The Cross Before Christ
We sing about the beautiful cross and encourage one another to put our sins at the base of the cross. Oh the wonderful cross! We hang them in our homes and around our necks.
But that’s not the cross I want to talk about. I’m going to introduce you to the cross that Jesus was talking about when He said that if we don’t carry our own cross that we cannot be His disciple (Luke 14:27). This cross existed before Jesus was even born.
What I’m going to say will probably offend you, but I don’t apologize for that. Today we need to hear this, we need this truth every day. We’ve become desensitized to what the cross is and have turned it into an idol.
Here’s a quick history of the cross – or maybe it was a wooden stake – or the shape of a T – no one truly knows. They only thing that is 100% certain is that nails secured the wrists and feet of the guilty person. This is in the Bible and there is archaeological proof.
The Bible uses the words hang and impale to describe methods used to accomplish death on a tree. The latter involves piercing a stake up through the torso or entire body that would result in a long horrific, torturous death.
Vlad III was a Romanian, known as Vlad the Impaler, was born around 1430. He became a legend that you know well – Dracula. This name literally means son of Dracul or son of the Dragon. This name came about due to his father being a member of the Order of the Dragon. The modern Romanian language renders Dracul as devil. Vlad was a tyrannical leader who’s favorite form of execution was impalement for all who opposed him and all those he conquered – men, women, and children.
I’m telling you about Vlad in order to make you aware of the physical connection between the devil and being hung on a tree.
The death stake was a torturous device created by men to serve the devil’s goal of annihilating the human race. I propose that every wooden cross was inhabited by demons. I also propose that the wooden cross served as an idol of tyranny, with crucifixion being a form of worship to the devil. I believe these wooden devices were what the Bible calls asherim (that discussion can be found in my book, Jealous, Exposing the Queen of Heaven). God curses anyone who hangs on a tree because it understandably defiles the land (Deut 21:23).
Let’s switch gears.
I want to put you in the shoes of a person in history. Imagine that you are about to walk on a small, one lane country road. You are carrying a very heavy load on your back. It is so heavy that you are bent over with your eyes to the ground. You get only 40 steps down the road and you hear horrible groaning coming from above. Carefully, you turn your head to look up and see a person hanging on a cross. The load on your back suddenly feels so much heavier as your heart breaks and your mind reels from the agony of your fellow man.
Then something horrendous catches your peripheral vision. Turning your head to look down the road you see there are people hanging from crosses every 40 yards for as far as you can see.
This road was the Appian Way – 132 miles long. It stretches from Rome all the way down to the heel of Italy’s boot. It was a main artery of traffic when it was first built by the Roman Republic. In 71 BC Cassius, who was an extremely wealthy Roman senator and general, defeated Spartacus and his rebel slave army. Both Spartacus and his army were escaped Roman slaves who broke the law. Cassius made a bold statement to all those living in the Roman Republic by crucifying 6,000 of those rebel slaves along the Appian Way.
I failed to tell you that the reason you are walking on that road – the Appian Way – is because you are one of those rebel slaves. And that load you carry on your back? It’s the wooden crossbeam that will soon carry you instead.
You were found guilty.
Every 40 steps you are reminded about your death sentence as you pass by another cross
Every 40 steps all of your rebellion weighs down heavier on your back.
40 steps more to nails slamming into your flesh where damaged nerves will drive excruciating pain through your arms and legs right into your back
40 steps more to being jarred upright causing your shoulders to fall out of joint from the hanging weight of your body
40 steps closer to needing to push against the painful nails in your feet just to exhale
40 steps closer to your insides turning to water as feces run down your legs
40 steps closer to the deafening sound of your heart pounding as it melts like wax in your chest
100 years later, while hanging on the cross – so thirsty, so exhausted, in excruciating pain, barely able to breathe, with bones showing for the lack of skin that was ripped off by the whips – Jesus gathered what minuscule strength He had left to push up through His shaking legs – to get what little breathe was remaining in His body to say,
“Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
For they know NOT what they do.
Do you know NOT what you do?
What happens to you when you sin? Do you pass it off?
We all know the sins we commit. The question is,
what does your sin
DO TO YOU?
How does it make you feel?
What does it cause you to do?
Do you care?
Do you re-crucify Jesus to the cross with your apathy and rebellion?
or …
Do you feel the same exact way that you feel right now after being in the shoes of one about to be crucified?
– Sick to your stomach –
Do you willing step foot onto that Appian Way?
Do you willingly take up your cross?
Do you willingly lay down on that crossbeam, let the nails slam into your flesh,
and endure the excruciating pain in order to rid yourself of the sin?
Do you willingly accept the guilty verdict?
The physical and spiritual realms are tightly knit together. The flesh of Jesus was literally cursed on a real tree. In doing so, He lifted the curse from you and me in the physical realm.
It is up to each of us to pull that freedom into the spirit realm where we are to crucify our will, our soul, and our own desires. You do this by admitting that you broke the law. You admit guilt and agree with God that it is sin.
The cross did absolutely nothing
It only reveals guilt
Jesus did everything.
Jesus made it possible to live a life free from sin
Are you free?
You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. (How apropos that this verse is in the book of Romans -6:22)
More reading…
The Pierced Moshiach Of Tehillim 22
Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death
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