tree for the birds to peck at.
• 1Sa 31:8-13 When the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his sons on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head, stripped away his weapons, and sent these throughout the land, to declare the good news to their idols and to the people. Then, they put his weapons in the temple of Ashtaroth, and hung his body from the wall of Beth-shan. When the people of Jabesh-gilead heard what had been done, their brave men walked through the night, and took down Saul's body, and the bodies of his sons from the wall, and returned home to burn the bodies there. Then, they buried the remains under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted for a week.

History

No evidence is found to suggest that Israel used these practices. Rather, their executions were by stoning, and public display of the victim was severely limited by law.

• Lev 20:2 Any son of Israel or any alien in Israel who gives his children to Molech shall be put to death by stoning.
• Dt 22:24 You are to bring both the adulterers outside the city and stone them to death; the woman for not crying out, and the man for violating his neighbor's wife. Thus will evil be purged from among you.
• Dt 21:22-3 If a man commits sin worthy of death, and is killed, if you hang him on a tree you are not to leave him overnight, but must bury him the same day. Such a one is accursed of God, and you are not to defile the land your LORD God gave you by leaving such a one displayed.
• Jn 19:31 The Jews were concerned lest the bodies be left on the cross during the Sabbath. (That particular Sabbath was a high day.) So they asked Pilate to break the victims' legs so that the execution could be completed, and the bodies taken away.

While even Israel's punishments seem harsh to us, by comparison they were unique. Other nations would leave the bodies to rot. This has much to do with why such a victim was declared cursed of God. While Jesus' death was different, His public display declared Him to be a criminal and an enemy of the state.

• Ac 5:30 God, the same God our fathers have worshiped, raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a tree.
• Ac 10:39 We are witnesses to all that He did in Israel, and in Jerusalem. There, they put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree.
• Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the Law's curse, becoming a curse for us. This is seen in that it is written that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed.

Crucifixion grew out of impalement, the crossbeam being added at some unknown time in history. This may be referenced by Jeremiah, but it is unknown whether he speaks there of punishment or display of bodies already dead. Greek historians reference the use of the cross by the Persians, but do not note whether victims were tied, nailed, or impaled.

• Lam 5:12 Princes were hung by their hands, and elders were not respected.
• Ezra 6:11 I issued a decree saying that any who violated this edict will be impaled on timbers from his own house, and his house shall be destroyed.
• Esther 2:23 When the plot was uncovered, the two perpetrators were hanged on a stake, and the whole was recorded in the king's chronicles.
• Esther 5:14 His wife and his friends suggested he have a fifty cubit stake made, and that he arrange to have Mordecai hanged on it. Haman took this advice, and had the gallows made.

It was not a gallows that was described in Esther, but a stake or pole.

The Greeks used crucifixion, as well as the Romans. One notable event was the crucifixion of 800 Pharisees by Alexander Jannaeus of Israel. Even then, though, the practice was opposed by those of decent mind. In Roman culture, this was the death for rebellious slaves and bandits, rarely for citizens. This practice continued until the conversion of Constantine, at which point the cross was declared a sacred symbol.

Use

Victims were generally lashed prior to execution, resulting in heavy blood loss. They then had to carry the crossbeam to the site of execution. They were fastened to the crossbeam prior to its attachment to the upright. Skeletal evidence indicates that the knees were bent until parallel with the crossbeam before the feet were attached to the upright. Death came by suffocation and exhaustion, but only after lengthy periods of agony.

Shape

Aside from the traditional 't' of the Latin cross, other forms included the St. Anthony's 'T', the St. Andrew's 'X', and the Greek '+'. The presence of a notice above His head indicates that Jesus likely died on a Latin cross.

• Mt 27:37 Above His head, the put notice of the charge against Him: "This is Jesus the King of the Jews."

Significance

According to the gospels, Jesus spoke of the cross as symbolizing the full commitment required of His disciples. After Jesus' death and resurrection, the significance of Jesus' willingness to suffer for our reconciliation and peace with God was also given to that symbol.

• Mt 10:38 He who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
• Mk 10:21 Loving the man, Jesus told him, "you still lack this one thing: you need to sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor so as to have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow Me."
• Lk 14:27 Whoever doesn't carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
• Php 2:8 Being found a man, He humbled Himself, obedient even to the point of death on a cross.
• Heb 12:2 Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. Considering the joy before Him, He endured the cross and despised its shame. Thus, He has sat down at God's right hand.
• 2Co 5:19 In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting their trespasses against them. And, He has committed the word of this reconciliation to us.
• Col 1:20 Through Christ, God reconciled all things to Himself, peace being made through the blood of Jesus' cross. Through Him, then, all things on earth and in heaven are reconciled.
• Eph 2:16 He reconciled Jew and Gentile together as one body to God through the cross, putting the enmity between those peoples to death upon it.

