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Why did Christians adopt the cross symbol when Jesus did indeed die in one?

An analogy to be made is would you symbolize your dad with a knife when he was killed by stabbing?

Greetings,

Because that is what professed Christians have been incorrectly taught.

However, the cross was NOT a Christian symbol. Says The Ency. Britannica: “The cross has been used both as a religious symbol and as an ornament, from the dawn of man’s civilization.”

The apostle John and other Bible writers knew whether Jesus died on a cross. The original Greek words rendered in most Bibles as “cross” are STAUROS and XYLON. They refer to a post or the trunk of a tree respectively. There is really not any debate about their meaning in Bible times. Many Greek lexicons list the primary meaning of stauros as stake, not cross.

John Denham Parsons states:

“There is not a single sentence in the NT, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than one piece of timber. It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as “cross”…honesty demands that we should no longer translate as “cross” a word which at the time our Gospels were written did not necessarily signify something cross-shaped.”–The Non-Christian Cross”

So the translation of STAUROS as “cross” is a mistranslation. Therefore, the original words used in the Bible do not describe the modern cross.

How did the cross come to be used by Christendom?

W.E. Vines Expository Dictionary says:

“STAUROS….denotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake…Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pale, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed cross. The shape of the latter had it’s origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used of the symbol of the god Tammaz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau)… By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either DEPARTED FROM, OR HAD TRAVESTIED, CERTAIN DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH …pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration of faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols.”

So the use of the cross was a corruption of true Christianity.

The adoption of the cross into Christianity can be traced directly to the Roman Emperor Constantine three hundred years after Christ. Constantine was a Sun-God worshiper at the head of an army of Sun-God worshipers when he saw a vision of a cross which he adopted as his victory sign.

“The universal use of the sign of the cross makes more poignant the striking lack of crosses in early Christian remains. Most scholars now agree that the cross, as an artistic reference to the passion event, cannot be found prior to the time of Constantine.”–Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine, Professor Graydon F. Snyder

Two hundred years after Christ the Christian writer Minucius Felix wrote to the pagans in Octavius and revealed the attitude that early Christians had toward the cross. He said: “Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. . . . Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it.” (The Ante- Nicene Fathers, v.4, p.191)

So this early church father said that Christians did not have crosses and never thought of having one. Only pagans at that time used it.

The apostate Christianity that arose hundreds of years after Christ decided to adopt the symbol for the pagan god Tammuz.

Even if Jesus was hung on a stake with a crossbeam, does that warrant taking up the use of a pagan symbol to represent his death?

2 Cor.6:14-18: “What agreement can we have with idols? That is why the Lord has said, ‘Leave them; separate yourselves from them; don’t touch their filthy things.’”–NLT (Cf. De.12:30,31; Ex.20:4,5; 1Cor.10:14; Ex.20:4,5).

The Scriptures are clear as to what True worshipers are to do with sacred objects from false religion. Does it say: “Adopt them and change their meaning”?

So, even venerating something that was originally given by God to save his people is condemned in the Scriptures! (Num. 21:9; 2Ki.18:1,4; Jdg.8:27) How much more disgusting it is when the image was adopted from false pagan worship!!

If we continue to use images as aids in our worship of God due to fourth century “tradition,” our “worship” is actually “worthless” (Mt.15:9). Love for the Creator is demonstrated by obedience (1Jn 5:3).

Yours,

BAR-ANERGES

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