1. Crucifixion By: Paul T. Fanning, Tyler, Texas1 “We preach Christ, and Christ crucified – to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness.” 1 Corinthians 1:23. While we are studying this topic,2 please ponder one question in the back of your mind: ‘Why did Jesus have to be crucified?’ After all, couldn’t the “plan” have provided for the Messiah pricking His finger with a pin and allowing just one drop of His sacred blood to fall to earth before He died peacefully in His sleep and then risen? After all, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the eternal God of the Universe, and infinitely both holy and good. Wouldn’t just the inconvenience of having to adopt human flesh and nature and spilling just one drop of His sacred blood have been sufficient to cleanse the whole planet of sin? Why did Jesus become a spectacle and give it all? We know He didn’t want to do it.3 1 Paul T. Fanning earned B.A. and J.D. degrees from The University Of Texas At Austin in 1968 and 1972, respectively. He was then encouraged by Dr. David O. Dykes, Pastor of Green Acres Baptist Church, Tyler, Texas, who convinced him that he actually could do “this.” Thereafter, he was privileged to study under two of the outstanding Bible scholars of our time, Thomas S. McCall, Th.D. (September 1, 1936 – ), and Mal Couch, Ph.D., Th.D., (July 12, 1938 – February 12, 2013) who participated in his ordination at Clifton Bible Church, Clifton, Texas, on March 8, 2011. 2 This is not intended to be a theological study. That’s good because I am merely a lay theologian. I understand and accept that Jesus needed to suffer and die in order to satisfy justice. It occurs to me that the punishment due man for sin is not crucifixion, but eternal damnation. It wasn’t that finite man gave offense that merits man’s eternal death, but that finite man elected to offend infinite and eternal God. Nevertheless, the “Average Joe” also is not a theologian and doesn’t care one wit for theology. What he cares about is knowing that God loves him, and loves him a lot; what he cares about is whether he can trust God to love him. That’s what this paper is all about. If you would like to know more about the theology behind Christ’s sacrifice, I refer you to Anselm, who wrote Why Did God Become Man?, which became the most influential treatise on the atonement in the Middle Ages, or the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Rather, this article will focus on the origin, history, propagation, and methodology of crucifixion and how Jesus, in His human nature, was able to persist through it to His death, voluntarily for our sakes. These facts, plus the fact of His Resurrection three Hebrew days later, are precisely why man can trust God to love him. 3 Matthew 26:39: And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 1 © March 26, 2019, by Paul T. Fanning Why This Lesson? Sadly, most Christians in the 21st Century have become awfully complacent about what Jesus voluntarily did on the cross for our sakes. The process of crucifixion – the actual, detailed mechanics of it – lies at the very heart of the Gospel. If you don’t fully understand it, you don’t fully appreciate the length, breadth and depth of the Love of Jesus, the Messiah, for you. Here lies the foundation of our weak trust – trust that must last our lifetimes. He could have stopped it – the agony, the pain, spiritual, physical, and emotional – by instantaneous will; but He persisted. He knew weak people like me needed Him to do it unto death. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ is not only at the heart of His Gospel; but if you are a Christian, it is at the very heart of your life. It is by His death that it is even possible that a Christian can live. It is at the very core of everything you do and the bedrock of your every attitude. Resurrection was the easy part, and serves as glorious proof that He Catholic Art: Jesus Is Scourged, Mocked, And Crowned With accomplished His mission of saving us. Thorns Crucifixion through death, without giving up even for a nanosecond, was the hard part. The Latin word “crux,” from which the word “crucifixion” is derived, was such a horrible word during the time of the Romans they wouldn’t even mention it out loud in polite conversation.4 Crucifixion is arguably the most hideous kind of execution ever invented within the depravity of the sinful mind of man. Yet, when Jesus returns to rule the Earth from the throne of David during His Millennial Kingdom,5 the work He accomplished on the cross will still be a primary aspect of His identity. He still bears the scars in His wrists, ankles, and side.6 It is because we are in Him and He is crucified that we are 4 Marcus Tullius Cicero, Verrem 2:5.165. 