Folly of the Cross

Waiting in the Las Vegas airport for my delayed flight home last night, I finished a short book on the ancient execution method of crucifixion. I read the book after hearing it referenced by a number of top NT scholars, and pulled it out of my library recently in the spirit of the upcoming passion week. I learned many things from Martin Hengel's 90-page book aptly named "Crucifixion" (1977 Fortress Press). The book can be broken down into two primary areas of focus: 1) the history of the cross and 2) how people of the time perceived it.

"Crucifixion" is a well-researched book chock full of examples from ancient literature (despite Hengel's own claim that many writers dared not mention the term because of it's unsavory reputation). But the book's biggest contribution is how it helps the modern reader appreciate Paul's reference to "the folly of the cross."
  

Good Friday - Remembering What Christ Did For Us

Three Passions

(Stand to Reason) by Greg Koukl

Crucifixion is a cruel form of execution, generally reserved for slaves and rebels. Death is agonizing and slow, the result of shock, exposure and, eventually, asphyxiation. Hanging from a cross constricts the diaphragm, inhibiting breathing. The only way to get air is to release pressure on the arms by pushing up against the nails that pierce the feet, requiring continual effort that could go on for days. Exhaustion eventually overtakes the victim and he suffocates.

For Jesus, though, the pain of the cross pales in the face of a greater anguish. There is a deeper torment that cannot be seen, one no camera can capture and no words can express, more excruciating than nails pinning Jesus’ body to the timbers, more dreadful than lashes ripping flesh from His frame. It is a dark, terrible, incalculable agony, an infinite misery, as God the Father unleashes his fury upon His sinless Son as if guilty of an immeasurable evil.

Why punish the innocent One? Nailed to the top of the cross is an official notice, a certificate of debt to Caesar, a public display of Jesus’ crime: “The King of the Jews.” The cross is payment for this crime. When punishment is complete, Caesar’s court will cancel the debt with a single Greek word stamped upon the parchment’s face: tetelestai. Finished. Paid in full.

Being king of the Jews is not the crime Jesus pays for, however. Hidden to all but the Father is another certificate nailed to that cross. In the darkness that shrouds Calvary from the sixth to the ninth hour, a divine transaction is taking place; Jesus makes a trade with the Father. The crimes of all of humanity—every murder, every theft, every lustful glance; every hidden act of vice, every modest moment of pride, and every monstrous deed of evil; every crime of every man who ever lived—these Jesus takes upon Himself as if guilty of all.

At the last, it is not the cross that takes Jesus’ life. He does not die of exposure, or loss of blood, or asphyxiation. When the full payment is made, when the last of the debt melts away and the justice of God is fully satisfied, Jesus simply dismisses His spirit with a single Greek word that falls from His lips: “Tetelestai.” It is finished. The divine transaction is complete.

You see, the Passion actually consists of three passions. The passionate intensity of God’s anger at us for our sins collides with the passionate intensity of God’s love for us, causing the passionate intensity of the agony of the cross to be shouldered by God Himself in human form: Jesus.