Scripture Reference: Galatians 6:11-14

The Cross – An Emblem of the Christian Faith – Continued

The cross of Christ is not a mythical, romantic idea, symbol, or story. It is historical and factual. If we think of the reference to Christ in Josephus as an introduction, there are just two early first-century references to the Lord Jesus. They are found in Suetonius and Tacitus, Latin historians, and in both instances they refer to the crucifixion of our Lord. The historical reference was occasioned by the burning of Rome. When the people began to point their fingers at Nero as having done it, in order to obviate the suspicion, he said the Christians did it. Now that necessitated the early Roman historian to describe who the Christians were, for it was a strange, unusual, and unknown sect. So both Suetonius and Tacitus say that the Christians were followers of a felon who was crucified in Judaea under Pontius Pilate.

The cross is the crudest instrument of execution that the human mind has ever devised. No Roman citizen could be crucified. Death by crucifixion was reserved for felons, insurrectionists, criminals, and murderers. It was especially offensive to the Jews. The Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:13 quoting Deuteronomy 21:23, quotes Moses as saying, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” In the story of the crucifixion of Christ we are told that when the even was come, the day the Lord was crucified, the Jews went to the procurator and asked that the crosses be taken down, for the pilgrims were coming into the city for the sacred Passover and the ghastly sight would be offensive to them.

But as horrible as it was to the Romans and as unthinkable as it was to the minds of the Jews, think of the shame that it bore to the pure, holy, undefiled, sinless Son of God. In crucifixion our blessed Lord was humiliated in two ways. One, they crucified Him naked. He was exposed before the whole world. The artists have been kind in drawing pictures of the Lord. Always they clothe Him, but actually He died naked. They gambled for His garments at the foot of the cross. Second, He was crucified between two malefactors, both of whom were insurrectionists and murderers. In His life He was known as a friend of publicans and sinners, and in His death He was crucified with one on either side. In our Savior history and prophecy met, for the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah said that He would be numbered with transgressors. He became sin itself.

This was no ordinary crucifixion. There were thousands of Jews who had been crucified under the Roman emperors. The historians suggest that in the forty years between Pontius Pilate and Titus there were more than thirty thousand Jews who were crucified. When the Lord was eighteen years of age, in a village near Nazareth the Romans came to burn the town and to crucify everyone in it because the citizens had been accused of harboring zealots and insurrectionists. Jesus being nearby must have seen those crosses raised against the sky. It was a common sight in Palestine to see a Roman crucifixion. But the crucifixion of Jesus was not the same. The Roman centurion under whose surveillance the execution was carried out cried, saying, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39).

The cross is most definitely a sign of the Gospel of the Christian faith.

To Be Continued

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