5 See Revelation, Chapter 20. 6 The Hebrew concept of anatomy included the wrist with the hand and the ankle with the foot. 2 © March 26, 2019, by Paul T. Fanning acceptable to the Father, who is inimical to sin, which we are without Jesus crucified. Jesus will be King over all the world during the thousand years and beyond, but He will always be our Savior because of His spilt blood on the cross. First Roman Destruction of Jerusalem, 70 C.E. Background. When I was a boy, I often thought about the crucifixion of Jesus. I attended thirteen years of Roman Catholic schools, five of which I was studying for the priesthood. I took my religion very seriously. Over that time I spent many hours praying on my knees before Catholic crucifixes, some of which were quite bloody and grotesque. In all the movies (including the old black and white movies of the 1940’s and 1950’s that I watched with my grandma) they either never showed the Roman troopers really erecting a cross from scratch or they showed them pulling on various mechanisms that were simply too time-consuming and labor-intensive to be accurate.7 7 There was actually one Italian film that I know of which showed Jesus carrying only the crossbeam to Calvary, but it never became popular in the U.S. I have found American audiences quite resistant to two 3 © March 26, 2019, by Paul T. Fanning Historical Facts And Insights. Anthropologists estimate the Romans crucified approximately 30,000 Israelis before they crucified Jesus, and countless more afterwards, especially after the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called The המרד :Great Revolt (Hebrew :ha-Mered Ha-Gadol, Latin ,הגדול Primum Iudæorum Romani Bellum.),8 and the Bar Chokhba Revolt (132–136 C.E.), approximately fifty years later.9 Furthermore, archeologists have Romans And Their Slaves Manning A Siege Engine At recently discovered that early First Jerusalem (Catapulta) Century Nazareth was also an army town that garrisoned the Northern Cohort of the 10th Legion Fretensis.10 facts: 1) Jesus only carried the crossbeam (patibulum) because the vertical beams (stirpes) were permanently installed in the ground; and 2) His feet were not crossed in front of Him. Four nails were used, not three. Furthermore, the feet were not nailed to the fronts of crosses. Rather, they were nailed, one on each side, to the sides of the vertical beams (“trees”). Americans are so conditioned by incorrect medieval artwork that they view these two facts as almost blasphemous. Medieval artwork was itself influenced by actions and/or records of the actions of the legions in Israel and Palestine, subsequent to the time of Christ. It was then, after the time of Christ, and only rarely, that victims’ feet were placed on the front of crosses. 8 Chronicled by Titus Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100), also called Joseph ben Matityahu (Biblical Yosef ben Matityahu), who wrote that at its fall in 70 C.E., Jerusalem was inhabited ,יוסף בן מתתיהו :Hebrew by more than one million souls. The end of this revolt is marked by the famous and heroic fall of Masada. However, very few were able to successfully flee to Masada. The survivors of the “First Jewish War” never made it that far and were crucified, put to the sword, sold into slavery, or banished to lands other than Israel. 9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Chokhba_revolt . May 31, 2012. After subduing the Bar Chokhba Revolt, the Romans attempted to blot out the name “Judea” from language and history. They renamed the province Palestina (after their word for the Philistines). This marks the beginning of the Diaspora. The Jews had no homeland again until 1948 C.E. Maps found at the backs of Bibles showing “Palestine” at the time of Christ or shortly after are simply inaccurate. This accounts for continued friction between Christians, who claim to know more about Scripture than the Jews, and the Jews themselves. This is plainly unnecessary and wrong. It was simply an incorrect convention (stemming from the British Empire’s modeling the Roman Empire) to refer to the Holy Land as “Palestine” when most of those Bibles were published by well-meaning, but “historically challenged,” Christians. 10 Walvoord, John F., Zuck, Roy, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Matthew 2:19-23.