Further, the cross symbolizes the debt of sin paid upon this most offensive tool of death, our own death to sin, being crucified to Christ, and our freedom from sin, having been given life in God. So, Jesus' love, God's power, the believer's total commitment; all are pointed to by the symbol of the cross.

• 1Co 1:17 Christ didn't send me to baptize, but to preach. He did not send me with great rhetorical skills, because He would not have the cross of Christ made void by my cleverness.
• 1Co 1:23 We preach Christ crucified. To the Jews, this presents a major obstacle. To the Gentiles, it seems nothing but foolishness.
• Gal 5:11 If I still preach circumcision, why do they persecute me? If this is my message, then the stumbling block of the cross is removed.
• Col 2:14 He has canceled our debt, repealed the decrees against us, and taken all of it out of the way, for it is all nailed to the cross.
• Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. No longer do I live my life, but Christ lives in me. The life I continue to live in the flesh I live by faith in God's Son who loved me and delivered Himself up for me.
• Ro 6:6-11 Know this: Our old self was crucified with Him, our body of sin done away with, and our slavery to sin ended; for he who has died is freed from sin. If, then, we have died with Christ, we are sure that we also will live with Him, because we know that Christ was raised from the dead to eternal life; death no longer rules over Him. The death He died was to sin, once and for all. But, the life He lives is to God. Just so, think of yourselves: dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Thoughts (11/22/02-11/23/02)

The death of a Slave (11/22/02)

The cross was reserved for the death of rebellious slaves and bandits. It was not a tool for punishing citizens. This strikes me as very significant to the role of the cross in the believer's life. It also adds new dimension to Jesus' command that we carry our cross as we follow Him (Luke 14:27). With this in mind, that command does not differ so much from His command to let our light shine before men. The victim, in carrying the crossbar of his own execution to the site of his punishment, not only declared to all who saw what had been the verdict of the courts. He also declared, in the very form of the punishment applied, that he was no citizen of that land. Isn't this at least a portion of what it means for us to carry our cross in this life? Our lives should be a declaration of our non-citizenship. We are not of this world, we are merely in it, just passing through.

Consider another aspect of this. We walk amongst a nation of slaves, a world of slaves. All around us are those enslaved to sin. We, who have died with Christ, have rebelled against the bondage of sin, we have broken free. The ruler of that world of sin, since we are still in it, must have their punishment meted out upon us for our rebellion. So, we die the death of a slave. And, part of that death requires that we carry the crossbar to our place of execution.

What is that crossbar? Earlier in this study, we noted the collision of the worldly and the divine that is represented in the cross. There was the matter of crossed wills. To my mind, the crossbar will ever represent the worldly, the fleshly, that which seeks to oppose the purposes of God in us. We carry that burden of sin so long as we remain of the world. The overlord from under whom we have been freed, finding us still in his demesnes, will take it as his right to punish us. His punishment is to place that burden back upon us, that we must carry that burden to our death.

Without the completed work of Jesus, this is where we would be left. Either we would be laboring in bondage to sin, and thus carry that burden, or we would be walking the execution road with that burden returned to our shoulders. Either way, the burden would remain upon us. But, Jesus went beyond busting us out of the strongman's house! Knowing that He must leave us in this world for a time, that this world would demand its justice of us, He has already provided that day of the world's justice!

Look again at the passage from Romans 6:6-11. Our old self was crucified with Him! That body of sin that the prince of this world would have us to bear in agony has been done away with. We have already arrived at our execution site and been executed The penalty has been paid, and the crossbar we bore remains nailed to the upright. We have died! We are freed from sin! Dead men bear no burden in this life. And, because of Him with whom we have been executed, we know the same resurrection to life that He knows. Death is once for all in Him, but life is eternally unto God. Paul's command is to think of ourselves as dead to sin, but alive to God. In essence, his command is to live out the reality of our situation, for truly we are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what the cross has done in us.

Dead men bear no burden in this life. Neither are they enticed by its deceits or promises. You can't get the attention of a man in the grave. Your best efforts will elicit no response. The price Jesus paid, He paid that we might be exactly this unresponsive to the best efforts of the devil to distract us, to entice us off the paths of righteousness. We are surrounded by a world that wants its sins. We are surrounded by advertisements inviting us to participate in the lusts of the flesh. But we are dead. You could build a porn shop on a dead man, and you still won't get a rise out of him. You can shout your abuses at him every moment of the day and night for years on end, and he still won't get angry, or seek his revenge on you. He's dead. The cares of the world no longer effect him.

Take up your cross. Take it up, but don't take it anywhere else but to your execution. Speed on your way to that execution, that you might truly live! If we have taken up our cross and followed Him, then we have been to that place. We have been lifted upon the upright, and the crossbar of sin has had its due. It has had our death, and being dead, it can claim no more from us. We are free of its demands, and free of its ruler.

