The Cross That Jesus Was Crucified On
Why people decided to memorialize Jesus Christ by hoisting the actual implement used in His execution up onto a high place in front of a congregation of people who profess to love the Lord is beyond comprehension. Could you imagine the outrage if we memorialized Abraham Lincoln with a pistol? How’s about JFK or MLK with a rifle? Of course that would be considered in the poorest of taste. Some churches actually put up a crucifix – a cross with the phony image of Jesus hanging from it. This is repulsive. Memorializing the risen Messiah who alone possesses immortality and sits at the right hand of Almighty Yahweh with an image of His execution is surely not what our Father had in mind.
It might be understandable to worship the cross if Jesus was the only guy to have ever been put to death on one, but tens of thousands of people were put to death in this manner. Even in the Bible is shows two other people being executed on crosses the day Jesus was executed. The Romans used to put hundreds of people to death at a time on crosses. It is not unique to Christ’s execution at all.
The fish symbol is another of interest. It is actually the sign of a fish-god named Dagon (see 1 Samuel 5 and others). One can’t help but grin when one sees a fish with a cross inside of it on the back of someone’s car. Pagan god cannibalism.
The history of the cross, and its worship and use as a religious symbol goes back long before Christ. It was a symbol used by pagan nations. Many historians claim the cross was originated by early Egyptians and Babylonians. For reference see The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop and research by John Gardner Wilkinson titled Wilkinson's Egyptians. The misconception of what the cross is has been carried over from the Egyptians and Babylonians and is today taught as a symbol of worship. No where in the Bible is the cross described as a symbol of worship.
The cross was different from what people show today. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek and uses the words stauros ("stake"), stauroo ("crucify"), and xylon ("tree"). The Koine Greek term used in the New Testament of the structure on which Jesus died is stauros (σταυρός). Koine Greek stauros, in its original sense literally meant an upright stake or pole. The New Testament also used the words stauroo ("crucify") and xylon ("tree"). There is no evidence given in the Bible that the stake used to crucify Christ had a crossbeam, as many people portray in the crosses that they use.
Anglican theologian E. W. Bullinger, in The Companion Bible (which was completed and published in 1922, nine years after his 1913 death), was emphatic in his belief that stauros never meant two pieces of timber placed across one another at any angle, "but always of one piece alone ... There is nothing [of the word stauros] in the Greek of the N.T. even to imply two pieces of timber." Bullinger wrote that in the catacombs of Rome (which he had visited) Christ was represented there as "hanging on a pole and not across" and that the cross was a pagan symbol of life (the ankh) in Egyptian churches that was borrowed by Emperor Constantine and his Nicean Council.
The Christian catacombs in Rome are extremely important for the art history of early Christian art, as they contain the great majority of examples from before about 300 AD, in fresco and sculpture.
Plymouth Brethren preacher W. E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words also states that the primary meaning of stauros was an upright pole or stake on which malefactors of Jesus time were nailed for execution. Vine said the shape of the ecclesiastical form of two-beamed cross had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (taking on the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in Chaldea and nearby lands, including Egypt. He said third century churches, which by then had departed from certain doctrines of the Christian faith, accepted pagans into the faith in order to increase their prestige and allowed them to retain their pagan signs and symbols. "Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the 'cross' of Christ."
In his 1871 study of the history of the cross, Episcopal preacher Henry Dana Ward similarly accepted as the only form of the gibbet on which Jesus died "a pole, a strong stake, a wooden post". James B. Torrance in the article "Cross" in the New Bible Dictionary writes that the Koine Greek word for "cross" (stauros) means an upright stake or beam.
"As recorded at Acts 5:30, the apostle Peter used the word xy′lon, meaning 'tree', as a synonym for stau·ros′, denoting, not a two-beamed cross, but an ordinary piece of upright timber or tree." Deuteronomy 21:23 states that the "cursed of God is everyone who hangs on a tree."
Josephus too, writing of the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, recounted that the Jews caught outside the city walls "were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of the city … the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the wooden stakes, by way of jest."
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who lived at the time of the birth of Jesus, described how those condemned to crucifixion were led to the place of execution:
"A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death, delivered him to his fellow-slaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him, and that he should go ahead of the procession which the Romans were at that time conducting in honor of the god. The men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment, having stretched out both his arms above his head and fastened his hands to a piece of wood, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips." Roman Antiquities, VII, 69:1-2
Jehovah's Witnesses publications have argued that the use of the Greek word stau·ros′ in theGospel accounts when referring to the instrument of execution on which Jesus died refers to an upright pole, stake, or post without a crossbeam. Their New World Translation of the Bible therefore uses the phrase "torture stake" to translate the Greek word σταυρός (stauros) in the three passages cited: Matthew 27:40, Mark 15:30 and Luke 23:26. The New World Translation is a Bible using translations from ancient Classical Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Old Aramaic biblical texts.
So how did most Christians today go from having Jesus crucified on a stake or pole to having him crucified on a pole with a crossbeam?
