The Cross

Thank you again, Mr. Call.

Sorry, I brought some props up with me.

You know, we're a culture that values symbols. And nothing else, symbols are very convenient for letting you say a lot in a very little space. And I wonder, although I haven't engaged in it, I think, how could you do texting without, you know, symbolic language or things like that?

The symbols are useful for comparing ideas also, especially if you put them side by side. We do that with religions. I've seen that on bumper stickers. And you can sum up the three major monotheistic religions in three brief symbols. You could have the crescent represents Islam, the star of David is usually shown to represent Judaism, and then the cross for Christianity.

I want to focus on the cross in particular.

The cross is by far the most common symbol for Christianity in our society.

And people use it liberally not only as a symbol but as a decoration. People wear it on chains around their neck. It's on steeples at the top of churches. Many people put them on their walls at home.

For many millions of people, the cross is the supreme emblem of their faith.

They think of it as a solemn symbol of the crucifixion, the sign of Christ's redemption.

But of course, which won't be a surprise to many of you, but if we had visitors, you might look around and say, well, there aren't any crosses in here. And you might have wondered why.

If someone were to ask you, well, why doesn't the United Church of God use the cross as part of its worship?

Would you have a ready answer?

Now, as I said, I know there are many of us that have had these beliefs for many years, but how long has it been since we've thought of an explanation? What is the explanation?

Can we provide one from the Bible and or historic sources and give a strong one that we're confident in?

Well, remember, Peter instructed us to be ready to give an answer.

And of course, I believe that there is an answer, a good explanation that draws on both the Bible and historical sources.

And as I put this together, I realized I haven't heard this subject addressed in a long time, and that's what I wrote in my notes. And then about a week ago, the Ministerial Journal came out with an article exactly on this. Mr. Call and I were both chuckling.

He said, well, I already had this written. I promise. But I'm going to present some of the things slightly different. I will mention in the United Church of God, I think we've softened a little bit our style in how we address it. I don't think really our basic teaching has changed, but we don't, you know, I'd say in a lot of things that we teach, we've changed our style.

And I'd like to say without substance. And of course, this does relate to the sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ. So in the time as we lead up to Passover, it's very appropriate for us to consider this. So I want to examine what we find in God's Word. And I'm going to prepare you. The first part of the sermon is going to look at a lot of Scriptures.

Because the word cross is found in the King James Version of the Bible 28 times. Now, some other translations might vary slightly, but they're pretty much the same. But I will say this every single time you see the word cross in your Bible, and it's only in the New Testament, it's translated from the Greek word staros. Staros is transliterated S-T-A-U-R-O-S. Staros. And its literal definition is this. A steak. An upright post. Matter of fact, if you're planting tomatoes anytime soon and you want to steak them, you talk about a tomato steak or a tomato staros.

That's the simple definition of the word. It means an upright post or a steak typically that you'd put in the ground. And if you want to follow up, if you use a strong concordance with its lexicon, the number of strongs assigned to that word is 4716. Now, the way we could divide the word cross is used in Scripture into three different categories.

The first of these is when it's used to describe a heavy burden. Let's look at the first of these in Mark 8, verse 34. Mark 8, 34. And we'll see Jesus himself uses the term a number of times. Now, of course, this is following some other teaching, but in Mark 8, 34, says, when he, that is Jesus Christ, called the people to himself and his disciples with them, he said, whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

Now, as I said, I'm just saying it means an upright post. The reason this was a common vernacular or a common phrase at the time is the Romans used crucifixion as a mode of execution, using, you know, they would staroo someone to say it in Greek, crucify someone. But their practice was to make the condemned criminal carry the beam with him to the place of execution.

I'll discuss that a little bit further. But the idea of carrying a heavy load until you die was a common metaphor at the time. So when Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me, he was referring to something that people would be familiar with. It means carry that load that you're going to carry until you die. Okay, so that's why he said it that way. I'm not going to turn to this one, but Luke 9.23 describes the same exact occasion, but at words that are slightly different. There, Jesus said, if any will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

So same meaning, but it adds the word daily. It's interesting, looking into this, an older minister that I know once told me that he had heard a story of someone who wanted to be a good Christian who took this quite literally, and he got himself a 10-foot piece of lumber and carried it everywhere he went. He said, wow, that sounds... But he put a wheel at one end to make it a little bit easier to lug that thing around.

I don't know if that'd be cheating, but that's okay. Now, that's how Christ was speaking symbolically. Notice in these verses, though, and we'll look at a couple more, Christ says the man should take his cross, meaning the individual person, their own cross, their own burden, not a cross that was Jesus's. He hadn't been crucified yet. But for a person to carry this burden means basically to endure the sacrifices and trials of being a Christian. We can see that illustrated in 2 Timothy 2. Now, this is not one of the scriptures that uses the word cross, but it explains, I think, very well what this metaphor means. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 10.

