What does the cross of Jesus mean to you?

Answer 1

That God sacrificed his Son to die on the cross as an atonement for our sins so that we may have everlasting life.

Answer 2

The cross is a curse and Jesus was two thieves.

The cross is not for protection or salvation but threatens all opposition with death and destruction and was added to Christianity by Emperor Constantine the Great who arranged the First Council of Nicea that selected the contents of the Bible.

Constantine was a worshipper of Zeus, the Sun God, and Constantine claimed to have had a vision, either in a dream or in the sky, of a fiery croos with the words "by this sign shalt thou conquer" written below the cross, and so he had the sign of the cross used as his imperial standard, and so was born the cult of the cross that you see on bottles of poisonous substances and on pirates' flags and on the flags of most European countries.

The Bible speaks of the crucifixion as a curse and those so hanged as accursed of God.

The Cross is meant to destroy opposition and Christians use it to exorcise the Devil when the Devil loves and owns the Cross.

Only two thieves were crucified in Jerusalem the day Jesus was crucified and these two thieves bore the crosses with their indentity as Jesus King of the Jews inscribed on their crosses, thus was born Jesus the King, and used in the hoax of the crucifixion to use Christ or the Messiah as the crucified when he was set free long before the thieves were even beaten and spat upon. and then led to Golgotha by the soldiers of Herod and Pilate who were both entitled to at least one hundred soldiers each, with their Centurions, and the secret of the two thieves only became known when they were raised on their crosses, towering over the crowd, at Golgotha, and all Hell broke loose. and the burial was faked while the two thieves were left on their crosses leaving the Biblical Jews in breach of the Sabbath, and the curse fell on the land which today still bears the curse as is evident in today's fiery Middle East, and who can give the land back to the renegade Muslims in Peace but Allah?

Answer 3

The cross of Jesus is a reminder to me to live a good life and to aid others when I can. It reminds me that he died to save me from my sins and that if he could bear the burden of his cross then why could I not be responsible enough to bear the burbens of my life. His cross was the burdens of mankind. He took all of the sin. It reminds me that I am loved because someone would die for me.

Answer 4

The cross represents the salvation the Lord promised us. He died on the cross to bring us to everlasting life.

Answer 5

Isaiah 53
1 Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?

2-6The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

7-9He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.

10Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.

11-12Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Answer 6

By his open arms in the cross he welcomes every one not choosing what,where or how you are,the cross is the salvation of GOD the power of HIM by HIM.

Answer 7

Pagan.

What were the historical origins of Christendom’s cross?

“Various objects, dating from periods long anterior to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world. India, Syria, Persia and Egypt have all yielded numberless examples . . . The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times and among non-Christian peoples may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship.”—Encyclopædia Britannica (1946), Vol. 6, p. 753.

“The shape of the [two-beamed cross] had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ.”—An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (London, 1962), W. E. Vine, p. 256.

“It is strange, yet unquestionably a fact, that in ages long before the birth of Christ, and since then in lands untouched by the teaching of the Church, the Cross has been used as a sacred symbol. . . . The Greek Bacchus, the Tyrian Tammuz, the Chaldean Bel, and the Norse Odin, were all symbolised to their votaries by a cruciform device.”—The Cross in Ritual, Architecture, and Art (London, 1900), G. S. Tyack, p. 1.

“The cross in the form of the ‘Crux Ansata’ . . . was carried in the hands of the Egyptian priests and Pontiff kings as the symbol of their authority as priests of the Sun god and was called ‘the Sign of Life.’”—The Worship of the Dead (London, 1904), Colonel J. Garnier, p. 226.

“Various figures of crosses are found everywhere on Egyptian monuments and tombs, and are considered by many authorities as symbolical either of the phallus, a representation of the male sex organ. Or of coition. . . . In Egyptian tombs the crux ansata, cross with a circle or handle on top: is found side by side with the phallus.”—A Short History of Sex-Worship (London, 1940), H. Cutner, pp. 16, 17; see also The Non-Christian Cross, p. 183.

“These crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian sun-god, and are first seen on a coin of Julius Cæsar, 100-44 B.C., and then on a coin struck by Cæsar’s heir (Augustus), 20 B.C. On the coins of Constantine is the most frequent symbol. But the same symbol is used without the surrounding circle, and with the four equal arms vertical and horizontal; and this was the symbol specially venerated as the ‘Solar Wheel’. It should be stated that Constantine was a sun-god worshipper, and would not enter the "Church" till some quarter of a century after the legend of his having seen such a cross in the heavens.”—The Companion Bible, Appendix No. 162; see also The Non-Christian Cross, pp. 133-141.

Is veneration of the cross a Scriptural practice?

1 Cor. 10:14: “My beloved ones, flee from idolatry.” (An idol is an image or symbol that is an object of intense devotion, veneration, or worship.)

Ex. 20:4, 5, JB: “You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.” (Notice that God commanded that his people not even make an image before which people would bow down.)

Of interest is this comment in the New Catholic Encyclopedia: “The representation of Christ’s redemptive death on Golgotha does not occur in the symbolic art of the first Christian centuries. The early Christians, influenced by the Old Testament prohibition of graven images, were reluctant to depict even the instrument of the Lord’s Passion.”—(1967), Vol. IV, p. 486.

Concerning first-century Christians, History of the Christian Church says: “There was no use of the crucifix and no material representation of the cross.”—(New York, 1897), J. F. Hurst, Vol. I, p. 366.

Does it really make any difference if a person cherishes a cross, as long as he does not worship it?

How would you feel if one of your dearest friends was executed on the basis of false charges? Would you make a replica of the instrument of execution? Would you cherish it, or would you rather shun it?

How, then, must Jehovah view the use of the cross, which, as we have seen, was anciently used as a symbol in phallic worship?

Answer 8

"His sacrifice on Calvary
Has made the mighty cross
A tree of life to me".

Answer 9

That He died for my sins and I can be forgiven when I ask for it!! Jesus was so wonderful!!

Answer 10

An older religion I no longer follow.