Why the Cross?

The cross is the universal symbol of Christianity.

- Latin cross

- Tau cross

- Celtic cross

- St. Andrew’s cross

- Maltese cross

- signed in the air by hand gestures

- worn around the neck as a medallion

- hung on the walls or placed on the roofs of buildings

- even used as a floor plan for churches

The cross was an instrument of torture and death.

- originated among the Assyrians and Persians as a means of punishing and humiliating enemies.

- adopted by the Greeks, perfected by the Romans

- became the Roman means of punishing and executing slaves.

- Cicero: “Let the very name of the cross be far away not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but even from his thoughts.

Yet it was the cross that became the rallying point of the church, the center of the apostles’ preaching, and the focal point of their lives. Far from hushing up the fact that Jesus Christ had died an ignominious death on a Roman cross, the early Christians gloried in it.

1 Corinthians 2:1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles

Galatians 6:14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ

The idea of the cross and crucifixion, which Cicero found so objectionable, is mentioned no less than 76 times in the New Testament, by virtually every writer. Why? Why the cross?

1. The cross was God’s idea…

Not only was the cross the instrument of human wickedness, but it was the instrument of divine purpose:

Acts 2:23 This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

Acts 3:17 “Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer.

Acts 4:27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

The cross was no accident. It was the means God had chosen to use to accomplish our redemption. But we still ask: Why a cross?

2. The cross was the sign of God’s curse on the sinner…

The number one reason that people of the Jewish faith do not accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah is because he died on a cross. Why is that such a significant problem to them?

Deuteronomy 21:22-23 If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.

Is a Roman cross a tree? It most certainly is. Even the Romans themselves referred to the cross as a tree. They referred to the cross as the “arbor infelix”, the barren tree. And the writers of the New Testament went out of their way to refer to the cross of Jesus Christ as a tree. They wanted everyone, especially their Jewish countrymen, to understand that Jesus because he hung on a tree was under the curse of God. You would think that in order to be successful in Jewish evangelism, they would want to hush up the fact that Jesus hung on a tree. But they didn’t.

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree

Galatians 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.”

When Jesus died on the cross, he became accursed of God. He became our substitute, the one who died in our place, rejected and forsaken by God. The cross was the instrument God used to show that he was putting upon the Messiah the curse for our sins.

So to our Jewish friends we say, “We are not ashamed to admit that Jesus died on a tree. Quite the contrary: we’re glad he did. Because the Law of Moses says that in so doing, he was assuming for us the curse of God against sin.”

Far from disqualifying him from being the Messiah, the fact that Jesus died on a tree shows that he is the Messiah; the suffering servant of God, the Redeemer of the world.

3. The cross is the reason Christ is glorified today…

The interesting thing about the apostle’s preaching of the Gospel is that they preached Christ crucified. They certainly mentioned the Resurrection, but the Gospel they preached was not a resurrection Gospel, it was a crucifixion Gospel. The crucifixion is where they placed their emphasis.

Because that is where Jesus placed his emphasis:

John 12:32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

John 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

John 8:28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be

Philippians 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

When we catch a glimpse of heaven in the book of Revelation, the great climax of the Bible - the completion of God’s great program of redemption, we see Jesus Christ, the central figure. The multiplied thousands upon thousands of his redeemed people and the angels - a great throng that no one could number bow down and worship him. And what do they say?

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.

It is because the cross, not the empty tomb, was Jesus’ greatest accomplishment. By the cross, he purchased our salvation.

Why the cross? Because the cross was God’s idea. The cross was the means by which God placed upon his Son the curse for our sins. And because the cross is the instrument by which we remember Christ’s love for us.

Isn’t it interesting that when Christ wanted us to remember Him, he didn’t design a service that would remind us of his birth. I suppose he could have. He could have had us pass out to one another little pieces of straw to remind us of the manger in which he lay. And he didn’t design a service that would remind us of his resurrection either. He could have had us take in our hands a little stone to remind us of the stone that was rolled away from the tomb.

He designed a service that would take us to the cross. He had us eat some bread to remind us of His broken body and drink some wine that would remind us of his shed blood. Because the cross is the reason he came.