The theological significance of the cross
Submitted by 300 on January 06 2001 16:18:35
In reply to Regarding Religious 'Icons' submitted by Ghost Writer on January 06 2001 15:02:43
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The significance and meaning of the cross in Christianity is rooted in the theology of Paul and the central role the death of Christ plays in that theology. That Christ was put to death by means of the most degrading and humiliating form of execution then known, and that that form of capital punishment could then become a point of boasting for the chief evangelist of the early church, is one of the paradoxes of Christianity. In his epistles, Paul refers either directly or indirectly to the crucifixion of Christ almost twenty times. The Gospel itself is referred to by him as logos tou staurou, i.e., "the word of the cross" (1 Cor. 1:17). Many of the heresies that Paul sought to combat (e.g., in Corinth) were to some extent based on a tacit rejection of "Christ crucified," which Paul proclaimed to be "a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23). It was, therefore, very much the ultimate act of faith to join in with Paul in accepting not just Christ, but Christ crucified. Circumcision was the mark of membership in the Old Covenant; faith in Christ crucified—and only in Christ crucified—is the mark of membership in the New Covenant community. As far as the cross being a "symbol" for Christianity, in all likelihood the earliest symbolic representation of the Christian religion was a simple one line drawing of a fish. In times of persecution, especially in Rome itself, the quick sketching of a fish in the dirt was how one believer would identify himself to another. 300 |
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