According to post-Nicene historians, Socrates Scholasticus and others, the Empress Helena (c. AD 250 – c. AD 330), mother of Emperor Constantine, the first so-called Christian Emperor of Rome, travelled to the Holy Land, dated by modern historians in 326-28, founding churches and establishing relief agencies for the poor. It was afterwards claimed, in the later fourth-century history by Gelasius of Caesarea followed by Rufinus' additions to Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, that she discovered the hiding place of three crosses, believed to be used at the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves who were executed with him, and that through a miracle it was revealed which of the three was the True Cross.
Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Life of Constantine, describes how the site of the Holy Sepulchre, originally a site of veneration for the Christian community in Jerusalem, had been covered with earth and then a temple of Venus had been built on top of it. Although Eusebius does not say as much, this would probably have been done as part of Hadrian's reconstruction of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in 135, following the destruction during the Jewish Revolt of 70 and Bar Kokhba's revolt of 132–135.
Socrates Scholasticus (born c. 380), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives a full description of the discovery that was repeated later by Sozomen and by Theodoret. In it he describes how Helena, Constantine's aged mother, had the temple destroyed and the Sepulchre uncovered, whereupon three crosses and the titulus from Jesus' crucifixion were uncovered as well. In Socrates's version of the story, Macarius had the three crosses placed in turn on a deathly ill woman. This woman recovered at the touch of the third cross, which was taken as a sign that this was the cross of Christ, the new Christian symbol. Socrates also reports that, having also found the nails with which Christ had been fastened to the cross, Helena sent these to Constantinople, where they were incorporated into the emperor's helmet and the bridle of his horse as a symbol of his right to claim he was the first Christian Emperor.
It is an interesting fact that if a person placed on a stake to be crucified did not die in a timely manner, the soldiers would break their legs, causing their body to drop, and thus suffocating that person. Christ died in a timely manner, and as such his legs were not broken, as was prophesied. See John 19:31-33, John 19:36, and Psalm 34:20.
Prophecy About Jesus & His Death
Isaiah 51:4-5 "Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: The law will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations."
Isaiah 52:13-15 "See, my Servant will prosper; He will be highly exalted. But many were amazed when they saw Him. His face was so disfigured He seemed hardly human, and from His appearance, one would scarcely know He was a man. And He will startle many Nations. Kings will stand speechless in His presence. For they will see what they had not been told; they will understand what they had not heard about."
Isaiah 53:1-12 "Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed His powerful arm? My Servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him. He was despised and rejected— a Man of many sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on Him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for His own sins! But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet He never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearer's, He did not open His mouth. Unjustly condemned, He was led away. No one cared that He died without descendants, that His life was cut short in midstream. But He was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But He was buried like a criminal; He was put in a rich man’s grave. But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush Him and cause Him grief. Yet when His life is made an offering for sin, He will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in His hands. When He sees all that is accomplished by His anguish, He will be satisfied. And because of His experience, my Righteous Servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for He will bear all their sins. I will give Him the honors of a victorious soldier, because He exposed Himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels."
Luke 18:31-34 "Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.
The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about."
What was said about dieing on a tree (Cross)?
Deut 21:23 "Be sure to bury Him that same day, because anyone who is Hung on a Tree is under God's Curse. You must not desecrate that land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance."
Gal 3:13 "Christ redeemed us from the Curse of the Law by becoming a Curse for us, for it is written; "Cursed is everyone who is Hung on a Tree."
The Bible is filled with stories that deal with mankind’s sin. God required animal sacrifices to represent the taking away of sin. But the strangest ‘sin’ story of all may be the ‘Snake On The Pole’ story.
Wandering Israelite's grumbled and complained against God. God sent snakes to bite and kill many of them. Moses prayed to God for help. God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole. (Numbers 21:4-9) So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and LIVE.
About 1450 years later we learn from Jesus Christ that He was the fulfillment of that strange story. He said:
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal LIFE.” John 3:15
The snake represented sin. The snake on the pole represented Christ being crucified. Jesus Christ BECAME OUR SIN. (2 Cor. 5:21) Our sin was put to DEATH by crucifixion. Jesus Christ literally paid for OUR SIN with His own flesh and blood.
Jesus mentioned the ‘snake on the pole’ story just before He uttered the most famous verse in the Bible:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal LIFE.” John 3:16
Additional References
- Colin Brown, "Stauros," New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids Michigan, 2001. Electronic version 2.8.
- Ancient Jewish and Christian perceptions of crucifixion - Page 12 David W. Chapman - 2008 "In the later period it is possible that Plutarch distinguished crucifixion on a stauros; from impalement on a skolops (cf. "----------" "but will you nail him to a cross or impale him on a stake ...An vitiositas ad infelicitatem sufficiat 499E "
- Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, II, xxiv, 4
- Hippolytus as quoted inJerome's, Epist. 36, Ad Damasum, Num. XVIII
- Hengel, Martin (1977). Crucifixion in the ancient world and the folly of the message of the cross. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
- Joe Zias, Crucifixion in Antiquity - The Evidence and Zias and Sekeles, “The Crucified Man from Giv‘at ha-Mitvar: A Reappraisal,” Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 35 (1985)
- Whalen, William J. (1962). Armageddon Around the Corner: A Report on Jehovah's Witnesses. New York: John Day Company
- New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures with References, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1984.
- Penton, M.J. (1997). Apocalypse Delayed. University of Toronto Press.