And Paul speaks... As I said, this is the case where he doesn't say, I'm carrying a burden or a cross, but he explains that concept. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 10, he says, Therefore I endure all things, I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. For this is a faithful saying, If we died with him, we shall also live with him. If we endure, we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him, he will also deny us. So if we endure with Christ, if we carry the burdens that he puts on us, the reward will come. Let's quickly look at some of the other verses that use the word cross in the same manner. Matthew 10, verse 38. Matthew 10 and verse 38. I'm going to go through these in order from front to back, so that we're not flipping back and forth too much. But I do want to look at all of them to establish clearly in our minds what the Bible says about a cross.

Matthew 10, 38. Once again, same meaning. Here Jesus said, He who does not take up his cross, or he who does not take up his staros, and follow after me, is not worthy of me. You'll turn over to Matthew 16. Matthew 16 and verse 24. Matthew 16, 24. And this is the other one that corresponds to Mark 8, 34, where we started. Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, his staros, and follow me.

Then also Mark 10.

Mark 10 and verse 21.

I catch myself. This is one of those sermons where you could spend a lot of time looking down. Of course, you're spending a lot of time looking down right now, too. Matthew 10, 21. This is the case where, of course, the rich young man came to Jesus saying, What do I have to do to have life? And he said, Well, you know what to do. Keep the commandments. And he said, Well, what else? I've been doing that.

And he said, Well, one thing you lack, go your way, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven. And then come, take up the staros, and follow me. Again, if we remember, this was said before Jesus was ever crucified, and before anybody had any idea of a cross representing Christianity, he was referring again to that metaphor. Sell all that you have and take up that burden, that heavy beam that you carry until the end of your life.

That's what it takes to have eternal life beyond just obeying the commandments. As I said, he wasn't making a reference to his crucifixion in this case. And as I said in all of the cases so far, Jesus didn't say, Take up my, you know, Jesus's cross. He said, Each person take up his own cross. His own staros, meaning a heavy burden, that he would have to carry for the rest of his life. Now, when we do, when we see that word, it's easy for us to think of that, you know, one of these. I'm real extensive in the props today, but we think of two cross pieces when we see the word cross, because that's what it means in English.

Part of the reason for that is, of course, in English, the word cross does mean, you know, two cross pieces. And so that brings that image to mind. I don't know how many of you, if you've ever seen a Renaissance painting, or perhaps newer ones, of Jesus, probably he's a very, what's the word I'm looking for, effeminate-looking, skinny guy with long hair carrying this cross on his back. Well, you know, probably an image that nobody that's a historian of the time believes was actually what would happen. But we think of that, but we need to remember that's not what the Greek word staros means.

The reason we have a word in English that means this, when it came from a Greek word that means this, was because of the Latin. In Latin, where the word cross appears, it was the Latin word crooks. C-R-U-X. That came into the first Latin translation done by a fellow named Jerome, who, of course, it was done a couple, two or three hundred years after Christ's life and death.

And he took the belief that was common in the then Catholic Church, that Jesus, you know, was crucified definitely on a cross, and that it was a symbol of their religion. I want to come back to that point, the fact that the belief that it was a symbol of their religion is more important than what was the shape of the piece of wood.

But what I'm saying is the reason it says cross in English was because of the Latin that was based on an erroneous belief. Is that clear, or did I just muddy the water? Okay. Well, so far we've considered six of the scriptures that mention the word cross. I want to move to the second category. These scriptures are the ones that describe the actual instrument on which Jesus was crucified, and that appears a number of times, usually near the end of the Gospel accounts.

If we go back to Matthew, if we go to Matthew 27 and verse 32, we'll see the first of those. Matthew 27 and verse 32 says, Now as they came out, they found a man of Syrene, Simon by name, and him they compelled to bear his, that is Jesus's, star rose. Now I just said earlier that the Roman custom was to make a condemned criminal carry his own. Now why did they grab this guy? Well, the obvious answer is Jesus had been beaten so brutally and had been suffered so much, he was too weak to carry his own.

Actually, I think one of the accounts says he started to carry it, but couldn't. So they drafted some poor guy that happened to be walking by and said, now you carry it for him. So we'll see that, let's go to Matthew 27 and verse 40, this actually down the page for me. This is where they were mocking Jesus after he'd been crucified. So the Pharisees are saying, You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself. If you're the Son of God, come down from the star rose. So if you can do these great things, save yourself. Come down off of that thing. We can turn next to Mark chapter 15.

Mark 15 and verse 21. I don't have to spend a lot of time on these verses that repeat the same account, but as I said, I wanted to make sure we're covering all of our bases, so we're going to turn to all of them. Mark 15, 21, we'll see this again. They compelled a certain man, Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his, that is Jesus's, star rose.

So now we find that Simon had a couple of children. A lot of people speculate that he probably wasn't even Jewish because his children had Greek-sounding names. So perhaps he's got caught up in the middle of this. Later in that chapter, Mark 15, verse 30, we'll see what we read before again. Part of the mocking. They were down there at the foot, saying to Jesus, Save yourself! Come down from the star rose. And then in verse 32, Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the star rose, that we may see and believe, even those who were crucified with him reviled him.

So they were saying, yeah, you're nailed up there. You're so great. Come on down.

Let's go over to Luke 23. Luke 23, and we'll read verse 26.

