The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ

by Fleming Rutledge

The fact that the English word “witness” is, in Greek, the same as the word “martyr” is a semantic indication of how quickly the apostolic witness-martyrs came to understand that their testimony would be costly.

In particular, Paul redefines gnosis. The Corinthians have apparently sent a message to the apostle that “all of us possess gnosis.” Yes, Paul replies, but there are limits to gnosis (knowledge). “ ‘Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up. If any one imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if one loves God, one is known by him” (8:1-3). In just these three sentences, Paul does two things: (1) he shifts the emphasis from knowledge to agape, and (2) he reverses the direction of knowing. It is God who has knowledge of us, through love. Paul brings all this together in I Corinthians 13:

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood [gnosis is the root of all three italicized words]. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (vv. 2, 8-9, 12-13)

Let us be clear, however: Christianity does not recommend suffering for its own sake, and it is part of a Christian’s task in the world to alleviate the suffering of others. By no stretch of the imagination, however, could Christianity ever be said to recommend the avoidance of suffering in the cause of love and justice. Perhaps the clearest way to sum this up is to say that Christian faith, when anchored in the preaching of the cross, recognizes and accepts the place of suffering in the world for the sake of the kingdom of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” said Jesus on the mount (Matt. 5:10).

Gnostic denial of Christ’s physical life and extraordinarily gruesome death has always found willing adherents, but a consumerist culture is especially susceptible, because many have the leisure, the economic resources, and the inclination to experiment with ever newer and more exotic sensations, including “spiritual” ones. Over against this type of religion, the Christian gospel places the cross.

Crucifixion was specifically designed to be the ultimate insult to personal dignity, the last word in humiliating and dehumanizing treatment. Degradation was the whole point.14 As Joel Green describes it, “Executed publicly, situated at a major crossroads or on a well-trafficked artery, devoid of clothing, left to be eaten by birds and beasts, victims of crucifixion were subject to optimal, unmitigated, vicious ridicule.”15 And so, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, the meaning of the cross lies not only in physical suffering, but especially in rejection and shame.16 To understand what the crucifixion means, we must look unblinkingly at its appalling qualities.

These are some of the implications in the use of the term “crucifixion,” but perhaps the most important for our argument here is that it implies an extremity of dehumanization and, therefore, of godlessness.21