This gruesome practice may explain how the stake eventually came to be used as an instrument of civil and military punishment. Such stakes came to be used later with cross-beams as instruments of humiliation, torture and execution for persons convicted as enemies of the state (foreign soldiers, rebels and spies or civil criminals, such as robbers) During the Old Testament period there is no evidence that the Jews fastened people to a stake or a cross as a means of execution. The Law directed death by stoning. But the Law did permit the public display (hanging) of a lawbreaker's body 'on a tree' strictly commanding that the body shall not remain overnight on the tree but you shall surely bury him that day. - Lev. 20:2; Deut. 21:22-23, 22:24 -
Crucifixion on a stake or cross was practiced by the Greeks, notably Alexander the Great who hung 2,000 people on crosses when the city of Tyre was destroyed. During the period between Greek and Roman control of Palestine, the Jewish ruler Alexander Jannaeus crucified 800 Pharisees who opposed him at Bethome. These executions were condemned as detestable and abnormal by decent-minded people of Jannaeus's day as well as by the latter Jewish historian, Josephus.
From the early days of the Roman Republic, death on the cross was used for rebellious slaves and bandits although Roman citizens were rarely subjected to this method of execution. The practice continued well beyond the New Testament period as one of the supreme punishments for military and political crimes such as desertion, spying, revealing secrets, rebellion and sedition. Following the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity, the cross became sacramental, and it is use by Romans as a means of torture and death was abolished.
The Gospels tell us that the Lord Jesus spoke of the cross before His death. - Matt. 10:38; Mark 10:21; Luke 14:27 - But the major significance of the cross after Jesus' 'Passion, Death and Resurrection' is its use of Jesus' willingness to suffer for our sins so that we might be reconciled to God and know His peace.
With so many witnesses in a great cloud on every side of us, we too, then, should throw off everything that hinders us especially the sin that clings so easily and keep running steadily in the race we have started. Let us not lose sight of Jesus who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which was still in the future, he endured the cross, disregarding the shamefulness of it, and from now on has taken his place at the right of God's throne. - Heb. 12:1-2 -
It is all God's work. It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation. In other words, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not holding men faults against them and he has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled. - 2Cor. 5:18-19 -
And all things to be reconciled through him and for him,
everything in heaven and everything on earth,
when he made peace
by his death on the cross. - Col. 1:20 -
This was to create one single New Man in himself out of the two of them and by restoring peace through the cross, to unite them both in a single Body and reconcile them with God. In his own person he killed the hostility. Later he came to bring the good news of peace, peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near at hand. Through Him, both of us have in the one Spirit our way to come to the Father. - Eph. 2:15-18 -
Thus the cross is the glory of the Christian gospel; the fact that through this offensive means of death, the debt of sin against us was 'nailed to the cross' and we, having 'been crucified with Christ' have been freed from sin and death and made alive to God. The cross, then, is of Jesus' love, God's power to save and the thankful believer's unreserved commitment to Christian discipleship. To those who know the salvation which Christ gained for us through His death, it is a "Wondrous Cross" indeed.
If in union with Christ we have imitated his death, we shall also imitate him in his resurrection. We must realise that our former selves have been crucified with him to destroy this sinful body and to free us from the slavery of sin. When a man dies, of course, he has finished with sin.
But we believe that having died with Christ we shall return to life with him: Christ, as we know, having been raised from the dead will never die again. Death has no power over him anymore. When he died, he died, once for all, to sin, so his life now is life with God; and in that way, you too must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus. - Rom. 6:5-11 -
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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