Luke 23, verse 26. This is going to sound very familiar. Now as they led him away, they laid ahold of a certain man, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming from the country, and on him they laid the cross, or the star rose, that he might bear it after Jesus. That's the only reference in the book of Luke. Now we can go to John chapter 19. We'll see several in John 19. John 19 and verse 17.

He bearing his star rose went out to a place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. Over in verse 25.

For that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. And of course, the fact that breaking the legs was the fact that when you're nailed there, if you couldn't put weight on your legs, you'll raise yourself up to breathe, you would suffocate and die much more quickly. So breaking the legs would bring death on, and they could get them down off of there and buried, so they wouldn't have dead bodies out on a holy day.

But we see in these scriptures no symbolism, just a description of the fact that a man having to carry a wooden beam and then being crucified, nailed up to a piece of wood. And I didn't actually look... I'm not reading all the verses that have the word crucify on them, but as I mentioned earlier, the Greek word for crucify is a version of star rose. It's star-ru. Star-ru, S-T-A-U-R-O-O, means to impale someone on a star rose. Now, it could mean literally, like when you do a rotisserie chicken, but that wasn't usually done with men. It also could mean to nail someone. Actually, I mentioned tomato steaks. If you're taking a steak and you drive it down into the ground, the Greek word for that is star-ru. You're staking. So to steak something is to star-ru, or as it is in English, to crucify. Now, I do want to make the point. None of these scriptures prove that Jesus was not crucified on an upright steak that had a cross beam attached to it. None of them say that it was not an upright steak with a cross beam. What type of wooden beam he was on is not described in scripture. It just uses the word star-ruce, and I'm going to come to the fact that there are different types of them later on. But it was becoming practice in the Roman Empire to use an upright steak with a cross beam. And some scholars believe that what Simon the Cyreneian had to carry was not this, but instead this, that it was carried. And then someone would be nailed to it, and they would attach it. Actually, a lot of people say this was the common style that the Romans would have used. Actually, we know that for sure that's not what Jesus was nailed to. Because later on it says that Pilate wrote a sign and put it above his head. So Jesus was either on one of these with a sign up here, or one of these with a sign above his head. Probably not one of these, although there's talk that they did actually do that at times. What I was saying is, Scriptures don't tell us for sure which it might have been. It leaves the possibility open for both. So let's come back to that thought after we look at the other Scriptures that use the word cross. The third category used that word as a symbol, not a visual symbol, but a reference to Christ's crucifixion, his sacrifice. If you'll turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17, we'll see one of those. 1 Corinthians 1 chapter, verse 17. The Apostle Paul, and most of these are written by Paul. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17 says, So it's a verbal reference to not, as I said, the implement, but what was done on it. And we use those types of references all the time. If I mentioned to you Pearl Harbor, you probably think less of a body of water on the coast of Hawaii than you do of a Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. Similarly, if I said, remember the Alamo, usually that phrase doesn't refer to the building. It refers to the Mexican attack and the massacre that happened there. So Paul is using the word staros to refer to what was done with that. Let's go to Galatians chapter 5, verse 11, to see another case like that. Galatians 5, 11. Here again. Galatians 5, 11 says, In other words, people that are upset, you keep talking about this guy being crucified and then brought back to life. You know, if I'm, if I'm seetching, you still have to be circumcised, and that shouldn't bother anybody. Across the page in chapter 6, verse 12, Galatians 6, 12.

So I'm stumbling over my words there. I might get these out and use them. But basically, Paul is saying, hey, the world is crucified to me. In other words, you know, it can all be put to death for its sins, and I've been crucified to the world. He's saying the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the fact that He paid the price for our sins, that's what matters. And of course, most of the book of Galatians is him arguing against those who were saying that he had to be circumcised. In other words, you had to become a naturalized physical Israelite in order to be a Christian. He made the case that, no, you don't. Now baptism is the circumcision of Christ, and that's what matters. And of course, he said there's neither Jew nor Greek, male nor free, male or slave nor free, but all of us are one in Christ. But we become one in Christ by being baptized and having His sacrifice apply to us. But I should make the point, of course, Paul's not glorying in a particular symbol. He's glorying in Christ's sacrifice. There's no case ever of him saying, boy, it's so important that whether it was one of these, just the stick, or the cross piece, Paul didn't care about that. He gloried in what Christ did, His sacrificial death for our sins. And that's why I make the point. He used the word, staros, as a verbal symbol.

As I said, it stood for something, but there's no evidence that Paul or any of the early apostles ever used a visual symbol. That's something the church avoided, and historically that's proven. They didn't make the sign of anything. They didn't carry around anything. They used the words, which all words are symbols. They didn't use any visual or physical symbols.

We'll find some visual, similar usage if you'll go to Ephesians 2. Let's look at a few more scriptures to see the similar usage of that, as I said, verbal symbol. Ephesians 2 and verse 16.

This is where he's talking about bringing together those Gentiles and Jews.

I'm going to go next to Philippians. The book of Philippians follows, after Ephesians. Philippians 2 and verse 8.

And being found, in appearance as a man, he's speaking of Jesus Christ, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the staros. Now, there are different ways to be put to death, and it was generally considered the worst was to be nailed to a staros.

