Jesus was a shameful sufferer

JESUS WAS A SHAMEFUL SUFFERER
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Hebrews 12:2 2
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer
and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he
endured the cross, scorningits shame, and sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God.
The Shameful Sufferer BY SPURGEON
“Who for the joy that was setbefore Him endured the Cross, despising
the shame, and is now setdown at the right hand of the Throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:2
“OH what shall I do, my Saviorto praise?” Where shalllanguage be found
which shall describe His matchless, His unparalleled love towards the children
of men? Upon any ordinary subjectone may find liberty of speechand
fullness of utterance, but this subjectlies out of the line of all oratoryand
eloquence cannotattain unto it. This is one of the unutterable things–
unutterable because it surpasses thoughtand defies the power of words. How,
then, canwe deal with that which is unutterable? I am conscious thatall I can
say concerning the sufferings of Jesus this morning will be but as a drop in the
bucket. None of us know the half of the agony which He endured. none of us
have ever fully comprehended the love of Christ which passes knowledge.
Philosophers have probed the earth to its very center, threaded the spheres,
measuredthe skies, weighedthe hills–no, weighedthe world itself. But this is
one of those vast, boundless things, which to measure does surpass all but the
Infinite itself. As the swallow but skims the waterand dives not into its depths,
so all the descriptions of the preacherbut skim the surface, while depths
immeasurable must lie far beneath our observation. Well might a poet say–
“O love, you fathomless abyss!”
for this love of Christ is indeed measurelessandfathomless. None of us can
attain unto it.

In speaking of it we feel our own weakness, we castourselvesupon the
strength of the Spirit, but, even then, we feel that we can never attain unto the
majesty of this subject. Before we can ever geta right idea of the love of Jesus,
we must understand His previous glory in its height of majesty and His
incarnation upon the earth in all its depths of shame. Now, who can tell us the
majesty of Christ? When He was enthroned in the highest heavens He was
very God of very God. By Him were the heavens made and all the hosts
thereof. By His power He hung the earth upon nothing. His own almighty arm
upheld the spheres–the pillars of the heavens restedupon Him. The praises of
angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim, perpetually surrounded Him.
The full chorus of the Hallelujahs of the universe unceasinglyflowedto the
foot of His Throne–He reignedsupreme above all His creatures, Godover all,
blessedforever.
Who can tell His height, then? And yet this must be attained before we can
measure the length of that mighty stoopwhich He took when He came to
earth to redeem our souls. And who, on the other hand, can tell how low He
descended? To be a Man was something, but to be a Man of Sorrows was far
more. To bleed and die and suffer, these were much for Him who was the Son
of God. But to suffer as He did–such unparalleled agony. To endure, as He
did, a death of shame and a death by desertionof His God–this is a lower
depth of condescending love which the most inspired mind must utterly fail to
fathom. And yet must we first understand infinite height and then, infinite
depth. We must measure, in fact, the whole infinite that is betweenHeaven
and Hell, before we can understand the love of Jesus Christ.
But because we cannotunderstand, shall we therefore neglect? And because
we cannot measure shall we therefore despise? Ah, no. Let us go to Calvary
this morning and see this greatsight. Jesus Christ, for the joy that was set
before Him, enduring the Cross, despising the shame.
I shall endeavorto show you, first, the shameful Sufferer. Secondly, we shall
endeavorto dwell upon His glorious motive. And then in the third place, we
shall offer Him to you as an admirable example.
1. Beloved, I wish to show you the SHAMEFUL SUFFERER. The text
speaks ofshame and therefore before entering upon suffering, I shall
endeavorto saya word or two upon the shame.
Perhaps there is nothing which men so much abhor as shame. We find that
death itself has often been preferable in the minds of men to shame. And even
the most wickedand callous-heartedhave dreaded the shame and contempt of
their fellow creatures far more than any tortures to which they could have

been exposed. We find Abimelech, a man who murdered his own brethren
without compunction. We find even him overcome by shame, when “a certain
woman casta piece of a millstone upon Abimelech head and all to break his
skull. Then he called hastily unto the young man his armor bearer and said
unto him, Draw your swordand slay me, that men saynot of me, A woman
slew him. And his young man thrust him through and he died.” Shame was
too much for him. He would far rather meet the suicide’s death–forsuch it
was–thanhe should be convictedof the shame of being slain by a woman.
So was it with Saul also–a man who was not ashamedof breaking his oath and
of hunting his own son-in-law like a partridge upon the mountains–evenhe
fell upon his own sword rather than it should be said of him that he fell by the
Philistines. And we read of an ancient king, Zedekiah, that albeit he seemed
recklessenough, he was afraid to fall into the hands of the Chaldeans, lestthe
Jews who had fallen awayto Nebuchadnezzar should make a mock of him.
These instances are but a few of many. It is well known that criminals and
malefactors have often had a greaterfearof public contempt than of anything
else. Nothing can so break down the human spirit as to be subject continually
to contempt, the visible and manifest contempt of one’s fellows.
In fact, to go further, shame is so frightful to man that it is one of the
ingredients of Hell itself. It is one of the bitterest drops in that awful cup of
misery. The shame of everlasting contempt to which wickedmen awake in the
day of their resurrection. To be despisedof men, despisedof angels, despised
of God, is one of the depths of Hell. Shame, then, is a terrible thing to endure.
And many of the proudest natures have been subdued when once they have
been subjectedto it. In the Savior’s case, shame would be peculiarly shameful.
The nobler a man’s nature, the more readily does he perceive the slightest
contempt and the more acutely does he feel it. That contempt which an
ordinary man might bear without a suffering, he who has been bred to be
obeyed and who has all his life been honored, would feelmost bitterly.
Beggaredprinces and despisedmonarchs are among the most miserable of
men.
But here was our glorious Redeemer, in whose face was the nobility of
Godheaditself, despisedand spit upon and mocked. You may, therefore, think
what such a noble nature as His had to endure. The mere kite can bear to be
caged, but the eagle cannotbear to be hooded and blindfolded. He has a
nobler spirit than that. The eye that has facedthe sun, cannot endure
darkness without a tear. But Christ who was more than noble, matchlessly
noble, something more than of a royal race–forHim to be shamed and
mockedmust have been dreadful, indeed.

