FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

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 The historical reference was occasioned by the burning of Rome.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

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: Galatians 6:11-14

In the text of our Scriptural reference, Paul makes a contrast between the Galatians who glory in the flesh (the original Greek word means to “glory,” “boast,”) and his own humble, spirit that forbids that he should glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ. The Galatians in their propensity and affinity for glorying in the flesh, for turning aside from the salvation provided by the love and mercy of God in Jesus, and for turning to sophisticated and well-educated human teachers, thought that in self-righteousness and self-commendation they could save themselves before God.

In the third chapter of this book Paul addressed them, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” (Galatians 3:1). I think that if we were to take the letter and the appeal of the apostle written in the first century and apply it today he would have said, “O foolish modernists and liberals, who has bewitched you that you should glory in the flesh, in human effort, in human speculation, in your own works? But God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The cross stands with all of its naked repulsiveness, as the Romans would have it; the cross with all of its philosophical irrationality, as the Greeks would have it; the cross with all of its shame and suffering, as the scribes would have it; but it’s the cross that stands with all of its love and mercy and forgiveness, as Paul preached it.

“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Cross – An Emblem of the Christian Faith

First, we should consider the cross is a sign, an emblem of the Christian faith. The whole course of history turned in A.D. 300 when Constantine was converted. In the midst of a battle for the throne of the Caesars Constantine said, “At midday I saw a sign in the sky, a cross, and underneath these words in Latin meaning: ‘in this sign conquer’.” Upon this occasion, as upon countless other occasions before, the sign of the Gospel of the Son of God is found in a cross.

The insignia of the Christian faith is not two tables of stone containing the commandments of God. It is not a sword, a scimitar, a star, or a galaxy. The insignia of the Christian faith is not a seven-branched lampstand or even a halo above a submissive head. Rather, the insignia of the Christian faith is a stark, rude, crude, rugged, empty cross.

I’ve read that on the Roman Colosseum is the best example of the cross that we as believers know. Unlike what we think of as a decoration on the top of a church or as an ornament to wear around our necks made of gold and silver and studded with precious stones, the cross in the Colosseum is as rugged a cross-beam as could be ingeniously devised. I have read that it was placed there many years ago in honor and in memory of the early Christians who lost their lives in that terrible arena.

The cross speaks a universal language. All men everywhere understand it. If you’ve ever seen the Passion Play either on stage or on television, especially if you’ve watched it in another language, you would understand the unusual and deep persuasion that as you sit there and watch the drama of the suffering and crucifixion of our Lord, every man in his own language and in his own tongue would understand it. The cross speaks to human hearts everywhere in every nation, in every language, in every family, clan, and tribe under God’s heaven.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.