It was a very painful, agonizing death, but Jesus, when he became a man, was obedient even to that. If we look across the page at Philippians 3 and verse 18, here Paul is speaking of those who have made themselves enemies of the church. And he says, when you become an enemy of the gospel and of the church, you become an enemy of the sacrifice that Christ made.

Here he says, for many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, they are enemies of the staros of Christ. So I'm purposely using that Greek word, as I said, because I want us to read these without having this thought cross into our minds. It's not that this is evil, but we want to think about what Paul had in mind when he wrote, and as I said, he wrote in Greek words that had that meaning.

Colossians 1, Colossians 1, 20.

I could back up to get a running start at verse 19. It pleased the Father that in Him, that is, in Jesus Christ, all the fullness should dwell, and by Him, Christ, to reconcile all things to Himself, that is, to the Father, by Him, Jesus, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His staros. Of course, the blood that Christ bled out while He was crucified.

Over in Colossians 2, chapter 2, verse 14, "...having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, He having taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the staros." It's interesting, because there's some symbolism here. Paul is talking about the death certificate, the death ordinance that all of us are liable to, because we've all broken the law. And he's saying, symbolically, that would be nailed to the staros.

A lot of people believe that that means God's law was nailed to the cross and put away. That's not what Paul was saying, but it's important for us to remember. There was no literal certificate of death nailed to whatever Christ was crucified on. The only things that were nailed to it were Jesus Christ and the sign that Herod put there. But symbolically, the death warrant against us was also nailed there because of His blood paying that price.

Let's turn next to Hebrews 12 and verse 2.

Hebrews 12.2 Actually coming to the last of these 28 instances. Now, you thought it was going to be a long time turning to all those, but it goes pretty quickly.

Or maybe I thought it was going to be a long time turning to all of them.

Hebrews 12 and verse 2 Now, it's interesting because notice the implication of shame attached to death by crucifixion. And that was common throughout the Roman Empire, but especially among the Jews. It was a very shameful way to die. Now, Jesus Himself was not ashamed. He did nothing to earn that death. There was no shame adhering to Him, but it says He endured the shame that should be on all of us. All of us deserve that type of death.

But it's interesting to note that the early church didn't consider the staros as something that they would honor and glorify. It still represented a shameful death. They knew Jesus didn't do anything shameful, but they didn't say, rally around, let's sing songs about the old rugged staros because it's such a great thing. It's something we don't want to talk about. We'll honor the sacrifice that our Creator did for us, but we're not glorying in the thing that He died upon.

As I said, with those last nine verses, we've read all the Scriptures that contain all 28 uses of the word cross being translated from the Greek staros.

But I'm going to throw another Greek word at you. There is another word that was used to describe what Christ was crucified on. That word is in Greek, zulon. I think it's pronounced zulon. It's X-U-L-O-N. I'm learning with a three-year-old. It's how- certain letters, you say here's the letter and here's the sound it makes. X is a tough one because sometimes it goes x-s. And other times, it makes the zuh sound. Here, I'm pretty sure it's zulon.

Zulon is used five times in the New Testament. For the purpose- actually, it's used more times, but five times it's used to refer to Christ's crucifixion. And in each of these cases, it's translated into English as tree. The strongest number for that, if you want it, is 3586, if you want to check. But zulon can be translated as a staff, like a walking staff, a stock of wood. In some cases, it's just translated as wood or as tree. Let's turn to Acts 5 and verse 30 to see an instance of this. Acts 5, 30. Acts 5, 30. Peter, of course, is speaking to the Jews about Christ and his crucifixion. And he says, the God of our fathers- all of our fathers- he was a Jew speaking to Jews- raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. I had to stop and say, because in our culture, if we say you killed someone by hanging him on a tree, we think of a lynching, getting a noose. It's not that type of hanging. It's like if you hang a picture on a wall where you put a nail, and so it was that type of hanging. And of course, the word where it says tree is the Greek zulon. Let's go over to chapter 10 of Acts, Acts 10, verse 39. We'll see almost all of these usages are pretty much the same. Acts 10, 39. We are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, who they killed by hanging on a zulon, on a tree. A couple pages over in chapter 13 of Acts, Acts 13, verse 29. Now, when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree, from the zulon, and laid him in a tomb. Now, a couple more. Galatians 3, 13. Galatians, chapter 3, verse 13.

