The Crucifixion

Cicero called the death on the cross, “the most cruel and repulsive capital punishment” he knew—too horrible for words. He would not have wanted children to face what Jewish historian Josephus Flavius (37-100 AD) called “the most miserable death of all.” Of the three most severe punishments known to the Romans, crucifixion topped the list. It was the most gruesome way for someone to die. The executed person was displayed naked in a highly visible place. This degradation was compounded by denying the victim a burial; his body was left to the wild animals and birds.

Jesus grew up in the shadow of the cross. In his day, everyone knew the story of Spartacus, who had led a slave revolt a hundred years earlier. About 6,000 followers survived—and lost—the final battle against the Romans. They were crucified one by one along the 200-kilometer road, theVia Appia from Rome to Capua. There was a Roman cross every 40 meters, where one of 6,000 slaves were crucified.

It is plausible that Jesus also knew about the 800 Pharisees who—some 80 years before He was born—had been crucified by the Romans because they had rebelled against the rule of King Alexander John. It’s further very likely that Joseph and Mary told Jesus about the Jewish revolt, led by Judas Ben Hezekiah, which had taken place in Galilee shortly before He was born. The Romans put down the uprising, after which 2,000 Jewish rebels were crucified.

Now we can better understand why Paul wrote that a crucified Christ was “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23 NIV). For the Romans, it was incomprehensible to worship a crucified person. In their view, heroes were those who crucify others. They themselves should not be tortured and humiliated. On the contrary, to the Jews, the cross was a symbol of Roman domination—a chilling warning to anyone who dared to oppose it.

Therefore, the first Christians didn’t think of using the cross as a symbol of their faith in Jesus Christ. In the territories occupied by the Romans, the cross evoked only repulsive feelings. It was the ultimate instrument of punishment. When Emperor Constantine the Great made Christianity the state religion in 313 AD, he abolished death on the cross out of reverence for Jesus. The cross gradually changed from a symbol of death to a symbol of the ultimate victory of Christ.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ took place in a tumultuous Jerusalem, around 30-33 AD, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius and under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea from 26-36 AD. For Christians, the crucifixion is more than a historical event. Jesus' death on the cross is seen as atonement for the sins of humanity, an act of divine love, which laid the foundation for belief in his resurrection three days later. Jesus' death and resurrection turned world history upside down. It is a message of redemption and hope.

On the way to the execution site, Jesus was allowed to keep his own clothes on. This was a concession to Jewish law, which did not allow walking around naked. Roman convicts normally had to stumble to their death completely naked. Jesus was instructed to carry his own cross, or crossbeam (the patibulum). This was made of cypress wood and must have weighed between 30-50 pounds. He was tied to the crossbeam with both arms outstretched, so that the weight rested on the projections of the upper dorsal and lower cervical vertebrae. As a carpenter, Jesus was used to carrying heavy beams on His shoulders, but this time He was unable to carry the load.

The road from the Praetorium to Golgotha, later named the Via Dolorosa, is about six hundred meters long and if you walk slowly, you can cover that distance in about twelve minutes. But it is a narrow and uphill road, badly paved, and bustling with traffic pushing its way through. It is along this road that Jesus had to carry the heavy crossbeam on his bleeding shoulders.

It was about nine in the morning when the group reached Golgotha, “the place of the skull.” The soldiers offered Jesus some wine containing a sedative before they hammered in the nails. But when Jesus tasted it, “He refused to drink it” (Matthew 27:34). He refused to be sedated and chose to bear His suffering in a fully conscious state.

Jesus could refuse the anesthetic drink because an angel had appeared to Him in the Garden of Gethsemane to give Jesus supernatural strength to endure the coming suffering (see Luke 22:43). God did not send an angel from heaven to comfort Jesus; God sent an angel to give Jesus divine power, lifting Him above suffering. God did not leave Jesus to his fate. He equipped Him with supernatural power so that Jesus could endure the extreme suffering to the end so that on the cross He could forgive his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

After reaching Golgotha, Jesus’ clothes are stripped off his body. He is undressed in front of his own mother and loved ones. Shamed in front of his family, He is made to lie down on the wooden crossbeam, His shoulders still raw from the whipping.

While one or two soldiers hold Jesus’ arm at his hand and elbow, another places a nail point-down to His wrist, exactly at the spot where the lower arm is connected to the hand, under the ball of the thumb and right in the middle.

