When I Survey the Wondrous Nace, part 1: A Prophetic Think Tank

When I Survey the Wondrous Nace?

You know that old hymn When I survey the Wondrous Cross? Its a standard. It almost represents the Church itself. It’s comfortable and peaceful, like a sit by the fire in an old pair of slippers. Like going home and getting a hug from your mother. The words are also true, that before peace, when you think about the Cross and know what its all about, you get hammered by a Truth, resulting in an essential disconnect from the world and its cares, setting them only on what really matters.

But I take that back. Not when you survey the Cross. The real Cross when surveyed, the symbol of the Church everyone, is only like the song because they both are about a wondrous thing that is also a device of execution for the least deserving Person imaginable. What is a truly wondrous Cross is the only thing you can think about which can take you out of here, the Nace, which is alone wondrous, and alone is capable of setting our sights on our true home where wonders come. The Nace is essentially the historical object of the Cross but turned to a sharply foreign, non-contingent, spiritual and miraculous aspect of view that you will never get by the motivations of pedestrian or historical church culture.

The Cross. That symbol of torture and death. The altar on which was the Messiah immolated, died and atoned for sin. That innocent and simple shape comprised of one horizontal and one vertical beam, which provokes such revulsion and such reverence. On this site, the insignia of Christianity speaking of its power to divide the human race into those aligned toward a love of spiritual truth and those who only horizontally oriented to the world.

Only one problem if we love the truth and want to raise a banner for the faith of the Messiah accurately: nix the horizontal beam, leaving only a bare pole. The word “cross” is not in the Greek New Testament, but “pole” is, leaving us to wonder what the traditional shape of the cross has really stood for all these centuries. Not the shape of a piece of wood, the shape of the real Christian faith motivation.

It is very well known. I am not by any means serving up some new revelation here. And that is what makes it all the more damning of us. Nothing is standing in our way of knowing the answers to the most profound questions of the ages. Our problem is we prefer half-truths because the whole thing is just too much to bear.

Superficial Survey

The word translated “cross” in the Greek is stauros. In every Greek lexicon stauros means, as in Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon:

“Wood cut and ready for use, firewood, timber, etc. . . . piece of wood, log, beam, post . . . cudgel, club . . . stake on which criminals were impaled . . . of live wood, tree.”¹

In Acts 5:30 and 10:39, it states that on a tree was hung Jesus. The word “tree” in Greek denotes a simple upright post, as in Strong’s Greek Dictionary:

3586. xulon xulon xoo’-lon

from another form of the base of 3582; timber (as fuel or material); by implication, a stick, club or tree or other wooden article or substance:–staff, stocks, tree, wood.

This word xulon is put for staves or spears, as in:

And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. (Matthew 26:47 KJV)²

It turns out that there were four basic types of crosses that the Romans used to carry out crucifixion.

The Crux Simplex: a single, upright piece of wood.
The Crux Decussata, or St. Andrew’s cross. This was in the shape of an X and was used extensively in Britain by the Romans during their conquests.
The Crux Commissa, or St. Anthony’s cross. This was a capital T shape, without the beam overhead.
The Crux Immissa, or Latin cross, or traditional t shape.

It is interesting to read all the objections raised to the notion of Jesus having been crucified on the simple upright stake, or stauros, of which the New Testament speaks. Some maintain that the “sign King of the Jews” could not have been affixed over the head of any type of post other than that of the Immissa. These arguments almost invariably fail to mention the crux simplex as one of the four possibilities. Others say that it would be impossible for a man to survive more than 6 hours nailed to a plain upright post, with both hands nailed together overhead and both feet nailed together below. Yet, I have never read a medical analysis, credible or otherwise, supporting this claim.

Denominational Survey

Interestingly, the traditional cross shape is not described graphically or scripturally by the church much before the time of Constantine, who officially adopted it as the symbol of the new state religion. Historical data is overflowing which details the Roman and Eastern Church’s adoption of pagan thinking and practices leading up to Constantine’s time, which were used quite effectively to bring into the church scores of polytheists by making Christianity less alien to them. Crosses were certainly used in at least two prominent pagan religions at that time.