Some minds are of such a delicate and sensitive disposition that they feel
things far more than others. There are some of us who do not so readily
perceive an affront, or when we do perceive it, are totally indifferent to it. But
there are others of a loving and tender heart. They have so long wept for
others' woes that their hearts have become tender and they therefore feel the
slightestbrush of ingratitude from those they love. If those for whom they are
willing to suffer should utter words of blasphemy and rebuke againstthem,
their souls would be pierced to the very quick. A man in armor would walk
through thorns and briars without feeling, but a man who is nakedfeels the
smallestof the thorns.
Now Christ was, so to speak, a naked spirit. He had stripped Himself of all for
manhood. He said, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head.” He stripped Himself of
everything that could make Him callous, for He loved with all His soul. His
strong passionate heartwas fixed upon the welfare of the human race. He
loved them even unto death and to be mockedby those for whom He died, to
be spit upon by the creatures whom He came to save, to come unto His own
and to find that His own receivedHim not, but actually castHim out–this was
pain, indeed. You tender hearts canweep for others' woes and you that love
with a love as strong as death and with a jealousyas cruel as the grave–you
can guess, but only you–what the Savior must have endured, when all did
mock Him, all did scornHim and He found none to pity none to take His part.
To go back to the point with which we started–shame is peculiarly abhorrent
to manhood and far more to such a manhood as that which Christ carried
about with Him–a noble, sensitive, loving nature, such as no other manhood
had ever possessed.
And now come and let us behold the pitiful spectacle ofJesus put to shame.
He was put to shame in three ways–byshameful accusation, shameful
mockeryand shameful crucifixion.
1. And, first, behold the Savior’s shame in His shameful accusation. He in
whom was no sin and who had done no ill, was chargedwith sin of the
blackestkind. He was first arraignedbefore the Sanhedrim on no less a
charge than that of blasphemy. And could He blaspheme? He who said,
“It is My meat and My drink to do the will of Him that sent Me.” Could
he blaspheme? He who in the depths of His agony, when He sweatas it
were greatdrops of blood at last cried, “My Father, not My will, but
Yours be done”–couldHe blaspheme? No. And it is just because it was
so contrary to His characterthat He felt the accusation. To charge some
of you here present with having blasphemed God would not startle you,

for you have done it and have done it so often as almost to forgetthat
God abhors blasphemers and that He “will not hold him guiltless that
takes His name in vain.” But for one who loved as Jesus lovedand
obeyed as He obeyed–forHim to be chargedwith blasphemy–the
accusationmust have causedHim peculiar suffering. We wonder that
He did not fall to the ground, even as His betrayers did when they came
to lay hold upon Him. Such an accusationas that might blight an
angel’s spirit. Such a calumny might wither the courage of a cherub.
Marvel not, then, that Jesus felt the shame of being accusedofsuch a
crime as this.
Nor did this content them. Having chargedHim with breaking the first table,
they then chargedHim with violating the second–theysaid He was guilty of
sedition. They declaredthat He was a traitor to the government of Caesar,
that He stirred up the people, declaring that He Himself was a king. And
could He commit treason? He who said, “My kingdom is not of this world, else
would My servants fight.” He who when they would have takenHim by force
to make Him a king, withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed–could
He commit treason? It were impossible! Did He not pay tribute and sentto the
fish, when His poverty had not the wherewithalto pay the tax? Could He
commit treason? He could not sin againstCaesar, forHe was Caesar’s lord.
He was King of kings and Lord of lords. If He had chosenHe could have
takenthe purple from the shoulders of Caesarand at a word have given
Caesarto be a prey to the worms.
Jesus Christ commit treason? ‘Twasfar enoughfrom Jesus, the gentle and the
mild to stir up sedition or setman againstman. Ah no, He was a lover of His
country and a lover of His race. He would never provoke a civil war and yet
this charge was brought againstHim. What would you think, goodcitizens
and goodChristians, if you were chargedwith such a crime as this, with the
clamors of your own people behind you crying out againstyou as so execrable
an offender that you must die? Would not that abashyou? Ah, but your
Masterhad to endure this as well as the other. He despised the shameful
indictments and was numbered with the transgressors.
But next, Christ not only endured shameful accusationbut He endured
shameful mocking. When Christ was takenawayto Herod, Herod set Him at
nothing. The original word signifies made nothing of Him. It is an amazing
thing to find that man should make nothing of the Sonof God, who is All in
All. Jesus had made Himself nothing. He had declaredthat He was a worm
and no man. But what a sin was that and what a shame was that when Herod
made Him nothing! He had but to look Herod in the face and He could have

withered Him with one glance of His fire-darting eyes. But yet Herod may
mock Him and Jesus will not speak and men of arms may come about Him
and break their cruel jests upon His tender heart, but not a word has He to
say, but “is led as a lamb to the slaughter and like a sheepbefore her shearers
is dumb.”
You will observe that in Christ’s mocking, from Herod’s own hall, on to the
time when He was takenfrom Pilate’s hall of judgment to His crucifixion and
then onward to His death, the mockings were of many kinds. In the first place
they mockedthe Savior’s Person. One of those things about which we may say
but little, but of which we ought often to think, is the fact that our Saviorwas
stripped, in the midst of a ribald soldiery, of all the garments that He had. It is
a shame evenfor us to speak ofthis which was done by our own flesh and
blood toward Him who was our Redeemer. Those holy limbs which were the
casketofthe precious jewelof His soul were exposedto the shame and open
contempt of men–coarse-mindedmen who were utterly destitute of every
particle of delicacy.
The Personof Christ was stripped twice. And although our painters, for
obvious reasons, coverChristupon the Cross, there He hung–the naked
Savior of a nakedrace. He who clothed the lilies had not wherewith to clothe
Himself. He who had clothedthe earth with jewels and made for it robes of
emeralds, had not so much as a rag to concealHis nakedness from a staring,
gazing, mocking, hard-hearted crowd. He had made coats of skins for Adam
and Eve when they were nakedin the garden. He had takenfrom them those
poor fig leaves with which they sought to hide their nakedness, giventhem
something wherewiththey might wrap themselves from the cold. But now
they part His garments among them and for His vesture do they castlots,
while He Himself, exposedto the pitiless storm of contempt, has no cloak with
which to coverHis shame.
They mockedHis Person–Jesus ChristdeclaredHimself to be the Son of God–
they mockedHis Divine Personas well as His human–when He hung upon the
Cross, they said. “If You are the Son of God, come down from the Cross and
we will believe on You.” Frequently they challengedHim to prove His Divinity
by turning aside from the work which He had undertaken. They askedHim to
do the very things which would have disproved His Divinity, in order that
they might then, as they declared, acknowledge andconfess that He was the
Son of God. And now can you think of it? Christ was mockedas man–we can
conceive Him as yielding to this–but to be mockedas God! A challenge thrown
to manhood, manhood would easilytake up and fight the duel. Christian