With a strong blow of the hammer, the nail, about fifteen to twenty centimeters in length and square in profile, is driven through the wrist. With a few more blows it is attached to the wood. Then the other wrist is pierced. The whole procedure takes just a few minutes.

An important nerve called the median nerve runs through the wrist. This nerve has a dual function. It serves both for the movement of the thumb, among other things, and for feeling in part of the hand. This median nerve was almost always hit by the nail. Touching and damaging a nerve causes one of the most intense pains possible. The nerve was stretched across the sharp edges of the nail like a string across the comb of a stringed instrument. Moreover, the same nerve stimulation caused the thumb to bend in a convulsive state so that the thumb nail pressed into the palm of the hand.

After both wrists are attached to the crossbeam, the soldiers lift it up. Jesus must first sit up and then stand with His back against the vertical pole, the stipes, which was usually permanently anchored in the ground. The patibulum, with Jesus hanging from it, is then lifted at both ends and placed on the stipes. Jesus’ knees are bent so that one of His feet can be placed flat against the stipes. Then a twenty- centimeter-long nail is driven straight through the top of the foot, right between the second and third metatarsal bones. As the nail exits the sole of the foot, the other leg is bent so that the nail can be driven through the second foot into the wood of the stipes.

Thus, Jesus is hung on three nails (possibly with additional ropes to prevent Him from falling forward). Blood loss is minimal, but the pain is unbearable, and the death throes start.

The heavily tensed arm, shoulder and chest muscles become severely cramped. The muscle metabolism is increased, while there is less oxygen available owing to obstructed blood circulation. Jesus begins to perspire extremely, causing the sweat of death to stream down His body. His lips become greyish-blue, while slowly but surely all the muscles, including the ones in His torso and legs tense into terrible cramps. Eventually every person who is crucified suffocates.

The Romans did not intend those who were crucified to die quickly. That is why they nailed their feet to the cross as well. This enabled the condemned person temporarily to postpone suffocation by pushing himself up on the nail in his feet, straightening his legs and thus relieving the pressure on the arm and chest muscles.

Then he could breathe reasonably well for a short time. The acidity of his body would lessen, and the skin would regain some color for a moment. However, standing with your full body weight on a square nail that has been driven between the bones of your feet, causes excruciating pain.

The condemned person would thus be quickly forced to bend his knees and lower his body back down until he was hanging by his wrists on the nails once again. The nerve in the wrists, the nervus medianus, is stretched over the nail again, the burning pain rushes through both arms, while the suffocation and cramping start all over again. Thus, the crucified person stretches out what is left of his miserable life. Again and again, he will try to raise himself and then lower himself, forced to do so by the pain. Up and down. Ten times, one hundred times, until exhaustion makes all movement impossible, and he dies of suffocation.

Jesus’ body is one bloody mess. The skin of His back has been ripped to shreds; the razor-sharp thorns have penetrated the skin of his skull so that his already-mutilated face is now covered in blood. Jesus is bleeding from his head, back, hands. and feet and is so terribly wounded that many can no longer stand the sight and turn their heads away. Had she not been there to witness it, his own mother would not have recognized Him: “Many people were shocked when they saw him; he was so disfigured that he hardly looked human” (Isaiah 52:14 GNT). 

Isaiah further prophesies, “We despised him and rejected him; he endured suffering and pain. No one would even look at him – we ignored him as if he were nothing. But he endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne. All the while we thought that his suffering was punishment sent by God. But because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did. We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received’ (Isaiah  53:3–5 GNT).

Jesus knew these prophecies. He knew in advance how He was going to die. He knew the plan of God and willingly and obediently yielded to it. The Son of God was born to die. I sometimes wonder which parts of the Bible Jesus read the week before He died. How did He view the prophecies that speak of the last 18 hours before His death? What did He think as He read these words? For instance, what did this Scripture mean to Him?

“It was my will that he should suffer; his death was a sacrifice to bring forgiveness. And so he will see his descendants; he will live a long life, and through him my purpose will succeed. After a life of suffering, he will again have joy; he will know that he did not suffer in vain. My devoted servant, with whom I am pleased, will bear the punishment of many and for his sake I will forgive them.” (Isaiah 53:10-11, GNT).

Maybe Jesus clung to these words in the darkest and most difficult moments of His life here on earth—hanging between heaven and earth, abandoned by God and man. Who knows? The Good NewsTtranslation says that “He will see his descendants!” I believe Jesus could endure the suffering because He was thinking of us on the Cross, because He loved us more than anything. On the cross, Jesus lives up to his own words, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13 NIV). 

