THE CRUCIFIXION | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1858

THE CRUCIFIXION.

[Bro. Smith: I send you the following affecting account of the crucifixion of our beloved Redeemer, which I took from a work entitled, Biblical Antiquities, Vol. 1.—By John W. Nevin. J. A. Wilcox.]

Crucifixion was a common method of punishment among several ancient nations, especially the Persians, Carthagenians and Romans. It was according to its use with the latter people that the Jews became acquainted with it, and it was because he was put to death by Roman authority, that the Lord Jesus Christ was made to suffer its cruel torture. John xviii, 31, 32; xii, 32-34. The cross was employed among the Romans as a punishment for robbers, assassins, and rebels. Slaves especially, when they were guilty of great offences, were put to death in this way. Hence, crucifixion was held to be the most shameful and degrading death which a man could suffer. The cross, in public opinion, had in it even more of disgrace and reproach, than the gallows now has with us. It was therefore an exceeding humiliation which the blessed Redeemer, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, consented to endure, when "being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death—even the death of the cross." Phil. ii, 6-8; Heb. xii, 2. So great was the degradation of such a death esteemed to be, universally, that a most powerful prejudice against the gospel was everywhere excited, on account of its author having suffered the shame of dying in this way. The Gentiles were ready to treat the apostles with contempt for preaching a religion, that offered salvation by the death of a man that had been crucified; and it continued long after to be a taunting reproach cast upon Christians, that their leader, whom they worshiped as a God, had expired as a malefactor on the cross. The scandal of such a death was no less in the estimation of the Jews; and besides, they considered the person who suffered it to be accursed of God, according to the law in Deut. xxi, 23, which declares every one that is hanged upon a tree to be thus made a curse. Gal. iii, 13. To trust in such an one as the great Messiah and Saviour, was therefore in their view the greatest madness and folly. 1 Cor. i, 23, 24. The apostles on the other hand, and all such as were led by the Spirit of God to lay hold of eternal life by faith, gloried in their Master's cross. What to others seemed shameful and vile, they esteemed most precious and worthy of all admiration. In the face of the world, they counted all things but loss for the sake of Christ and him crucified. Rom. i, 16; 1 Cor. ii, 1, 2.

When the sentence, thou shalt go to the cross, was passed by the magistrate upon any one, the unhappy man was in the first place stripped of all his clothes, with only a single covering left around the loins, and severely scourged with rods or whips. So cruel was the scourging, that death sometimes took place under it. After this treatment, which in a great measure took away his strength, he was compelled to carry the cross on which he was to be hung (and it was by no means a light burden) to the place of execution. This was commonly a hill near the public road, not far out of the city or town. As he passed along the way to this place, smarting with pain, and ready to faint by reason of the dreadful stripes he had already received, and groaning under the weight of his own cross, the unfeeling rabble loaded him with insult, mockery, and wanton cruelty. Having reached the appointed

spot, the infamous tree, as it was sometimes called, was taken from his shoulder and firmly fixed in the ground. It consisted of a piece of timber standing upright like a post, not generally more than ten feet high, and crossed by another considerably smaller, either altogether at the top, so as to resemble in its whole form the letter T, or only a little distance below it. The person to be crucified, having been presented with some kind of stupifying drink, to deaden the sense of pain, was then lifted up, and nailed to the fatal wood by four large spikes, driven one through each hand and foot. The hands were fastened to the cross piece, with the arms stretched out and raised somewhat above the head; the feet, to the upright beam, drawn towards the ground. To prevent the hands from being torn away from the nails by the weight of the body, there was a short piece of wood made to stick out from the middle of the beam just mentioned, for the sufferer to sit upon. Hence, he was sometimes said to ride upon the cross, or to rest upon the sharp cross. On the cross piece directly over his head as he hung thus exposed to the gazing multitude, an inscription or title was fixed, declaring in large letters, the crime for which he was thus punished. In some cases the condemned person was nailed to the cross before it was set up, and so lifted up together with it, when it was raised and fixed in its proper standing position. The first method, however, seems to have been the most common. The execution was performed by four soldiers, each of them, driving one of the spikes, who it appears, had a right, on account of this service, to the garments of the man that was put to death. John xix, 23, 24. In this awful situation the victim of the cross was left to suffer, till death came to relieve him from its power. This, however, did not take place commonly till the third, and frequently till the fourth or fifth day. Mark xv, 44. While any signs of life appeared, the cross was watched by a guard. After death, the body was often left hanging till it wasted away with corruption, or was devoured by birds of prey and ravenous beasts; (for it was generally so low that these beasts could reach at least the lower part of it.) In the province of Judea, however, it was allowed to depart from the general practice by way of indulgence to the Jews, with whom it was not lawful to leave a malefactor's body all night upon a tree or any sort of gibbet. Deut. xxi, 23.

Among them, therefore, crucified persons were buried on the day of their crucifixion; and their death, on that account, was hastened by other means, such as kindling a fire under the cross, letting wild beasts loose upon them, or breaking their bones with a mallet. In the case of our Saviour, no such means were necessary; he died in a few hours; but to be sure that he was really dead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear. John xix, 31-35.

