Why the Cross?

Symbols are very powerful because a symbol represents an idea. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a symbol may perhaps be worth ten thousand. What do you think of when you see these symbols…

• Swastika

• Star of David

• Maple Leaf

• Crescent

• Nike swoosh

• Hammer and Sickle

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 is a rather strange symbol for a faith that preaches love and peace, because it was originally an instrument of torture and death. Imagine, if you will, a religion that had as its emblem a guillotine, or a hangman’s noose, or an electric chair.

Over the past 2,000 years, the cross has come to be associated with Christianity and the church. We think of it as a religious symbol, a nice symbol, a good symbol. But it was not always so.

The ancient Assyrians—who had a positive talent for cruelty—invented crucifixion on a cross as a means of punishing and humiliating their enemies. In their hands, the cross became an instrument of terror. The Babylonians and Persians used it occasionally. The cross was adopted by the Greeks, and perfected by the Romans, under whose hands it became the preferred method for punishing and executing slaves and political prisoners. As such, it was an object of dread. The great Roman orator Cicero said: “Let the very name of the cross be far away not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but even from his thoughts.”

For their part, the Jews saw the cross in an even worse light if that is possible. For them, the cross was an object of hatred. It was the symbol of their domination by the pagan Roman Empire. They well remember how the Romans hung thousands of their countrymen on crosses as they conquered and subjugated the Jewish people.

Yet in spite of the fact that the cross was dreaded by the Gentiles and detested by the Jews, the cross became the rallying cry of the church, the center of the apostles’ preaching, and the focal point of the Christian faith. Far from hushing up the fact that their leader, Jesus Christ, had died an ignominious death on a Roman cross, the early Christians gloried in it.

When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city in Greece, he said…

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

This instrument which people 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 an instrument of human wickedness and cruelty; 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.

In the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar”, the cross is seen as an accident. In that story, Jesus was a charismatic leader whose plans had gone horribly wrong and he ended up hanging on the cross as a martyr. Judas says to him “Every time I look at you I don’t understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand.”

But the Bible says that the cross was no accident. It was the means God had chosen to use to accomplish a great purpose: the redemption of guilty sinners. 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? Because of what is written in the Torah, the OT Law of Moses:

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.

In ancient Palestine, it was customary to execute a criminal and then impale his body on a pole for public display to serve as an example and a deterrent to passersby as to what would happen to a lawbreaker. It was only later, with the Assyrians, that impalement became the means of execution itself. And still later, crucifixion on a cross was developed as a means of slowing down the time it would take the victim to die.

The Law of Moses says that “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”

Is the Roman cross a tree? It most certainly is. Even the Romans themselves referred to the cross as a tree. They called it 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

Paul even quotes that passage in Deuteronomy when he writes to the Galatians…

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.”

The point they were making was that 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 his Anointed One, the Messiah, the curse for our sins.

So to the Jew a Christian says, “We are not ashamed to admit that Jesus died on a tree. Quite the contrary: we are grateful that he did. Because the Law of Moses says that in so doing, the Messiah was bearing for us the curse of God against our sin.”

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

3. Dying on the cross was understood by Jesus to be his central mission

Some modern theologians want to minimize the centrality of the cross in understanding who Jesus is and why he came. They prefer to highlight Jesus’ teachings, his ethics, or even his supernatural deeds.

But Jesus himself identified his central purpose quite clearly in the Gospels. There came a point in his ministry when he began to teach his disciples explicitly what that mission was, and what it would entail…

Mark 8:31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this…

The word “plainly” is the Greek word “parresia”, and it means “frankly, openly, bluntly”. Jesus wasn’t making any bones with his disciples about the fact that he was going to die—so much so that Peter drew him aside and rebuked him for talking this way.

A little while later, as they were passing through Galilee, Jesus said…

Mark 9:31-32 “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

Still later, Jesus said…

Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

On the Monday before he died, Jesus, knowing what lay ahead that week, said…

John 12:27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.

John 12:32-33 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.

Jesus understood very well what his mission was. It was to die as a substitute—not as a martyr to a cause, but as a sacrifice for sin.

This is the entire meaning that flows through the Last Supper that Jesus ate with his disciples on Thursday evening. He portrays himself as the Passover Lamb—the innocent substitute sacrificed for the sins of the people.

After his resurrection, when he appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus showed them from the OT Scriptures how these things had to happen to the Christ before he entered his glory.

Jesus understood very well what he had come to do. And he did it. He went to the cross. The cross was his greatest accomplishment.

4. The cross is why we glorify Christ today…

As we have seen, the cross in the ancient world was an ugly, fear-inducing thing. It was not something you talked about in polite company. And everything we know about where and how Jesus was crucified bears that out. He was crucified outside the city walls at a miserable place called Golgotha—the Place of the Skull. Skull is translated into the Latin Calvaria, from which we get Calvary.

Some think that that refers to the fact that the features of the landscape resembled a human skull. But it might also refer to the fact that, since it was a place of execution, there were human skulls to be found there.

At any rate, the crucifixion of Jesus is not a pretty thing to think about or talk about. Certainly there are more attractive things to focus upon when we think of Jesus. We can think of his miracles: how he healed the sick and raised the dead. We can think of his beautiful teaching: the Sermon on the Mount; the parables he told. We can think about his great commandment to love one another.

And yet, the interesting thing about the apostle’s preaching of the Gospel is that they preached Christ crucified. They certainly mentioned the miracles, they mentioned the greatest miracle of all: the Resurrection, but the Gospel they preached was not primarily a resurrection Gospel, it was a crucifixion Gospel. The cross is where they placed their emphasis.

Because that is where Jesus himself 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

Paul writes to the Philippians a great passage about the glorification of Jesus Christ and he states that the cross is essential to that glorification.

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.

The Apostle John allows us a glimpse of heaven in the book of Revelation. There in Revelation 4-5, we catch sight of the great climax of the Bible—the completion of God’s program of redemption. And 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 not the miracles, not the teaching, not even the empty tomb, which are being celebrated in heaven. It is the cross, because the cross 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.

When Jesus wanted us to remember him, 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.

Golgotha. Calvary. The Place of the Skull. What’s a God like you doing in a place like this? We’re going to find out over the coming weeks as we approach Easter.