Brethren, I speak in the manner of men, though it's only a man's covenant, yet... Wait a minute, I'm not in the right place. Oh, there we go. Sorry, I was reading the wrong verse. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. That's quoting the Old Testament, and that's one of the reasons among Jews it was considered a shameful death. Because, even going back to Old Testament times, they didn't kill people by crucifying them, but a condemned criminal who they wanted to exhibit to shame after he was killed, they would sometimes nail him to a wall or a tree, so that people would see the dead body, and they would see the shame that came to someone who was being killed for his wrongdoing. So, as I said, for the Jews, and under the Roman Empire, anybody who was killed by crucifixion, it was a very shameful thing. It meant they were some of the worst of criminals. Let's go to one more. 1 Peter 2, verse 24. 1 Peter 2 and verse 24. It says, 2 Peter 2 and verse 24. Here, Peter is not using the staros, he's saying he was nailed to a tree, a zulon. And, as I said, zulon can mean a stick, a club, a tree. History actually shows that in some cases, when the Romans wanted to execute criminals, they would sometimes use the living trees, because a number of olive trees grew along roadsides. So, especially if slaves rose in rebellion, the story is sometimes they would crucify them right there on trees, so people passing by would see and think better of following their example. Now, we're pretty sure, well, I'd say we're absolutely sure Jesus was not nailed to a living tree, because we know Simon the Cyrenian had to carry the staros. And, as I said, there is debate. Was it this, a big wooden pole that might have weighed anywhere from 130 to 250 pounds? Or was there a cross piece that might have weighed 25 to 70 pounds that he carried, and then was attached? We don't know. All we know from Scripture, if we go strictly by the meaning of the words, is that Christ was crucified on a wooden object. It could possibly be an up-strike stake. The fact that it's Zulon and wasn't a living tree might indicate that it had something that would refer to as branches. So that's...the use of Zulon sort of supports the idea that it means some type of a stake with a cross piece.

There are a couple of Scriptures that people use to try to prove to say that Christ had to have been crucified on a cross with a cross piece. One of those we've already read, John 19, verse 19. They're both in John. I'm going to go there quickly. John 19, verse 19.

Oh, well, this is speaking...when Pilate wrote the title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Some people have actually said he wrote it on this piece, literally on the cross beam, that that's what Pilate wrote on. I've always thought, well, that sounds ridiculous. For one thing, later, the other counts say it was above his head. So that doesn't tell us that it was definitely a cross piece. It doesn't say that there wasn't. We can also look at John 20.

I've always said, most likely what Pilate wrote this sign on, and remember it was in three different languages, it might have been paper, most likely a small piece of square wood. And many of you have probably had a similar experience. If you've ever had a garage sale or a yard sale, and you made some signs and went on and nailed them to telephone poles or whatever, you know, you write on the sign and you go and nail it up. Well, apparently Pilate wrote this on a piece of wood, and it was nailed to the top of the stake, regardless of whether or not there was a cross pole.

Now, after Christ was resurrected, you'll remember, of course, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, He appeared to the two men on the road to Emmaus, He appeared to Simon Peter sometime, we don't know exactly, and He came into a room with most of the apostles, but one was missing. And remember the apostles told Doubting Thomas, well, he's called Doubting Thomas because he said, I'm not going to believe it.

Let's read what he said, John 20 and verse 25. The other disciples therefore said to him, We've seen the Lord. So he said, Well, unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and I put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into a side, I won't believe. Thomas basically said, I want to see in His hand the print of the nails.

So the fact that it's plural there, some people say, well, it's nails. It had to be one nail for each hand. And that might well be what it was. Although a lot of scholars say it probably was actually His wrist, and they say that the Greek would allow for wrist rather than hand because they say actually the Romans would nail the hand, but it would tear loose, so they went for the wrist. And I'm a historian. I don't know anatomy well enough to argue back and forth one way or the other.

I do know grammar a bit, and my contention is that the Greek, I think, and I know for sure the English would allow the plural to apply to the total number of nails used overall. And we know there were a minimum of two nails. It could have been one for both hands if He's on an upright stake and one for both feet.

It's possible that there were four nails. One for each hand, one for each foot, or actually more than that. If you want to put two in each foot, two in each hand. And here I'm being, well, I don't know if I'd say silly, but I doubt that the Romans used any more nails or stakes than they absolutely had to, because for most of human history, nails have been expensive. I don't know if people realize that. We use them and throw them away today, but for most of our history, nails have been hard to come by.

I remember I first learned that. I was kind of surprised. Studying the colonial period in American history and the Western expansion, a lot of our forefathers in Kentucky, built a cabin, and when they're ready to move out west, say, to Missouri, they would set their cabin on fire, burn it down, and then sift through the ashes to get the nails, take the nails with them. Wood is cheap. Wood is plentiful. Nails are expensive. And what I'm saying is the Romans, if they crucified Jesus this way, it was probably just one nail.

If it was this way, one for each hand or wrist, most likely. But let's come down to what if the star oaks of Christ's crucifixion, what if it did have a cross piece? I've been saying the Greek would allow it to have been this or this. What difference would it make? And that's a question we came to as a church years ago, and for those of you who are younger, I should... I mean, a lot of you are older, say, well, we've been through this a lot.

Some of us might not remember that there was a time a few decades ago where we had a very strong position saying it was this and only this. It could not have been a cross. And we softened our stance on that because some historical evidence came out. We said, well, we're not entirely sure. History shows that the Romans' method of execution by crucifixion did vary.

They did use this a lot of times. And in the early period especially, and there are graphical displays, pictures of people crucified that way. But they also then started experimenting with different cross beams. And actually because sometimes the weight was such that people would suffocate too early, they actually sometimes would put a little peg in there to go be...

in the crotch of the person's crotch to help hold their weight, or even a little more like a saddle to help hold them up just enough to keep them alive longer. Which, when you think it's terrible, I mean, it's an awful way to die. I've read some accounts of people who researched it. You know, either way it's not good. And some of you who are...some of us who have been around long enough might remember an article that appeared in the magazine the church used to publish called The Plain Truth. It was in the early 90s. I wanted to say 93 and 94, and I couldn't find a copy of the actual magazine.