There is no greater power in the universe than the love of God. When you look at Jesus, you see God’s love for us. Words cannot convey this love. God’s love knows no limits, always protects, does not hurt, is not selfish and does not feel insulted. God’s love does not blame anyone; it never fails, and it never ends. God’s love protects, trusts, is full of expectation, and is steadfast.

It is God’s indescribable love that Jesus hung on the Cross. John, who is standing next to Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the Cross, later writes about this moment: “And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven’ (1 John 4:9–10 GNT)

Around three in the afternoon, the time of day when the sacrificial lamb is slaughtered in the temple, Jesus cries out with a loud voice: ‘It is finished!’ (see Luke 23:46 and John 19:30). At this moment, the priestly ram’s horn is probably blown to announce that the priests have finished the sacrifice for the sins of Israel. The great work of salvation brought about by suffering has come to an end. This is what Jesus means when He cries out that one short word: tetelestai: Finished! Achieved! Done! 

No one took away Jesus' spirit of life; He surrendered it into the hands of his Father. At that moment something happens to the heavy curtain that hides the Most Holy Place from the people—it tears from top to bottom. The tearing of the curtain is a sign that the way into God’s presence is now open to everyone who believes in the wonder of the Cross.

How does heaven see these moments on the Cross? What is the Father thinking when He sees Jesus beaten, mocked, tortured, and crucified? Heaven must have held its breath. God watches but does not intervene. God is neither powerless nor at a loss as to what to do. The wonder of the Cross is so great, and God loves us so very much that He chooses not to intervene in this most crucial moment in history. 

He chooses not to use His almighty power. Only the God who has all power in heaven and earth can lay down this power for a certain amount of time, and not to intervene, as proof of His inconceivably great love for us! He does this because He knows it is the only way to restore the relationship with His children here on earth. But what a price to pay. As King David once poetically wrote: ‘For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead” (Psalms 86:13 NIV).  The wonder of the Cross is the miracle of God’s never-ending, unfailing love for us!

We cannot escape the fact that reconciliation is necessary in the relationship between God and man. Man’s sin caused a breach in the relationship between the Creator and His creation. Sin left a void between a holy God and sinful man, as a result of which man could no longer reside in God’s presence. The prophet Isaiah speaks of this quite clearly:
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear’ (Isaiah 59:2 NIV). 

Isaiah goes on to describe the results of sin for each person in their day-to-day life:
“The people say, ‘Now we know why God does not save us from those who oppress us. We hope for light to walk by, but there is only darkness, and we grope about like blind people. We stumble at noon, as if it were night, as if we were in the dark world of the dead. We are frightened and distressed. We long for God to save us from oppression and wrong, but nothing happens. Lord, our crimes against you are many. Our sins accuse us. We are well aware of them all. We have rebelled against you, rejected you, and refused to follow you. We have oppressed others and turned away from you. Our thoughts are false; our words are lies. Justice is driven away, and right cannot come near. Truth stumbles in the public square, and honesty finds no place there. There is so little honesty that those who stop doing evil find themselves the victims of crime.’ The Lord has seen this, and he is displeased that there is no justice. He is astonished to see that there is no one to help the oppressed” (Isaiah 59:9–16a GNT).

No one on earth could change this situation, for the simple reason that everyone has fallen under the power of sin. Through sin, sickness, decay, deterioration, pain, injustice, and death have all gained power over those who live on earth. Jesus Himself said that we were slaves to sin (see John 8:34). But God’s love for us is so great that He Himself took measures to save us from our dangerous and hopeless situation, just as it says in Isaiah 59:16: “He is astonished to see that there is no one to help the oppressed. So he will use his own power to rescue them and to win the victory” (Isaiah 59:16, GNT).

Hebrews talks about it this way: “Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death, and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14–15 GNT).

The wonder of the cross is the miracle of reconciliation. The Hebrew word for atonement means to offer the one who owes you something as a substitute to resolve the debt.
Jesus came to earth as the Man without sin to take on our sins (which separate us from God). By solving the sin problem for us, Jesus made it possible for us to come back into God's presence. Through this transfer or exchange, reconciliation was made. God accepted Jesus' blood as a counter-value for our own lives, so that our lives were cleansed and saved. That Jesus was made sin (and died in our place) was the price that had to be paid to redeem us from sin. This exchange took place at the cross. 

This great exchange was not done apart from God, but rather willed and directed by Him: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:6-11 NIV).