manhood would allow the gauntlet to lie there, or tread it beneath its foot in
contempt, bearing all things and enduring all things for Christ’s sake.
But canyou think of God being challengedby His creature–the eternal
Jehovahprovoked by the creature which His ownhand has made? The
Infinite despisedby the finite? He who fills all things, by whom all things
exist–laughedat, mocked, despisedby the creature of an hour, who is crushed
before the moth! This was contempt, indeed, a contempt of His complex
Person, of His Manhood and of His Divinity.
But note next, they mockedall His offices, as wellas His Person. Christ was a
King and never such a king as He. He is Israel’s David. All the hearts of His
people are knit unto Him. He is Israel’s Solomon. He shall reign from sea to
sea and from the river even to the ends of the earth. He was one of royal race.
We have some calledkings on earth, children of Nimrod, these are called
kings, but kings they are not. They borrow their dignity of Him who is King of
kings and Lord of lords. But here was one of the true blood, one of the right
royal race, who had lost His way and was mingled with the common herd of
men.
What did they do? Did they bring crowns with which to honor Him and did
the nobility of earth casttheir robes beneath His feetto carpet his footsteps?
No. He is delivered up to rough and brutal soldiery. They find for Him a
mimic throne and having put Him on it, they strip Him of His own robes and
find some old soldier’s cloak ofscarletor of purple and put it about His loins.
They plait a crown of thorns and put it about His brow–a brow that was of old
benighted with stars! And then they fix in His hand–a hand that will not
resentan insult–a reed scepter. Thenbowing the knee, they pay their mimic
homage before Him, making Him a May-day king. Now, perhaps there is
nothing so heartrending as royalty despised. You have read the story of an
English king who was takenout by his cruel enemies to a ditch. They seated
him on an ant-hill, telling him that was his throne and then they washedhis
face in the filthiest puddle they could find. And the tears running down his
cheeks, he said, “I shall yet be washedin clean water.” Thoughhe was bitterly
mistaken.
But think of the King of kings and Lord of lords, having for His adoration the
spittle of guilty mouths, for homage the smiting of filthy hands, for tribute the
jests of brutal tongues!Was ever shame like Yours, You King of kings, You
emperor of all worlds, flouted by the soldiery and smitten by their menial
hands? O earth! How could you endure this iniquity. O you heavens! Why did
you not fall in very indignation to crush the men who thus blasphemed your
Maker? Here was a shame indeed–the King mockedby His own subjects.

He was a Prophet, too, as we all know and what did they that they might mock
Him as a Prophet? Why they blindfolded Him–shut out the light of Heaven
from His eyes and then they smote Him and did buffet Him with their hands
and they said, “Prophecyunto us who it is that smote you.” The Prophet must
make a prophecy to those who taunted Him to tell them who it was that smote
Him. We love Prophets. It is but the nature of mankind that if we believe in a
Prophet we should love him. We believe that Jesus was the first and the last of
Prophets. By Him all others are sent–we bow before Him with reverential
adoration. We count it to be our highest honor to sit at His feet like Mary. We
only wish that we might have the comfort to washHis feet with our tears and
wipe them with the hairs of our head. We feel that like John the Baptist, His
shoe latchet we are not worthy to unloose and canwe therefore bear the
spectacle ofJesus the Prophet, blindfolded and buffeted with insult and
blows?
But they also mockedHis priesthood, Jesus Christ had come into the world to
be a Priest to offer sacrifice and His Priesthoodmust be mocked, too. All
salvationlay in the hands of this Priestand now they say unto Him, “If you
are the Christ save Yourself and us.” Ah, He saved others, Himself He could
not save, they laughed. But oh, what mystery of scornis here, what
unutterable depths of shame that the greatHigh Priestof our profession, He
who is Himself the PaschalLamb, the Altar, the Priest, the Sacrifice–thatHe,
the Sonof Godincarnate, the Lamb of God that takes awaythe sins of the
world, should thus be despisedand thus be mocked.
He was mocked, still further, in His sufferings. I cannot venture to describe
the sufferings of our Savior under the lashof the scourge. St. Bernard and
many of the early fathers of the Church gave such a picture of Christ’s
scourging that I could not endure to tell it over again. Whether they had
sufficient data for what they said, I do not know. But this much I know–“He
was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the
chastisementof our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed.”
I know it must have been a terrible scourging, to be calledwounding,
bruising, chastisementand stripes. And, remember, that every time the lash
fell on His shoulders, the laugh of Him who used the lash was mingled with
the stripe and every time the blood poured out afreshand the flesh was torn
off His bones, there was a jest and a jeer to make His pain yet more poignant
and terrible.
And when He came at last to His Cross and they nailed Him upon it, how they
continued the mockeryof His sufferings! We are told that the high priests and
the scribes stoodand at length satand watchedHim there. When they saw His

head fall upon His breast, they would, no doubt, make some bitter remark
about it and say, “Ah, He will never lift His head againamong the multitude.”
And when they saw His hands bleeding they would say, “Ha, ha, these were
the hands that touched the lepers and that raised the dead–they will never do
this again.” And when they saw His feet, they would say, “Ah, those feet will
never tread this land againand journey on His pilgrimages of mercy.” And
then some coarse, some villainous, some brutal, perhaps some beastly jest
would be made concerning every part of His thrice-adorable Person. They
mockedHim and, at last, He called for drink and they gave Him vinegar–
mocking His thirst, while they pretended to allay it.
But worstof all, I have one more thing to notice, they mockedHis prayers.
Did you ever read in all the annals of executions, or of murders, that ever men
mockedtheir fellow creatures prayers? I have read stories of some dastardly
villains who have soughtto slay their enemies and seeing their death
approaching the victims have said, “give me a moment or two for prayer”–
and rare has been the caseswhenthis has been disallowed. But I never read of
a case in which when the prayer was uttered it has been laughed at and made
the objectof a jest. But here hangs the Savior and every word He speaks
becomes the subjectof a pun, the motto of a jest. And when at the lastHe
utters the most thrilling death-shriek that ever startled earth and Hell, “Eloi,
Eloi, lama Sabacthani,” eventhen they must pun upon it and say, “He calls
for Elijah, let us see whether Elijah will come and take Him down.” He was
mockedeven in His prayer. O Jesus!Neverwas love like Yours–never
patience that could be compared with Your endurance when You did endure
the Cross, despising the shame.
I feel that in thus describing the Savior’s mockeries,I have not been able to
setbefore you the fullness of the shame through which He passedand shall
have to attempt it yet, again, in anothermoment, when I come to describe His
shameful death, taking the words which precededthe ones I have already
enlargedupon. He endured the Cross just as He did despise the shame.
The Cross!The Cross!When you hear that word it wakens in your hearts no
thoughts of shame. There are other forms of capital punishment in the present
day far more disgracefulthan the Cross. Connectedwith the guillotine there is
much with the block as much with the gallows, mostof all. But, remember,
that although to speak of the gallows is to utter a word of ignominy, yet there
is nothing of shame in the term “gallows,”comparedwith the shame of the
Cross, as it was understood in the days of Christ. We are told that crucifixion
was a punishment to which none could be put but a slave and, even then, the
crime must have been of the most frightful character–suchas the betrayal of a