It had things I got rid of the ones I had from those years. They would have been good to have for reference. But I think the author was actually Joseph DeCotch Jr.

But there was a cover page article on what was Christ crucified on. And if you remember, the cover page showed one of these with a very short cross piece. Sort of just enough to say, oh! And some of us were shocked that The Plain Truth would have something with any kind of a cross beam. But the article went on to discuss the history, showed illustrations of various types of Roman devices, and basically said, we've got to back off from what we used to say. We used to say, absolutely, there's no way there was a cross piece. And this used history and grammar to say, well, there could have been. But we don't know for sure. Now, what was surprising, for those of you who remember that, and you're still with us, many of us were surprised at how quickly the worldwide Church of God moved from saying, there may have been a cross piece on that star rose, to not long after saying the cross is the symbol of our religion. And many of us stopped and said, well, wait a minute. I'm not comfortable with the cross being the symbol of my religion. And that's where one of the reasons I wanted to address this, we've got younger members or people who have come in who, you know, never discussed this kind of thing and might wonder, well, why don't we use crosses? You know, I've seen young people show up at the summer camp who wear a cross around their neck and think, well, it's a nice decoration, no problem with it. Well, I would ask whether or not it was one of these or one of these, one of the questions we've often asked is, why would people think that making a decoration out of whatever Christ was crucified on is an appropriate way to honor Him? You know, is it something you're proud of? And I've heard this illustration used many times before. If God the Father had chosen for Christ to come in our period, say today to be the sacrifice for mankind, how would He have been crucified? Or how would He have been sacrificed? I can say He wouldn't have been crucified. I thought if He came to the United States and He were executed as a criminal, they'd probably be by lethal injection. If that's the case, would people wear little copies of syringes on their necks or put those on their steeples? And you say, of course not. You know, through much of human history, execution was done by beheading, either by an axe for a brief period by the guillotine. You know, we wouldn't want a guillotine to be the symbol of our religion. If death by hanging, the nooses are easier to reproduce, if you wanted to wear those. But, you know, none of us could picture doing it that way. But the cross, by those who legitimately seriously believed it was what Jesus was crucified on, that's become a symbol of millions of people's religion.

Why do they feel that way? And why do we not? For the answer to that is where we turn away from reading lots and lots of Scriptures, and if we turn to history and culture, we can get a better understanding. And we can see the cross has a long history. Matter of fact, let me read... I've got quotes from several books. I only had a couple of them on my shelf. So some of them I had to copy and then put the books back. But this is from a book called Atlantis, The Antediluvian World, by Ignatius Donnelly. It says, When Spanish missionaries first set foot upon the soil of America in the fifteenth century, they were amazed to find the cross was as devoutly worshipped by the red Indians as by themselves. And they were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of St. Thomas, or to the cunning device of the evil one. The hallowed symbol challenged their attention on every hand, in almost every variety of form. It appeared on the base reliefs of ruined and deserted, as well as those of inhabited places, and was the most conspicuous ornament in the great temple of Cozumel. Well, those early Spanish missionaries, they believed the cross represented their religion, and so they looked at it. These people have the cross. Where did they get it? They were lacking some important understanding of world history and of church history, or they wouldn't have been so surprised. One of the first things, they didn't realize that a lot of those buildings that they were looking at that had crosses on them, predated Christianity. Many of them were built more than 1,500 years ago. Of course, I say buildings, many of them were ruins, so they had been buildings and had already fallen apart. But they were built long before the time of Christ, so no apostle could have had anything to do with a cross being on those. Another, you mentioned the reference to St. Thomas. Some people believe that the apostle Thomas traveled to the New World and preached the gospel to the Indians. Trying to get that evangelized. There's a word for that that I'm not saying right, but you know what I meant. Anyways, but that wouldn't have worked. If they'd have understood their church history, they would have known. Let me cite another book. This is by A.H. Lewis called, Paganism Surviving in Christianity, from page 108. He says simply, the cross did not appear as a symbol of so-called Christianity until after its paganization under Emperor Constantine. And I can elaborate on it a little bit more. Many of you probably have a copy of the two Babylons by... Oh, wait a minute. I wanted the other book. Probably even more if you have a copy of Babylon Mystery Religion by Ralph Woodrow. I'm going to read from page 50. This is where I knew I would need these.

It was not until Christianity began to be paganized... Here, I would inject... He would have been more accurate if he just said, paganism began to be called Christianity, but... He said, not until Christianity began to be paganized that the cross came to be thought of as a Christian symbol.

It was in 431 A.D. that crosses in churches and chambers were introduced, while the use of crosses on steeples did not come about until 586 A.D. In the sixth century, the crucifix image was introduced and its worship sanctioned by the Church of Rome.

So many people assume that the early Church, the Church that we're reading of in Acts, had the cross as part of its religion. I went out of my way earlier to say that that's not what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he made references to the Staros. Documented history does show that the so-called Christian use of the cross as a symbol began about 300 years after Christ's crucifixion.

