Thursday, February 25, 2010

Was it a cross?

There's a recent movie out called "Cross" and I'm sure it will make millions of dollars. It amazes me that people will assume something is so just because a preacher, priest, rabbi - whoever- says it is so.

So the question today is - If Jesus died on a cross as in 2 pieces of wood crossed over each other....or did he die hanging from a single pole. Something never depicted in photographs. And why worry about the difference at all?

The Imperial Bible-Dictionary says: "The Greek word for cross, stau•ros′, properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling [fencing in] a piece of ground. . . . Even amongst the Romans the crux (from which our cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole" [Imperial Bible Dictionary, edited by P. Fairbairn (London, 1874), Vol. I, p. 376].

Consider this. If you are hanging from a pole, your hands are above your head - your rib cage tightens, and makes it hard to breath. Blood slows down. There is less oxygen in the body.

Dieing on a pole would have been a much slower process than dieing on a cross.

Why is it important? I believe that if He died on a pole....and you wear a cross as a pendant or have a cross in a church, then you are in danger of using a form of an idol in worship. If you worship a cross - and that is not what He died on at all - then it would be idol worship. I walk into an assembly and see a cross, I walk out.

Finally, you can google this and learn that the cross was a symbol used in pagan religions as early as 1500 years before Jehovah Jesus Messiah was on earth. It is, yet again, something else that was pagan that was brought into the "church" in order to get the pagans to join in the worship. It was not even used in the "church" until 200 years after the death of the Messiah. The cross was not used in early paintings until the over 600 years after His death. And then it looked like the letter "T" - not as a cross would look today.

The marking of a cross upon the forehead and the chest is regarded as a talisman against the powers of demons. A pagan practice.

But more important that that, I feel that Satan (the Adversary) has been working for centuries to alter scripture, add pagan items into scripture in order to lead true believers away from Jehovah and into the "kingdom" of Satan.

All my life, the cross was used in every church service I attended. But if there's a hint of it being a pagan item, of it representing idol worship, then for me, it would be wrong to continue to use it.

Something to think about.