master, the plotting his death, or murdering him–only such offenses would
have brought crucifixion, even, upon a slave.
It was lookedupon as the most terrible and frightful of all punishments. All
the deaths in the world are preferable to this. They have all some slight
alleviating circumstance, eithertheir rapidity or their glory. But this is the
death of a villain, of a murderer, of an assassin–a deathpainfully protracted,
one which cannot be equaled in all inventions of human cruelty for suffering
and ignominy. Christ Himself endured this. The Cross, Isay, is in this day no
theme of shame. It has been the crestof many a monarch, the banner of many
a conqueror. To some it is an objectof adoration. The finest engravings, the
most wonderful paintings have been dedicated to this subject. And now, the
Cross engravedon many a gem has become a right, royal and noble thing.
And we are unable at this day, I believe, fully to understand the shame of the
Cross. But the Jew knew it, the Romanknew it–and Christ knew what a
frightful thing, what a shameful thing–it was to be put to the death of
crucifixion.
Remember, too, that in the Savior’s case, there were specialaggravationsof
this shame. He had to carry His own Cross. He was crucified, too, at the
common place of execution, Calvary, analogous to our ancient Tyburn, or our
present Old Bailey. He was put to death, too, at a time when Jerusalemwas
full of people. It was at the feastof the Passover, whenthe crowd had greatly
increasedand when the representatives ofall nations would be present to
behold the spectacle.Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in
Mesopotamia, inGreece, yes, and perhaps far-off Tarshish and the islands of
the sea. All were there to unite in this scoffing and to increase the shame. And
He was crucified betweentwo thieves, as if to teachthat He was more vile
than they. Was evershame like this?
Let me conduct you to the Cross. The Cross, the Cross!Tears beginto flow at
the very thoughts of it. The rough woodis laid upon the ground, Christ is
flung upon His back, four soldiers seize His hands and feet, His blessedflesh
his rent with the accursediron. He begins to bleed, He is lifted into mid-air,
the Cross is dashed into the place prepared for it. Every limb is dislocated,
every bone put out of joint by that terrific jerk. He hangs there naked to His
shame, gazedupon by all beholders, the sun shines hot upon Him, fever begins
to burn, His tongue is dried up like a potsherd, it cleaves to the roof of His
mouth, He has not wherewith to nourish nature with moisture.
His body has been long emaciatedby fasting, He has been brought near the
brink of death by flagellationin the hall of Pilate. There He hangs, the most
tender part of His body, His hands and feet are pierced and where the nerves

are most numerous and tender, there is the iron rending and tearing its
fearful way. The weightof His body drags the iron up His feet and when His
knees are so weary that they cannot hold Him, then the iron begins to drag
through His hands. Terrible spectacleindeed! But you have seenonly the
outward–there was an inward. You cannot see that–if you could see it, though
your eyes were like the angels, you would be smitten with eternalblindness.
Then there was the soul. The soul dying. Can you guess what must be the
pangs of a souldying? A soul never died on earth yet. Hell is the place of
dying souls, where they die everlastinglythe seconddeath. And there was
within the ribs of Christ’s body, Hell itself poured out. Christ’s soul was
enduring the conflict with all the powers of Hell, whose malice was aggravated
by the fact that it was the last battle they should ever be able to fight with
Him. No, worse than that. He had lost that which is the martyr’s strength and
shield, He had lost the presence ofHis God, God Himself was putting His
hand upon Him!
It pleasedthe Fatherto bruise Him. He has put Him to grief, He has made His
soul a sacrifice forsin. God, in whose countenance Christ had everlastingly
seemedhimself, basking in delight, concealedHis face. And there was Jesus
forsakenofGod and man, left alone to tread the winepress–no, to be trod in
the winepress–anddip His clothes in His own blood. Oh, was there ever grief
like this? No love can picture it. If I had a thought in my heart concerning the
suffering of Christ, it should chafe my lips before I uttered it. The agonies of
Jesus were like the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, heatedseven times hotter
than ever human suffering was heatedbefore. Every vein was a road for the
hot feetof pain to travel in–every nerve a string in a harp of agony that
thrilled with the discordant wail of Hell. All the agonies thatthe damned
themselves canendure were thrust into the soul of Christ.
He was a target for the arrows of the Almighty, arrows dipped in the poison of
our sin. All the billows of the Eternal dashed upon this Rock ofour salvation.
He must be bruised, trod, crushed, destroyed–His soulmust be exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death.
But I must pause, I cannotdescribe it. I can creepover it and you can, too.
The rocks rent when Jesus died, our hearts must be made of harder marble
than the rocks themselves if they do not feel. The temple rent its gorgeous veil
of tapestry and will not you be mourners, too? The sun itself had one big tear
in its ownburning eye, which quenched its light. And shall not we weep? We
for whom the Saviordied? Shall not we feelan agonyof heart that He should
thus have endured for us?

Mark, my Friends, that all the shame that came on Christ He despised. He
counted it so light compared with the joy which was set before Him, that He is
said to have despisedit. As for His sufferings, He could not despise them–that
word could not be used in connectionwith the Cross for the Cross was too
awful for even Christ Himself to despise. That, He endured. The shame He
could castoff, but the Cross He must carry and to it He must be nailed. “He
endured the Cross, despising the shame.”
II. And now HIS GLORIOUS MOTIVE. What was that which made Jesus
speak like this?–“Forthe joy that was setbefore Him.” Beloved, what was the
joy? Oh, ‘tis a thought that must melt a rock and make a heart of iron move!
The joy which was setbefore Jesus, was principally joy of saving you and me.
I know it was the joy of fulfilling His Father’s will–of sitting down on His
Father’s Throne–ofbeing made perfect through suffering–but still I know
that this is the grand, greatmotive of the Savior’s suffering–the joy of saving
us. Do you know what the joy is of doing goodto others? If you do not I pity
you, for of all joys which God has left in this poor wilderness, this is one of the
sweetest.
Have you seenthe hungry when they have wanted bread for many an hour–
have you seenthem come to your house almostnaked, their clothes having
been thrust away that they might getmoney upon them to find them bread?
Have you heard the woman’s story of the griefs of her husband? Have you
listened when you have heard the tale of imprisonment, of sickness,ofcold, or
hunger, of thirst and have you never said, “I will clothe you, I will feedyou”?
Have you never felt that joy Divine, when your gold has been given to the poor
and your silver has been dedicatedto the Lord, when you bestowedit upon
the hungry and you have gone aside and said, “God forbid that I should be
self-righteous–butI do feel it is worth living for, to feed the hungry and clothe
the nakedand to do goodto my poor suffering fellow creatures”?
Now, this is the joy which Christ felt. It was the joy of feeding us with the
bread of Heaven–the joy of clothing poor, naked sinners in His own
righteousness–the joyof finding mansions in Heaven for homeless souls–of
delivering us from the prison of Hell and giving us the eternal enjoyments of
Heaven. But why should Christ look on us? Why should He choose to do this
for us? Oh, my Friends, we never deservedanything at His hands! As a good
old writer says, “WhenI look at the crucifixion of Christ, I remember that my
sins put Him to death. I see not Pilate, but I see myself in Pilate’s place,
bartering Christ for honor. I hear not the cry of the Jews, but I hear my sins
yelling out, ‘Crucify Him, crucify Him.’ I see not iron nails, but I see my own