Such was the manner of death which the Lord of glory humbled himself to endure, when he laid down his life for a sinful and ruined world. His crucifixion was attended, while it lasted, with all the circumstances of indignity and horror that usually accompanied the punishment. But it was marked, besides, with peculiar and extraordinary inhumanity, such as common custom was not acquainted with. It was a scene of the most unfeeling insult and cruelty, from its commencement to its close. Jews and Gentiles joined to accomplish the work of shame and awful guilt. In the high priest's palace it began. There, we are told, the Son of God was treated with the most bitter hate and malicious scorn. They insulted him by spitting in his face; they buffeted him; they covered his eyes and then struck him with the palms of their hands, saying, in mockery of his claim to be the Messiah from heaven, Prophecy unto us, thou Christ, who is he that smote thee? Matt. xxvi, 67, 68. When sent to Herod, the proud prince with his men of war set him at naught, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe. Before Pilate's bar, the chief priests and elders accused him, in language of bitterness and reproach, of the worst crimes; charging him with sedition and blasphemy, and representing him to be a malefactor whose guilt cried loudly for the heaviest vengeance of the law. The multitude without, excited by their religious rulers, insisted with tumultuous and violent cry that he should be sentenced to the cross.

The governor, though he had no doubt of his innocence, at length gave way to their importunity, and ordered him to be scourged, as a preparatory step to his execution. The Roman soldiers then caused the work of wanton mockery to be renewed. In derision of him, as one that aspired to be a king, they stripped him, and put on him an old robe of royal color; and when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand for a scepter; and they bowed the knee before him, saying, Hail, king of the Jews! Then they spit upon him, and took the reed and smote him on the head, cruelly forcing the thorns to pierce it on every side. Thus arrayed, exhausted, and torn with the stripes of the scourge, and disfigured with blood trickling from his temples and over his face, the governor brought him out before the people, hoping that they might yet be moved with pity by such a sight, and consent to his release. But the cry of priests and people was renewed with unrelenting rage, Crucify, crucify him! Away, away with him! And when he seemed determined to let him go on account of some new conversation which he had with him, a loud threat was sounded in his ears: If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend. John xix, 1-12. This overcame his resolutions: he knew the emperor, Tiberius Cæsar, was a most suspicious and jealous prince, and ever ready to listen to charges of treason and opposition to his authority, that were brought against inferior rulers in the empire, and it was not at all unlikely that an accusation against himself, such as the Jews threatened, might if carried to Rome, be enough to ruin him. Accordingly for the sake of worldly interest, he resisted all the remonstrances of conscience, and ordered the execution to proceed. So they led him away to be crucified. Bearing his cross, and ready to sink under its weight, he went forth through the city toward the place of death, insulted, derided and abused no doubt, by the surrounding multitude, the whole way.

His strength, however, was found before long to be so far taken away by his sufferings, that he could not possibly support his burdens. As they came out of the gate of the city, therefore, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, that was coming from the country and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. When they had reached Calvary, they offered him the stupifying liquor, (which he refused to drink) and nailed him to the dreadful tree, placing him between two malefactors, as if he was not only of the same infamous character, but vilest of the three. It was probably as they were driving the spikes through his hands and feet, that he lifted to heaven that affecting prayer: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do! The four soldiers who fastened the nails, with cold blooded indifference, took his raiment as their spoil, and parted it among them in his presence. While he hung, tortured with anguish through all his frame, he was assailed on every side, in the most hard-hearted manner, with taunting irony and scornful ridicule.

"They that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it again in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross! Likewise, also, the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save! If he be the king of Israel, let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusted in God; let him deliver now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God." It was surely an awful spectacle, when the Holy and Just One was thus subjected to anguish and loaded with reproach, by sinful mortals.

The pain that was suffered in crucifixion was exceedingly severe. By reason of the scourging, the back was all torn with wounds, and these being exposed to the air, became, by their inflammation, a source of keen distress. Because the hands and feet abound particularly with nerves, which are the instruments of all feeling, nails driven through these parts could not fail to create the most lively anguish. The body was placed, moreover, in an unnatural position, the arms being stretched back, in order to be nailed to the cross piece above, in such a manner as to produce an oppressive feeling of uneasiness and constraint through the whole breast, which became, in a short time, an occasion of indescribable misery. This position, of course, could not be altered in the smallest degree, and the least movement which the sufferer might be led to make, must have served only to provoke new torture from every wound. The cross, therefore was full of cruelty as well as of shame, and might well be dreaded.

But are we to suppose that the Lord Jesus Christ could not endure its horrors with as much ease as many of his followers, through the assistance of his grace, have been able to endure the same or similar anguish of body in their deaths? Whence then, that extreme anxiety and dismay with which he was filled in view of his last sufferings? What was the cross, the thought of which produced such agony in the garden of Gethsemane, when he prayed that if possible, it might pass from him, and sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground? What was the cup which, when he was drinking it, wrung from his bosom that piercing cry of sorrow, My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me? Ah! the terrors of the cross were but a feeble representation of the horror that compassed his soul from another quarter. There was wrath laid upon him by a righteous God, for the guilt of sin. It pleased the Lord to bruise him, and put him to grief, and to make his soul an offering for sin, because the great work of redemption which he had undertaken required it. "He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, and laid on him the iniquity of us all; therefore he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Isa. liii, 4-11; 2 Cor. v, 21; Heb. ix, 28; x, 4-13; 1 Pet. ii, 22-24.

Having considered what it was literally to bear the cross, we may without much difficulty understand what it signifies figuratively. It can mean nothing less than to be ready to undergo the severest hardship, to face the most formidable danger, and to lay down even life itself if the sacrifice should be required. Such a cross-bearer every follower of Christ is commanded to be. Matt. x, 38; xvi, 24. And he may not dream that his faithfulness will not actually be brought into trial. The way to heaven is through much self-denial, labor, and tribulation.