Cross Torture
In the first century killing could be done quickly and easily. One swipe of a sword could separate a man’s body from his head. Crucifixion was something quite different, even if in the end the same conclusion was reached.
Crucifixion was intentionally worse than an efficient death. The cross created a spectacle, emphasizing the helplessness of those who dared to oppose the government in power. History’s most well known crucifixion took place in the first century when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Romans. As a concession to the Jews, after making sure he was dead, the Romans removed Jesus from the cross before the Jewish Sabbath. More typically, they left bodies hanging on crosses long after victims were dead. Passersby would be subjected for weeks or months to the sight of birds and rats and insects removing the flesh of those crucified. The gruesome message was clear: “Submit to Rome or this will be your fate!”
Alongside this psychological warfare against rebellion was an attack on human self-worth. The crucified would be stripped naked. Nakedness added shame to the shame of helplessness. The cross was a spectacle of removing a person’s individual worth, agency, and life.
Once stripped, the victim would be flogged with a leather whip that would shred skin off the back and belly. Sometimes the loss of blood from this whipping would be the cause of death. After the scourging, victims would be forced to drag their crosses in a kind of mock parade to a prominent destination. Jesus was so weakened by his scourging and beatings he was unable to manage his own cross.
As an aside, Jesus, before his crucifixion, exhorted his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9.23,24). Unity with Jesus means enmity with the powers of the world. It’s interesting that he insisted on his disciples taking up their crosses when it turns out that when the time came for him to do so, he was unable. There is a message of grace in this: If our Lord was unable to do what he commands us to do, so that he needed help, he will surely provide the help we need when we pressed beyond our powers, as well. The Romans pulled Simon of Cyrene (Libya) out of the watching crowd to carry Jesus’ cross for him.
And, of course, the crucifixion was a means of extended torture. While some victims died fairly quickly through blood loss, most died slowly from exposure to the elements and then, finally, by asphyxiation, too weak to draw in one more breath.
When Christians reflect on the meaning of Christ dying on a cross, the usual thoughts have to do with sorrow over the suffering of Jesus, and with the contrasting sense of gratitude, the belief that Jesus’ sacrifice was the means of God’s grace that frees the faithful from their bondages to sin and death.
But there is another lesson in the cross. It may be of lesser importance, but it is important, nevertheless. The crucifixion is a display of human depravity. The Jewish religious leaders were determined to have Jesus killed. At best they were being pragmatic, seeing Jesus as a threat to the uneasy peace the Jews had managed to broker under Roman occupation. However, the Gospels suggest their determination had more to do with how the religious leaders felt that Jesus threatened their own power and authority. The Romans, too, were far from innocent. Pilot washed his hands, insisting that he could discover no crime in Jesus’ behavior. Even so, he reasoned that killing Jesus would appease the Jewish leadership, and would forestall possible riots or actions by insurrectionists. Pilot’s actions made sense in terms of his responsibility as Roman governor. On the other hand, against his own convictions, he crucified an innocent man. He was willing to commit a terrible crime in order to serve his country and to preserve his own position. This is the way of the world: patriotism and pragmatism taking precedence over justice.
Pilot had a sign, “King of the Jews”, posted on Jesus’ cross. This displeased the Jewish leaders considerably. They complained, “It should read, ‘He claimed to be king of the Jews’”. Pilot, thumbing his nose at them, retorted, “I have written what I have written.” Ironically, what was meant as an insult to the Jewish leadership, and which clearly hit the mark, was actually a profoundly true statement. Jesus was/is the rightful king of the Jews, but the Jews, instead of worshipping him, orchestrated his torture and death. The crucifixion serves as a window into the hearts of humans, and the motivations that drive their brutal, self-serving decisions.
Humans killed Jesus, but not in the way we normally understand killing. Jesus rose again to life. Death could not retain him. Jesus conquered death, becoming the first of a great company of the faithful that he would also raise to everlasting life. And as for the Jews, the primary culprits in this story, we should with relief acknowledge that Jesus himself was a Jew, as were the Apostles and almost all the early believers. Jews were the Cornerstone and the foundation stones of the Christian Church.
It is a sad testament that Christians have been a bit slow on the uptake, as far as torture is concerned. We’d like to hope that conversion to Christianity would come with an instant infusion of wisdom. However, if you have spent any time rubbing shoulders with Christians, or being one, you know that the attainment of wisdom is a process that happens through fits and starts, and sometimes, regressions. Even so, it does seem that Christians and the world as a whole have slowly become sensitized to torture, generally forbidding its use, at least publicly. When criminals are executed, considerable care is given to making the execution a solemn affair, not a spectacle, and as painless as possible.
On the other hand, it’s hard to argue that humans are evolving into beings that are more moral. The twentieth century included both world wars, the brutal communist takeovers of Russia and China, the holocaust, the development of gas warfare, the development of atomic weaponry, and the development of ballistic missiles. Assassination via guided missiles or drones seems to be the in vogue approach to settling international differences. Roughly 233,000 people were killed in military conflicts, worldwide, in 2024. We’ve become more sophisticated in our ability to kill, but that is only evidence that we are not making progress.
The brutality displayed through the crucifixion of Jesus is a window into the cruelty that resides in the depths of every human heart. The Romans and the Jews were our representatives. Jesus would have been executed, one way or another, no matter what country he might have been born in or what century he might have been born in.
Sadism and hatred or, perhaps, intentional apathy are inherent in torture. People whose hearts are sensitive hate to see others suffer. They hate to see animals suffer. But when people have been severely harmed, they can become insanely cruel. When opportunities present themselves, people who hate will torture their enemies and take pleasure in doing so. This state of mind represents the worst of human depravity; it is the untethering of evil.
We must not miss how this contrasts with the behavior of Jesus. First of all, he did not need to suffer the cross. When Judas betrayed Jesus prior to the crucifixion, the other disciples were ready to put up a fight, but Jesus would have nothing to do with it. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26.53). This remained true throughout the trials, the whipping, the beatings, and the time on the cross. Jesus demonstrated the greatest discipline of all time, enduring a cross he could have left at any moment. The nails did not keep Jesus on the cross—it was his own willfulness. He died for us. On the cross he uttered these amazing words, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23.34).
So, does the cross tell us something about torture? Yes, the cross demonstrates the wreckage that sin has visited on the human heart. God created life and proclaimed that it was good. Humans initiated death and made an art form of it. “We’ll add in torture, making death seem like a relief.” Jesus endured the cross but never recommended its use, nor did he ever suggest the use of any sort of torture or torment. It should be obvious to us, then, that the idea of everlasting torture is an idea foreign and repugnant to God. It is an idea hatched from the depths of human depravity. We are accustomed to seeing crosses in the fronts of our church meeting rooms. When we look on these crosses, what we should see is a device created by humans that was used on our Lord. We should also see that our Lord did not use the cross as a reason to exact revenge. Instead, he forgave. Instead, he made use of the cross to sacrifice himself so that those who look to him would be saved. Our God turned torture into a means of salvation. What he never did was use it as a means of punishment.
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