There is Power in the Cross
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
1 Corinthians 1:18 & 21 Complete Jewish Bible
18 For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God.
21 For God's wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know Him. Therefore God decided to use the "nonsense" of what we proclaim as his means of saving those who come to trust in it.
When my mother and grandmother would take me to the Sunday night services at the Full Gospel church, we would sing many “camp meeting” type songs. Among them, almost without exception, would be two songs; “There is Power in the Blood” and “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” The Bible says a lot about the Blood of Jesus – it is mentioned, if I counted correctly, 40 times in 13 books of the KJV of the New Testament. So it makes me wonder why so many pastors don't ever mention the Blood of Christ when they preach. To hear some of them, you'd think that Christ had a pleasant day that day and must have died of natural causes in His sleep. As much as I wish it were so, it just isn't. The details are a lot rougher, and the result was that He shed a lot of blood that day.
Roman Senator Marcus Tullius Cicero called crucifixion “the most cruel and hideous of tortures.” Flavius Josephus, historian, called death by crucifixion, “the most wretched death.”
A criminal condemned to be crucified was first scourged. The condemned was tied to a post where a whip, called a “flagrum,” was used. The flagrum had a sturdy handle attached to several leather thongs. Sharp pieces of bone and lead were tied to them at various lengths. And for those of you who believe Jesus was beaten with the Jewish “40 lashes minus 1,” according to Jewish oral law, that's just not true either. Jesus was scourged by the Romans, not the Jews. The Romans had NO limitations on the number of blows that a Roman torturer could strike. Only when the Centurion in charge determined that the condemned might die from the whipping was it stopped. The Centurion’s only criteria was that the condemned man die on the cross, not under the lash.
The pieces of bone cut deeply into the skin and flesh, and chunks of flesh would typically be cut out of the condemned victim's back. The pieces of lead produced deep bruises and knocked the breath out of the condemned with each blow. After Jesus was beaten, literally, to within an inch of His life, the Roman soldiers were allowed to batter and mistreat Him, as they did to most of the condemned they tortured, as an outlet for their anger and frustration at being on occupation duty in a hostile area. In the process of mistreating Jesus, they placed a crown of thorns on His head, beat Him over the head with a stout reed, plucked out His beard and spit on Him. Then He had to carry the crossbeam to the crucifixion site. This crossbeam, called a “patibulum,” was used for barring gates and might weigh up to 110 lbs. It was strapped onto the arms so the condemned could not drop it. Upon reaching the execution site, He was cut loose then forced to lay on the crossbeam and His arms were stretched out and tied to the beam. Then nails were driven through His wrists between the radial and ulna bones, which would damage the radial nerve bundle. The crossbeam was hoisted onto the upright stake and attached and Jesus would have been hanging by his wrists. Secured this way, death would come quickly; but to prolong the torture, His feet were nailed also. When a condemned person was fixed to the cross in this way, they could not breathe very well hanging by their arms. To be able to gulp air, they had to painfully pull themselves up by their arms or push with their feet. The arms wouldn't help after awhile because of spasms caused by the nails driven thru the nerves in the wrists, so the condemned would have to put their full weight onto their feet, which were nailed to the rough wood of the upright.
Eventually, the person would become so weak from lack of oxygen and loss of blood that they would hang by their arms no longer able to lift themselves up to get air. Death was then caused by either asphyxiation or circulatory collapse.
Why go through all this? Because we really don't have any idea, in our insulated world, what Jesus went through on that cross. But I assure you, from my studies on this subject, that He lost a lot of blood in the process.
God places a lot of importance on how we react to Jesus and His death. All this was done to provide a way for the lost, already condemned men and women of the world to come to God and be forgiven. I try to never forget what my salvation cost God, and I marvel at how lightly many “Christians” take His death! How dare a pastor, charged with the spiritual well-being of a congregation, ignore this vital subject! How dare a congregation ignore the consequences of letting a pastor do this!
The unsaved don't understand what's behind the story and the talk of Jesus' blood makes many uncomfortable. I'm sure that's the reason so many Christians don't talk much about it. But the blood of Jesus is the reason we stand before God forgiven. What we know but the world can't understand is that Jesus had to die and had to shed blood to redeem us. Truly, there is power in the blood of Jesus.
Stephen Cram April 24, 2011 Colossians 2:8
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