iniquities fastening him to the Cross. I see no spear, but I behold my unbelief
piercing His poor wounded side–
‘For you, my sins, my cruel sins, His chief tormentors were.
Eachof my sins became a nail and unbelief the spear.’"
It is the opinion of the Romanist, that the very man who pierced Christ’s side
was afterwards convertedand became a followerof Jesus. I do not know
whether that is the fact, but I know it is the case spiritually. I know that we
have pierced the Savior, I know that we have crucified Him. And yet, strange
to say, the blood which we fetched from those holy veins has washedus from
our sins and has made us acceptedin the Beloved. Can you understand this?
Here is manhood mocking the Savior, parading Him through the streets,
nailing Him to a Cross and then sitting down to mock at His agonies. And yet
what is there in the heart of Jesus but love to them?
He is weeping all this while that they should crucify Him, not so much because
He felt the suffering, though that was much, but because He could bear the
thought that men whom He loved could nail Him to the tree. “Thatwas the
unkindest stabof all.” You remember that remarkable story of Julius Caesar,
when he was struck by his friend Brutus. “Whenthe noble Caesarsaw him
stab, ingratitude, more strong than traitor’s arms, quite vanquished him!
Then burst his mighty heart.” Now Jesus had to endure the stab in His inmost
heart and to know that His electdid it–that His redeemeddid it, that His own
Church was His murderer–that His own people nailed Him to the tree!Can
you think, Beloved, how strong must have been the love that made Him
submit even to this?
Picture yourself today going home from this hall. You have an enemy who all
his life long has been your enemy. His father was your enemy and he is your
enemy, too. There is never a day passes but you try to win his friendship. But
he spits upon your kindness and curses your name. He does injury to your
friends and there is not a stone he leaves unturned to do you plumage. As you
are going home today, you see a house on fire. The flames are raging and the
smoke is ascending up in one black column to Heaven. Crowds gather in the
streetand you are told there is a man in the upper chamber who must be
burnt to death. No one cansave him. You say, “Why that is my enemy’s
house.” And you see him at the window. It is your own enemy–the very man.
He is about to be burnt. Full of loving kindness, you say, “I will save that man
if I can.” He sees you approachthe house. He puts his head from the window
and curses you. “An everlasting blastupon you!” he says, “I would rather
perish than that you should save me.”

Do you imagine yourself then, dashing through the smoke and climbing the
blazing staircaseto save him? And can you conceive thatwhen you get near
him he struggles with you and tries to roll you in the flames? Can you
conceive your love to be so potent, that you canperish in the flames rather
than leave him to be burned? You say, “I could not do it. It is above flesh and
blood to do it.” But Jesus did it. We hated Him, we despisedHim and, when
He came to save us, we rejectedHim. When His Holy Spirit comes into our
hearts to strive with us, we resist Him. But He will save us. No, He Himself
braved the fire that He might snatchus as brands from eternalburning. The
joy of Jesus was the joy of saving sinners. The greatmotive, then, with Christ,
in enduring all this, was that He might save us.
III. And now, give me just a moment and I will try and hold the Savior up for
OUR IMITATION. I speak now to Christians–to those who have tasted and
handled of the goodword of life. Christian Men and Women! If Christ
endured all this, merely for the joy of saving you, will you be ashamedof
bearing anything for Christ? The words are on my lips againthis morning–
“If on my face for Your dear name, shame and reproachshall be,
I’ll hail reproach and welcome shame, my Lord, I’ll die for You.”
Oh, I do not wonder that the martyrs died for such a Christ as this! When the
love of Christ is shed abroadin our hearts, then we feel that if the stake were
present we would stand firmly in the fire to suffer for Him who died for us. I
know our poor unbelieving hearts would soonbegin to quail at the crackling
fire woodand the furious heat. But surely this love would prevail over all our
unbelief–are there any of you who feel that if you follow Christ you must lose
by it, lose your station, or lose your reputation? Will you be laughed at if you
leave the world and follow Jesus? Oh, and will you turn aside because of these
little things when He would not turn aside, though all the world mockedHim,
till He could say “It is finished”? No, by the Grace of God, let every Christian
lift his hands to the MostHigh God, to the Makerof Heavenand earth and let
him saywithin himself–
“Now for the love I bear his name,
What was my gain I count my loss,
I pour contempt on all my shame,
And nail my glory to His Cross.”
“Forme to live is Christ. To die is gain,” Living I will be His, dying I will be
His. I will live to His honor, serve Him wholly, if He will help me, and if He
needs, I will die for His name’s sake.

[Mr. Spurgeon was so led out under the first head, that he was unable from
want of time to touch upon the other points. May what was blessedto the
hearer be sweetto the reader.]
Christ as a Sufferer
J. Stalker, D.D.
Isaiah 53:3-7
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him…
1. Jesus sufferedfrom what may be called the ordinary privations of
humanity. Born in a stable, etc. We may not be able to assertthat none ever
suffered so much physical agonyas He, but this is at leastprobable; for the
exquisiteness of His physical organism in all likelihood made Him much more
sensitive than others to pain.
2. He suffered keenly from the pain of anticipating coming evil.
3. He suffered from the sense ofbeing the cause ofsuffering to others. To
persons of an unselfish disposition the keenestpang inflicted by their own
weakness ormisfortunes may sometimes be to see those whom they would like
to make happy rendered miserable through connectionwith themselves. To
the child Jesus how gruesome must have been the story of the babes of
Bethlehem, whom the sword of Herod smote when it was seeking forHim! Or,
if His mother spared Him this recital, He must at leasthave learned how she
and Josephhad to flee with Him to Egypt to escape the jealousyof Herod. As
His life drew near its close, this sense that connectionwith Himself might be
fatal to His friends forceditself more and more upon His notice.
4. The element of shame was, all through, a large ingredient in His cup of
suffering. To a sensitive mind there is nothing more intolerable; it is far
harder to bear than bodily pain. But it assailedJesusin nearly every form,