And it was popularized under Emperor Constantine, the one who made Christianity the official religion of Rome. Actually, and many of you have probably heard this legend. He was that when the previous emperor had died and several generals started fighting to become the next Roman emperor, that the story says that he saw a large cross up in the sky and the words that said, by this conquer, and so he painted a cross on the shields of his soldiers and went out, you know, and was victorious, and that's what made him start respecting Christianity. What we should remember on this is that Constantine was a sun worshiper. Later, he sort of adopted Christianity. He waited until his deathbed to be baptized. But as a sun worshiper, how would he know what was a genuine symbol of Christianity and what was not?

He knew that some people in some churches were waving this thing around thinking it represented their religion, but he didn't understand what we do. I find it interesting also, the legends say that Constantine's mother, Helena, searched for the actual cross that Christ was crucified on and that she found it.

300 years later, and of course it was broken up into little pieces of relics that can be found in churches all across Asia and Europe, probably some in America. And many of you have heard of this, right? Well, the funny part is, of course, some scholars have gone and counted how many of those there are, and they estimate that if you put all that wood together that was supposedly from Christ's cross, it's enough wood to build a large boat and then fill the cargo hold of that boat with the rest of the wood that was also from that cross. So in other words, all those pieces out there aren't from Christ's cross. We're not sure where they're from. Let me quote another book by Charles Pinotty. The book is titled, The Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, and he supports this. It says in 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea—we've been reading a lot about the Council of Nicaea because it's the one that declared keeping Easter rather than Passover and declared to keep Sunday instead of the Sabbath— the Council of Nicaea convened by Emperor Constantine decreed—in other words, that made the decision— that the cross be adopted as the official symbol of the Christian religion. So before 325, there was no practice of the cross being the symbol of Christianity. Vines Expository—let me say that again—Vines Expository Dictionary of the New Testament Words also describes what happened. In its section on the cross, Vines says, By the middle of the third century A.D., the churches had either departed from or had transvested certain doctrines of the Christian faith in order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system. Let me state that. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system—that's a fancy way of saying in order to make the church look better— pagans were received into the church apart from regeneration by faith. This sounded a lot better when I was reading it on paper. But they were allowed in and permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. This is a fancy way of saying, you guys come on into the church and you can keep your symbols and signs. We're not going to make you change that because we want everybody to be in the church. And it turns out the cross was a pagan symbol that had existed for quite some time. That's how the cross became associated with what was considered Christianity.

History shows us that the institution of the cross, as a symbol of what was now called Christianity, occurred more than three centuries after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There's no record. There's not even any hint implying that the early church ever used any type of visual symbols. The first writer to ever describe the instrument of Christ's crucifixion as a tomb-beamed cross was Justin Martyr.

He wrote a piece called The Dialogue with Trifo, and it was written more than a century after Christ's crucifixion. But, I'll point out, scholars who understand the truth don't believe that Justin Martyr still held to his pagan beliefs. And, of course, he didn't have any first-hand accounts of Christ's crucifixion.

So, neither historical nor archaeological sources show any use of the cross as a symbol of Christianity before the time of Constantine.

But, archaeologists have found many instances of the use of the cross and other religions.

So, remember those pagan missionaries... or, pagan... those Spanish missionaries... Some might call them pagan, but I don't want to be insulting. Those missionaries in the 1500s who came to South America and Mexico and said, Well, that's all the cross with the Indians... They thought maybe the Apostle Thomas came and taught them that. History shows that couldn't have been the case. Even if one of the apostles had traveled to the New World, that apostle wouldn't have been using a cross as a symbol. It just wasn't done in their lifetime. But, as I was hinting at, those Spanish missionaries also didn't know ancient history and the history of religion. And that crosses were commonly used in many other religions. Aside from in Christianity, the cross symbol had existed thousands... Or, at least hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, depending on how you do the dating, before Christianity.