Although Protestants agree wholeheartedly about the pagan influences that came into the church, they do not even want to consider that the cross might be one of them. It seems that the traditional cross has become such a focus of reverence over the years it’s just not open to discussion, rational or otherwise.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have claimed for years that the Crux Simplex was the instrument of crucifixion. But don’t blame me because those wacky folks believe this as well. I am not wrong because I happen to agree with one thing with the J.W.’s. As the saying goes, even a stopped clock is right once a day? They have so many anti-biblical doctrines how difficult would it be for them to get one thing right?

Although they never take up the question seriously unless in the oblique, neither the J.W.’s nor the mainstream church has it right about why one type of cross or another best serves the Christian message. What is clear is that one type of cross is not wrong simply because it might be pagan and another wrong simply because it’s not traditional.

Interrogative Survey

OK, then, what does make one type of cross wrong and another right in the most profound and consequential way we can think of?

First, we can use the fact that, beyond trivial historical research, commending to wisdom instead of only extra-biblical historical data, an option does not honestly present itself for Christianity to adopt symbols of their faith based on evidence gleaned primarily from sources other than the text of the bible. One can understand the Catholic apologetic for the Immissa since Catholicism does not use the bible as their sole rule for faith and practice. Their wild doctrines don’t need any biblical backup, as Catholic tradition, they say, has equal authority. The Catholic Church has had its reward. The J.W.’s too since it’s not the bible that is their rule of faith, but gratuitous iconoclasm. But what about all these “protestants” who are supposed to be fiercely Word-centered? If the symbol for their faith is the Latin cross, it makes one wonder what they were, or are, really protesting.

You might say, “hey, what real difference does it mean whether or not the shape of the cross is accurately represented. It’s just a symbol. The heart of Christianity is its root of truth, not its branches of mere outward expressions in symbolism.” I quite agree. It does not matter a brass farthing whether the cross looked like an Immissa or a Simplex. How is a symbol going to hurt anyone? Except, of course, if there is something biblically profitable to be learned from a plain, upright stake as opposed to an upright cross. Except if the absence of an operational symbol for the essential nature of righteous faith in the Messiah, and atonement through it, is more biblical than the use of any symbol. I think in our time the bible is certainly prophetic about the absence of that symbol in our form of Christianity.

What makes one cross wrong and another right is not its traditional or pagan appearance, but whether or not the substance of that cross as a reason for righteous faith in the Messiah that the church professes is 1st century-traditional or pagan.

Prophetic Survey

Let us first consider the fact that the word “cross” is used to convey a double meaning: one, the actual piece of wood and, two, the atonement of Christ. This is a great expression of the dual streams of scriptural revelation and dual streams of meaning that any symbol is made to convey.

The “p’shat”, as the ancient Rabbi’s called it, was the meaning of a biblical text that presented itself without need for deep meditation. In Ruth, the scene where Ruth obeyed Boaz’s command to dip her bread in the sour wine was simply that: dipping the doughnut in the coffee is a way to get the pleasant taste of your meal and drink in one bite. It makes the meal more interesting, more pleasant. I have also heard that in the case of the Jews this was an invitation to Ruth by Boaz feel welcome and at home, to sit down and enjoy the meal instead of feeling like a starving outsider who is scrambling to gather some leftovers from underneath the masters table.

But the rabbi’s also recognized a “remez” in scripture. This was the meaning under the surface text.

The Midrash Ruth Rabbah states that these verses really mean something prophetic about the coming Messiah:

“‘Come this way’, refers to King Messiah, ‘Eat from the bread’, means the bread of royalty, and ‘dip your morsel in the sour wine’, refers to the sufferings of the Messiah, as it is written, ‘but he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.”³

Also:

“It will be with the last deliverer,(the Messiah), as with the first (Moses); as the first deliverer revealed himself first to the Israelites and then withdrew, so also will the last deliverer reveal himself to the Israelites and then withdraw for a while.“⁴

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