pursuing Him all through His life. He was railed at for the humbleness of His
birth. The high-born priests and the educatedrabbis sneeredat the
carpenter's son who had never learned, and the wealthy Pharisees derided
Him. He was againand againcalled a madman. Evidently this was what
Pilate took Him for. The Roman soldiers adopted an attitude of savage banter
towards Him all through His trial and crucifixion, treating Him as boys
torment one who is weak in the mind. He heard Barabbas preferred to
Himself by the voice of His fellow-countrymen, and He was crucified between
thieves, as if He were the worstof the worst. A hail of mockerykept falling on
Him in His dying hours. Thus had He who was conscious ofirresistible
strength to submit to be treatedas the weakestofweaklings, andHe who was
the Wisdom of the Highest to submit to be used as if He were less than a man.
5. But to Jesus it was more painful still, being the Holy One of God, to be
regardedand treated as the chief of sinners. To one who loves God and
goodness there canbe nothing so odious as to be suspectedof hypocrisy and to
know that he is believed to be perpetrating crimes at the opposite extreme
from his public profession. Yet this was what Jesus was accusedof. Possibly
there was not a single human being, when He died, who believed that He was
what He claimedto be.
6. If to the holy soulof Jesus it was painful to be believed to be guilty of sins
which He had not committed, it must have been still more painful to feelthat
He was being thrust into sin itself. This attempt was olden made. Satantried it
in the wilderness, and although only this one temptation of his is detailed, he
no doubt often returned to the attack. Wickedmen tried it; they resortedto
every device to cause Him to lose His temper (Luke 11:53, 54). Even friends,
who did not understand the plan of His life, endeavouredto direct Him from
the course prescribedto Him by the will of God — so much so that He had
once to turn on one of them, as if he were temptation personified, with "Get
thee behind Me, Satan."
7. While the proximity of sin awoke suchloathing in His holy soul, and the
touch of it was to Him like the touch of fire on delicate flesh, He was brought
into the closestcontactwith it, and hence arose His deepestsuffering. It
pressedits loathsome presence onHim from a hundred quarters. He who
could not bear to look on it saw it in its worstforms close to His very eyes. His
own presence in the world brought it out; for goodnessstirs up the evil lying
at the bottom of wickedhearts. It was as if all the sin of the race were rushing
upon Him, and Jesus feltit as if it were all His own.

(J. Stalker, D.D.)
What Does It Mean for Jesus to Despise
Shame?
john-piper
Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org
In running the race of life we are to look to the exaltationof Jesus at the end
of his race. But Hebrews 12:2 tells us to look not only to his exaltation, but to
his motivation.
Jesus was carriedin the agonies ofthe last lap of his race by the hope of joy.
“Forthe joy that was setbefore him [he] endured the cross, despising the
shame” (verse 2). Jesus kepthis eyes on the same place we should — his own
future exaltation at the Father’s right hand, with the completion of our
salvationcrowning his head. This was his joy.
There were mammoth obstacles in Jesus’s way. Two are mentioned. The cross
and the shame. The cross, no doubt, stands for all the pain and abandonment
and spiritual darkness ofthose hours, as he lunged, dying, to the finish line.
But shameis the one agonyof the cross whichthe author mentions. And he
said that Jesus despised it. That is an amazing choice of words. Would you
have chosensuch a word to say he overcame shame? He despisedit.
Shame was stripping awayevery earthly support that Jesus had: his friends
gave way in shaming abandonment; his reputation gave way in shaming
mockery;his decencygave way in shaming nakedness;his comfort gave way
in shaming torture. His glorious dignity gave way to the utterly undignified,
degrading reflexes of grunting and groaning and screeching.
And he despisedit. What does this mean?
It means Jesus spoke to shame like this:
“Listen to me, Shame, do you see that joy in front of me? Comparedto that, you
are less than nothing. You are not worth comparingto that! I despise you. You

think you have power. Compared to the joy before me, you have none. Joy. Joy.
Joy. That is my power! Not you, Shame. You areworthless. You are powerless.
You think you can distract me. I won’teven look at you. I have a joy set before
me. Why would Ilook at you? You are uglyand despicable. And you are almost
finished. You cover menow as witha shroud. Before you can say, ‘So there!’ I
willthrow you off likea filthy rag. I willputon myroyal robe.
You think you are great, because even lastnight you mademydisciplesrun
away. You area fool, Shame. You area despicablefool. That abandonment, that
loneliness, this cross — these tools of yours — they are all mysacred suffering,
and willsavemydisciples, notdestroy them. You are a fool. Yourfilthy hands
fulfill holyprophecy.
Farewell, Shame. It is finished.”
10 Ways the Cross Atones for Shame
Posted on April 1, 2015 by http://honorshame.com/author/jason/HYPERLINK
"http://honorshame.com/author/jason/"HonorShame — 4 Comments ↓
Guest Mark Baker (Ph.D., Duke) is Professor of Mission and Theology at Fresno Pacific
Biblical Seminary. Two of his books Recovering the Scandal of the Cross and Proclaiming the
Scandal of the Cross explore the saving significance of the cross.
Here are 10 aspects of the atonement potentially relevant to people of honor-shame cultures.