Once again, let me quote from Vine's Expository Dictionary. It says, The cross originated among the Babylonians of ancient Chaldea. It was used as a symbol of the god, Tammuz. Many books about ancient Egypt show the use of the towel cross. That's basically what we consider the letter T. Shaped like the letter T on old monuments on the walls of ancient temples. William Seymour's book called, The Cross in Tradition, History, and Art, says, The cross, unchanged for thousands of years, was reverented among the Chaldeans, the Phoenicians, the Mexicans, and every ancient people of both hemispheres. And I also saw evidence, one book referenced the fact that in India, the cross was also used. There's a temple in... I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it... Palenque or Palenque, Mexico. They thought that it was built 900 years before Christ, and its title, translated to English, is, The Temple of the Cross. 900 years before Christ, they built the Temple of the Cross. The Roman Empire, in 46 BC, issued a coin, and coins always have a picture. On this coin, it showed Jupiter holding a scepter with a cross at the top. Cross was common, the use of the Roman Empire. And of course, that reminded me of that statue that's in the Vatican. They say now it's Peter, but we believe it was Jupiter. A lot of things got translated or just adopted. So again, this leads to the question, what is the significance of the cross symbol? If it's been around that long, and it's not related to Christ's crucifixion, where did it come from? Well, like most things attached to false religion, as we saw, its use goes back to Babylon and Egypt, and can be tied to Nimrod and Semiramis. I've got a very short quote from Funkenwagnalls' Encyclopedia. Its article on the cross says, To the Egyptians, the cross was a symbol of immortality. So the Egyptians believed it was a symbol of immortality. Ancient Egyptians used the cross in what's called the tau form. That's basically looking like this. But then they would add a circle to the top and call it the crux ansada. You can tell I get real elaborate with my... but basically a cross with a circle. So let me read this. It combined the symbol of life, the tau, with the symbol of eternity, the circle. The same symbol served to convey the idea of secret wisdom to other ancient peoples as diverse as the Phoenicians and the Aztecs. Now I did want to read from Hislop. Alexander Hislop's Two Babylons. I'm going to start reading in page 197. That which is now called the Christian Cross was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was the mystic tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians. The true original form of the letter T, the initial of the name Tammuz, which in Hebrew, which in Hebrew, radically the same as the ancient Chalde, was found on coins, was formed as number one... let me skip ahead. That mystic tau was marked in baptism on the foreheads of those initiated into the mysteries, and was used in every variety of way as a most sacred symbol. To identify Tammuz with the sun, it was joined sometimes to the circle of the sun. So in other words, Tammuz with the sun. Life with eternity. Of course, symbols of the pagan religion that camouflaged and tried to supersede the true religion later on. Satan was working a scam, and he's still working that scam. As I said, that's why Christ might have been crucified on one of these, but that symbol... that is a symbol existed long before.

And that's why I say that's not a symbol I want to adapt in my decoration or in my religion. And besides that, of course, you can find statues in the ancient temples and museums showing Greek gods and goddesses. Bacchus and Diana often portrayed with crosses on their clothing. In the British Museum, there's a statue of the Assyrian king Samse-Voul, son of Shalmaneser, and around his neck he's wearing a perfect Maltese cross.

The Maltese cross, it looks a lot like... it reminds me of German, it looks like the Iron Cross. All of this long before Jesus ever walked on earth, before anyone knew the means by which he would die. Let me sum this up once again from Vine's expository dictionary. It says simply, the cross as a Christian symbol was taken directly from the pagans. Not that that's a surprise to most of us, but as I said, it's been a while since we've looked at that.

So let's put this together, work towards a conclusion. Let me summarize. There's no evidence that Jesus Christ died on a cross, as depicted by modern Christian symbolism. Now, there's no evidence that he died on an upright stake without a cross piece. When it comes down to it, there's no description in the Bible that tells us for sure what type of staros or zulon on which he died. We know it was made of wood. We know it had an upright piece. Cross piece or not?

The Bible just doesn't say for sure. And that alone tells us something. If we needed to know, it would be in the Bible. God is pretty clear about telling us the stuff that we need to know. Now, I'll tell you my personal belief. As I said, in ancient times, the Romans started with the most simple device possible. And it got more complex over time. But my thought was, off there in Palestine, where wood was rare and it was a lot of trouble, my personal belief is they probably used the simplest way they could do it.

Two nails, one piece of wood. But that's only my own personal opinion. The proof comes out later that there was a cross piece. It won't offend me or bother me a great deal. Second point, of course, is there's no evidence that in the first century Church of God, the cross in any shape or form was ever used for any purpose. Whatever it was that Christ was crucified on was considered something of shame and they didn't like to talk about it.

They did emphasize His sacrifice. They did like to talk about that. But on the other hand, the record in history shows that the cross had a prominent place in pagan religious worship and had had that prominent place long before Christ was ever born. And that's what should make us think twice about ever using it, as I said, as a decoration or an ornamentation.

Let's consider another important fact. There's no command, not even any hint, implied in God's word that indicates we should revere the cross, use it as a symbol or commemorate it, or use it to commemorate the death of Jesus Christ. I'm going back and forth when looking here. God doesn't tell us to use a symbol of Christ's crucifixion or a symbol of a cross as His crucifixion. If God expected us to do that, He would have told us. We'd find examples of it in the book of Acts. Now, I want to point out Jesus Christ does give us a command to use symbols of His sacrificial death.

He does give us a command to use symbols of His death in the Passover service. He says the symbols that we're to use are unleavened bread that's broken, and then a small bit of red wine. The bread symbolizes His broken body.

The wine symbolizes His blood. These are the symbols that He gave us. In Luke 22, verse 19, Jesus, after He broke the bread and gave it to the disciples, after He passed around the wine, He said, Do this in remembrance of Me. Those are the symbols we're commanded to use. So, if we consider that, if I could use a play on word, considering what we've seen in history and in God's word, you could say most of the human population that believes in Christianity has been double-crossed.

I would say they've been crossed up. They've been double-crossed. And instead of the symbols of the Passover, they're accepting two lines to represent, and what does is represent a false religion. They've been deceived by Satan into accepting those symbols as being a symbol of Jesus Christ. So, that's not the most important thing for us to focus on in the Passover. But as we read those scriptures, it's good to think about what He would want us to look at.

You know, the wood that He's nailed to, or what would represent it, the broken body, the blood. We can focus, because we know the truth, on the real significance of Christ's sacrifice and the vital place that it has in God's plan.