A History of Embarrassment (11/23/02)

Each time the history of the cross is discussed, it is noted that the cross was a tool of embarrassment as well as torture. It was a humiliating means of death; a death of helplessness, a death that loudly declared a total lack of status. Look at those early beginnings recorded in Scripture for us. What was the purpose of hanging a dead man on the wall? It was to humiliate the enemy, to declare loudly to them their own helplessness. The cross started out as a tool and symbol of humiliation, then, and in part, church history has made it so over and over again.

Jesus, by His accomplishment on the cross, made that horrible tool a symbol of greatest good. As He redeemed mankind, even the means of His own death was redeemed. Yet the world, and man in the world remain fallen. Even this symbol has been dragged back down by the actions of mankind, even by the actions of the church. Consider what God declares through Paul as he writes to the church in Ephesus.

Eph 2:16 - He reconciled Jew and Gentile together as one body to God through the cross, putting the enmity between those peoples to death upon it.

One great part of what God was doing in that moment was to unite Jews and Gentiles. The peoples of the world that had been separated at the tower of Babel were being brought back together for common purpose once more. This was the Lord's doing, and while the early church clearly hadn't got the methods down perfectly, it is equally clear that the process was in motion. Jew and Gentile were coming together to worship the One true God in Spirit and in Truth!

Church history shows that it didn't last. Somewhere, somehow, Christianity became convinced that the God of the Bible was not the God of the fathers. They began to view the Jews as enemies of the Church, worthy to be put to death if they would not convert and believe. Armies went out under the banner of the cross, killing Jew and Muslim alike. One has to ask, how could we have gotten the message so wrong? How could we possibly look at the pages of Scripture and come away with a program like that?

Consider: Scripture, as we have seen, declares outright that God's purpose was to bring Jews and Gentiles together as one body. And we know that God declares to us that our chief tool in His service is love. Where in the pages of Scripture do we find God telling us to kill those who bore His testimony for so long? Where do we find ourselves commanded to destroy all who will not convert? This is not God's message, but the enemy's! This hatred for God's chosen people, under the banner of Christianity, continues even to this day. There are any number of groups who would claim to follow Biblical teachings as they seek to persecute and eliminate the very people of God! And the Church sits idly by.

Worse than idle, many branches within the Church actively declare that the God of Judaism is not the God of Christianity! But, how can they say this? Clearly, they have missed an important, even critical matter in the coming of the Messiah for whom they still wait. Clearly! Yet, is it somehow not God that they worship? Again, our authority is to be God's Word, and God's Word declares this truth to us: God is the same God that the Jewish forefathers worshiped, the same God that Jews have worshiped from Abraham on down. This was what Peter was emphasizing as he preached to the temple council in Jerusalem in Acts 5:30. It is the very same God our fathers have worshiped, he says, that has raised up Jesus. This is no new religion, no new pagan god we've gone after. It's the very same God you serve. It is the very same God who created Adam, who handed down the law to Moses, who brought Israel to the promised land, who promised that Messiah would come. It is the same God, and the Messiah He promised has come!

How can we dare to say, then, that it is some other God they worship? Clearly, there are any number of false religions out there. Clearly, what they worship is not god, but a creation of man's imagining, or worse. Yet, this charge cannot be directed at Judaism. Their understanding of the God they serve may not be perfect, yet neither can the Church make claim to perfect understanding. Neither can lay claim to perfect service.

God died on the cross to unite us as one people, to break down the walls of separation between nations, between races, between classes, between genders. Every gap that mankind has described for himself, God has been working to eliminate. When will we, His children, begin to work to that same end? When will we accept His chosen people as His chosen people? When will we realize that their status in His sight hasn't really changed? All that has been happening in the redemption of the Gentiles, Scripture tells us, has occurred to bring His chosen ones back to Himself. Indeed, the cross was intended to continue as a tool of embarrassment, but the embarrassment was not to be to His Church. No, His Church was intended to pursue the significance of the cross with such devotion that the people of Israel would be embarrassed to see themselves out worshiped by these Gentile upstarts. Israel should be embarrassed to see God's blessings poured out on a largely Gentile Church in our day. But, we have only succeeded in embarrassing ourselves.

We have allowed the cross to become a symbol worthy of ridicule, because we have failed as utterly as Israel before us to walk in the purity that God's purposes demand. We have failed to keep His house holy. We have failed to His servants separated, 'Holy Unto the Lord.' We have allowed the world's poison into the holy places, and left them defiled. God will not leave such dark acts hidden, but will bring them to light. In our day we are seeing it. Will the Church accept the purification that must come? Will the Church set aside everything that is not right in the sight of a Holy God? Will the Church take up her proper role, as a place where all God's people are reconciled as one, where all the 'gaps' that we have used to describe our irreconcilable differences are gone, as our differences are gone in Him? Will we allow His cross to return to its proper significance, and cease making it a mockery? Oh, I pray it will come! I pray we will awake from our foolishness, arise in His righteousness, and make His praises glorious once more!