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So the cross that everyone symbolizes with Jesus wouldn't be accurate? If so, why do all the churches use the cross on everything?
Answer
The King James Bible says Jesus was put to death on a tree.
Acts 5:30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
Acts 10:39 And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:
Acts 13:29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.
Galatians 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
Michelangelo and the Cross
Italian government art experts are said to be â90 percent sureâ that a sculpture recently found in a monastery in Lebanon is the work of the famous Italian artist Michelangelo. The small wooden carving is said to be worth $2.5 million (U.S.) if it actually is Michelangeloâs work. According to an Associated Press report, âthe figure is unusual because it represents Christ with his hands stretched out above his head instead of to the side, as he usually is depicted on the cross.â
Whether the wooden sculpture is the work of the 16th-century artist Michelangelo or not, it illustrates that the impalement of Christ on a cross frame has not always been so certain as Christendomâs leaders today would have people believe. For example, the 16th-century Roman Catholic scholar Justus Lipsius illustrated impalement on an upright stake in his book âDe Cruce Liber Primus.â This fits the meaning of the Greek word used in the Bible to describe the impalement of Christ âstaurosâ which âdenotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake.â âAn Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words.
Jesus Christ did not die on a cross. The Greek word generally translated âcrossâ is stau·ros'. It basically means âan upright pale or stake.â The Companion Bible points out: âStau·ros' never means two pieces of timber placed across one another at any angle . . . There is nothing in the Greek of the "New Testament" even to imply two pieces of timber.â
In several texts, Bible writers use another word for the instrument of Jesusâ death. It is the Greek word xy'lon. (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24) This word simply means âtimberâ or âa stick, club, or tree.â
Explaining why a simple stake was often used for executions, the book Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (The Cross and the Crucifixion), by Hermann Fulda, states: âTrees were not everywhere available at the places chosen for public execution. So a simple beam was sunk into the ground. On this the outlaws, with hands raised upward and often also with their feet, were bound or nailed.â
The most convincing proof of all, however, comes from Godâs Word. The apostle Paul says: âChrist by purchase released us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us, because it is written: âAccursed is every man hanged upon a stake âa tree,â King James Version.ââ (Galatians 3:13) Here Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21:22, 23, which clearly refers to a stake, not a cross. Since such a means of execution made the person âa curse,â it would not be proper for Christians to decorate their homes with images of Christ impaled.
There is no evidence that for the first 300 years after Christâs death, those claiming to be Christians used the cross in worship. In the fourth century, however, pagan Emperor Constantine became a convert to apostate Christianity and promoted the cross as its symbol. Whatever Constantineâs motives, the cross had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The cross is, in fact, pagan in origin. The New Catholic Encyclopedia admits: âThe cross is found in both pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures.â Various other authorities have linked the cross with nature worship and pagan sex rites.
Why christians believe that the cross can help them and the Christ did not use it?
ABC
Im muslim and want to know why the cross is very important to christians
and you all know that the Christ himself did not use it
so from where did the cross come
Answer
As Christian I personally don't believe in a cross, I would like to tell you why I, and so many of my friends are different.
The Greek word rendered âcrossâ in many modern Bible versions (âtorture stakeâ in NW) is stauâ§rosâ². In classical Greek, this word meant merely an upright stake, or pale. Later it also came to be used for an execution stake having a crosspiece. The Imperial Bible-Dictionary acknowledges this, saying: âThe Greek word for cross, [stauâ§rosâ²], properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling [fencing in] a piece of ground. . . . Even amongst the Romans the crux (from which our cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole.ââEdited by P. Fairbairn (London, 1874), Vol. I, p. 376.
Was that the case in connection with the execution of Godâs Son? It is noteworthy that the Bible also uses the word xyâ²lon to identify the device used. A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott, defines this as meaning: âWood cut and ready for use, firewood, timber, etc. . . . piece of wood, log, beam, post . . . cudgel, club . . . stake on which criminals were impaled . . . of live wood, tree.â It also says âin NT, of the cross,â and cites Acts 5:30 and 10:39 as examples. (Oxford, 1968, pp. 1191, 1192) However, in those verses KJ, RS, JB, and Dy translate xyâ²lon as âtree.â (Compare this rendering with Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:22, 23.)
The book The Non-Christian Cross, by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), says: âThere is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. . . . It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as âcrossâ when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting âcrossâ in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.ââPp. 23, 24; see also The Companion Bible (London, 1885), Appendix No. 162.
The teaching of the cross was brought about the men the scriptures talked about would infiltrate the Christian congregation and corrupt it. This happened some time soon after 98CE. These are the same men who also brought in pagan teachings such as the trinity which corrupted the scriptural teaching that God is one. In Fact the bible teaches that Christians should not use any object as a form of devotion. This is what the bible teaches but many today have been blinded by what their religion teaches them and don't research the information for themselves to find out the truth.
Here is the scriptural references to prove this:
1Â Cor. 10:14: âMy beloved ones, flee from idolatry.â (An idol is an image or symbol that is an object of intense devotion, veneration, or worship.)
Ex. 20:4, 5, JB: âYou shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.â (Notice that God commanded that his people not even make an image before which people would bow down.)
Of interest is this comment in the New Catholic Encyclopedia: âThe representation of Christâs redemptive death on Golgotha does not occur in the symbolic art of the first Christian centuries. The early Christians, influenced by the Old Testament prohibition of graven images, were reluctant to depict even the instrument of the Lordâs Passion.ââ(1967), Vol. IV, p. 486.
Concerning first-century Christians, History of the Christian Church says: âThere was no use of the crucifix and no material representation of the cross.ââ(New York, 1897), J. F. Hurst, Vol. I, p. 366.
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