A t o n i n g f o r S h a m e
1. Jesus was shamed. Shame was central to the crucifixion itself. Romans opted for crucifixion
for its public, humiliating quality. The cross is the ultimate tale of a person being labeled as an
outcast. Jesus endured actual, concrete shame. This fulfilled Isaiah’s vision of God’s servant who
would bear tremendous shame (Isa 49:7; 50:6-8; 53:2-3).
2. Jesus bears our shame. Jesus absorbed shame on our behalf. As in the parable of the father
with two (disgraceful) sons (Lk 15:11-32), Jesus bore shame to communicate God’s costly love.
Whether eating with the tax-collectors or dying on the cross, Jesus experienced shame to restore
the shamed.
3. Jesus removes our shame. All people have done shameful things, which makes us shameful
in God’s eyes (Gen 3; Ez 16). Because of our shameful sin, we lack God’s glory (Rom 3:23).
Jesus bore the consequences of that shame—rejection, isolation, and ultimately, death—in our
place. Those in Christ will not face shame (Rom 10:11; 1 Peter 2:6-7).
4. God affirmed the shamed. The cross liberates people from shame by displaying Jesus’
commitment to their new identity. Jesus challenged the false cultural practices of social
exclusion to the point of death. He died for the shamed. Jesus gave up his own status and honor
to included the excluded and shamed. God does not stand with the shamers, but with the shamed.
5. Jesus defeatedshame. Shame, like death and sin, was a tool of the enemy that Jesus defeated
on the cross. Because of Jesus, shame no longer has any rightful power over people. Because
Jesus disregarded the shame of the cross (Heb 12:2) the lie of distorted honor systems was
exposed and shame’s power to exclude was destroyed (Col 2:13-19).
6. Jesus was honored. The resurrection overflows with honor and glory (Heb 2:9). Philippians
2:5-11 communicates so powerfully—it is the crucified one who is greatly honored. Jesus enjoys
the honor of sitting at God’s right and having a name above all names.
7. Jesus honored God. Jesus did not fall short of God’s glory. He faithfully obeyed God and
kept covenant in a way Israel had never done. Jesus brought honor to God on our behalf. Those
“in Christ” receive his honoring actions as their own; they are restored to an appropriate
relational status of honoring God through Jesus.
8. God saved face. The cross mitigated potential shame and preserved God’s status by
demonstrating his faithfulness (cf. Rom 3:3-7; 15:8). God is not all bark and no bite; he delivers

on his promises. Yahweh said he would save the world, and he kept that word through the death
and resurrection of Jesus. The cross “protects the family name.”
9. Jesus remade the group. The cross formed a new family of God by tearing down the walls of
division (Eph 2:11-22). For the Jewish apostles, the remaking of God’s covenant community to
include Gentiles from all nations carried cosmic significance. People can now be a part of God’s
special group of honored people (1 Pet 2:9-10).
10. Jesus honors us. The cross provides us a new identity—children of God. And as children we
are heirs, which underlines our honorable status (Rom 8:15-18; Gal 3:26-29.) We receive Jesus’
own glory and honor for ourselves (John 17; Heb 2:10). The crown of glory we inherit is
imperishable and unfading (1:4; 5:4); Jesus appearing will reveal our own glory and honor (1 Pet
1:7). The NT weaves all these aspects of the atonement into a single fabric of salvation. But,
pulling apart and tracing a few of the threads helps us see the full glory of the cross during
Easter.
What this post helpful? . . .
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Relatedposts:
1. Another FREE BOOK, and HS Missiology
2. Top 7 Honor-Shame Videos
3. Jesus’ Miraculous Healing Honor
4. Jesus’ Death, for Muslims
About HonorShame
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Posted in Missiology, NT, Theology Tagged with: atonement, cross, death, Honor, Jesus, shame
4 comments on “10Ways the Cross Atones for Shame”
1. Steve Hoke says:
2. April 1, 2015 at 5:04 pm
3. Great stuff, brother Mark. THis helps us see how to apply the H/S worldview in
incredibly practical ways. Thanks for this help! God bless you as you share the Scandal!
Steve Hoke
4. Reply
5. Werner Mischke says:
6. April 1, 2015 at 5:37 pm
7. Amen and amen. This is a message for our time and our world.
8. Reply
9. Melinda says:
10. April 4, 2015 at 2:43 am
11. It seems as though there was quite a bit of cultural belief tied to the
cross/crucifixion that is today unfamiliar to Westerners, and not easy for them to
understand. Thank you for this. It’s a helpful piece.
12. Reply
13. Raymond Balogun says:
14. October 6, 2018 at 1:04 am
15. Great interpretation and tremendous inspirational message on the atoning power
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. God bless you sir. Raymond Balogun from Nigeria.
16. Reply
1 Pings/Trackbacks for "10Ways theCross Atones for Shame"
1. How A Culture Of Shame Puts Us In Bondage And How We Can Find Freedom From
Shame – Renewed and Transformed says:
2. October 28, 2016 at 1:16 am
3. […] scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”
(Hebrews 12:2). HERE is a link to “10 Ways the Cross Atones for Shame” by Mark […]

1 Didst thou dear Jesus suffer shame,
And bear the cross for me?
And shall I fear to own thy name,
Or thy disciple be?
2 Forbid it Lord that I should dread,
To suffer shame or loss;
O, let me in thy footsteps tread,
And glory in thy cross.
3 Inspire my soul with life divine,
And holy courage bold;
Let knowledge, faith and meekness shine,
Nor love nor zeal grow cold.
4 Say to my soul, why dost thou fear
The face of feeble man?
Behold thy heavenly Captain's here,
Before thee in the van.
5 O how my soul would up and run,
At this reviving word,
Nor any painful sufferings shun,
To follow thee, my Lord.
6 For this let men reproach, defame,
And call we what they will;
Lo! I may glorify thy name,
And be thy servant still.
7 To thee I cheerfully submit,
And all thy powers resign;
Let wisdom point out what is fit,
And I'll no more repine.
8 I'll cheerfully take up the cross,
And follow thee my Lord,
Submit to tortures, shame and loss,
At thy commanding word.
9 But this I promise to fulfil,
Through thy assisting grace,
For I am powerless and a weak will,
I must with shame confess.
10 But let thy grace sufficient be,
In every time of need;
Then Lord I'll boldly fight for thee,
And every time succeed.

Divine Hymns, or Spiritual Songs: for the use of religious assemblies and private Christians
1800
All representative texts • Compare textsHYPERLINK l "^ top
Author: James Maxwell
Maxwell, James , was born in Renfrewshire in 1720. In his youth he journeyed to England with a
hardware pack, but eventually returning to Scotland, he followed the joint occupation of
schoolmaster and poet. In 1783, during a famine in Scotland he was reduced to great destitution,
and had to earn his bread by breaking stones on the highway. Most of his publications (from 30
to 40 in all) were produced after that period. The two works in which we are interested are:— (1)
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. In Three Books. 1759. (2) A New Version of the whole of the Book
of Psalms in Metre; by James Maxwell, S. D. P. [Student of Divine Poetry.] Glasgow, 1773.
From the former of these the following hymns are in common use:— 1. All glory to t… Go to
person page >
SHAME OF THE CROSS
Honor and shame were very important categories in antiquity, so a second element, a more
interior suffering, a more internal suffering associated with the cross was the shame of being
crucified, the shame of crucifixion. In fact, Cicero, a famous Roman rhetorician, talked about the
cross as “the tree of shame.” So he can actually call it “the tree of shame.” And the reason it was
regarded as such was because crucifixion specifically a punishment for slaves. Seneca calls it
“the extreme and ultimate penalty for a slave” and Valerius Maximus calls it “the slaves’
punishment.”
So again, I mentioned Saint Paul and his death by beheading in Rome during the persecution of
Nero—the reason he received that more merciful form of execution was because he was a
Roman citizen, whereas St. Peter, Bishop of Rome, was a Jew from Judea. He was an immigrant
to Italy, to Rome, and so he suffered the penalty of a non-citizen of crucifixion — although he
asked to be crucified upside down. Think about how that exacerbated the torture because he
didn’t feel worthy of being crucified in the exact same way as his Lord.
So this death is meant to shame you. It’s meant to mock you. It’s meant to embarrass you in front
of everyone, okay? And if you’ve ever been really, really embarrassed, you know the pain of
embarrassment cuts deeply if it’s a serious one, yes, right? But it’s an interior suffering. So that’s
what we would call an embarrassment; they would call it shame. It’s deeper than just being
embarrassed. And again, we have both Roman and Jewish witnesses to this effect. So crucifixion
is a form of mockery. For example, Seneca tells us in his Dialogues about the ways in which the
Romans would crucify their victims. And he says this:

I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their
victims with head down to the ground [like St. Peter]; some impale their private parts; others
stretch out their arms on the gibbet. (Seneca, Dialogue 6.20.3)
So in some cases…our Lord had the nails driven through his hands and his feet. In some cases
the executioners would have fun by driving them through the privates, right, through the
genitalia of the victims. I mean you can imagine not just the shame but the pain, right, of such a
death. Seneca says “I see”; this is common, right? This is a horrible, horrible way to die. And
you think about the modesty of antiquity too in general — not every culture has the same
standards of modesty. Especially among Jewish standards, the idea of being exposed before
everyone would be shameful enough, but to be executed by being impaled in those sensitive
parts of the body is just horrific. I mean, it’s something that’s difficult to even imagine.
Sorry, this is kind of a drag of a class. It’s a little bit of a downer, but this is the reality of it. I
want you to think about this as we move through the semester because this is going to be the
great Mystery of the Cross. It’s the Christian Mystery too. What does it mean for God, not only
to will from all eternity this fate for his own Divine Son, but then to draw us into it too—the
martyrs and all the baptized in some way, shape or form?
Okay. Josephus, again, tells us about some crucifixions that took place in the Jewish-Roman war
and he says this about Titus, who was the Roman general who captured Jerusalem. He says:
[Titus] allowed his soldiers to have their way, especially as he hoped that the gruesome sight of
the countless crosses might have moved the besieged to surrender.
So the Jews are in the city of Jerusalem. They’re besieged. Titus and the Roman armies are
outside. It’s 70 AD and they’re trying to get the besieged to give up the siege. And so in the
order to do that, they start crucifying people. So this is what he says:
So the soldiers, out of the rage and hatred they bore the prisoners, nailed those they caught in
different postures to the crosses, by way of jest… (Josephus, War 5:451)
So they would put them in funny positions, you know, humorous positions in order to let them
die in that way. So they’re having fun with the bodies of these victims out of venting their rage
and their cruelty on the crucified. And Titus, the general, let’s them do it, and he says, well at
least I hope that it will move the Jewish people in the city to stop insisting on remaining as they
are sieged.
The fourth point of crucifixion that heightened the shame of it was not simply the slavery, the
identity as slave attached to it, or the mockery and cruelty that often attended it, but also the
immodesty that was ordinarily part of it. It is the case, and as both Hengel and Keener and many
other scholars have pointed out, that the victims are ordinarily crucified naked. This is something
that we’re not really as familiar with because ordinarily we only know about Jesus of Nazareth’s
crucifixion and ordinarily when we see him on the cross, we’ll see him with a loin cloth, right?
That’s the general iconography.
And as you can see in the footnote there I get into…there’s some discussion amongst scholars
about whether it is the case the Jesus was crucified with a loin cloth or without. The Fathers
differ about this. Some of the early Church Fathers seem to suggest that Jesus was completely
despoiled of his clothing. For example, Melito of Sardis, in his book On the Pascha. Others
depict him as retaining the loin cloth. Which either way, it would be like being executed, for our
purposes, in your underwear in front of everyone in a public place, which would be shameful in

itself, right? So you have to think about not just ancient standards of modesty, but contemporary
standards of modesty. To despoil someone of their clothings even down to their underwear in
front of everyone would be a very, very shameful thing to undergo. Ordinarily though, it’s the
case that they were completely naked. Most modern films, of course, don’t depict this aspect of
crucifixion because it even offends our sensibilities, as base as those are, right?
For example, turn the page. On page 6, Dionysius of Halicarnassus who has a long book on
Roman antiquities—almost as long as his name—wrote this:
A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death,
delivered him to his fellow-slaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be
witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every other conspicuous part
of the city as they whipped him…
So if you've been down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, why the long walk through the city?
Well, it’s a parade. It’s a crucifixion parade. We’re going to show you to everybody on your way
to the tree, okay? So again, the shame element is very, very key here.
…that he should go ahead of the procession which the Romans were at that time conducting in
honour of the god.
So they attached it to the local parade in favor of Dionysius and whatever.
The men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment, having stretched out both his arms and
fastened them to a piece of wood which extended across his breast and shoulders as far as his
wrists, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips.
So there, we see again, the fact the he is naked in the actual carrying of the cross.
The culprit, overcome by such cruelty, not only uttered ill-omened cries, forced from him by the
pain, but also made indecent movements under the blows. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman
Antiquities, 7.69.1-2)
It’s not clear exactly what he means there but in that last time except that his…in other words, he
was probably exposed in ways that would have been indecent, falling and such in front of
everyone—very shameful. This isn’t just in Roman texts though. In ancient Judaism also, shame
was a part of executions. So in the Mishnah, there’s a discussion in the Treatise Sanhedrin—
sorry, back up. The Mishnah is an ancient Jewish collections of traditions of the rabbis from the
time of Christ all the way up to the end of the second century AD. And in the Mishnah tractate
Sanhedrin, which is the Treatise on the Sanhedrin, the leading council of the Jews, they’re
discussing the question of how executions ought to be carried out. And there’s the question of
whether they would be done in the nude or not, right? And the Mishnah says this:
“When he was four cubits from the place of stoning they stripped off his clothes. A man is kept
covered in front and a woman both in front and behind. So Rabbi Judah. But the Sages say: A
man is stoned naked but a woman is not stoned naked.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:3)
So we see that even in Judaism, whose standards of modesty are going to be greater than, for
example, the Greeks, the custom is to stone someone to death in the nude as a part of the shame.
Again, St. Paul was stoned during his public ministry and suffered that fate. Although, he’s a
hard man to keep down, so he just got back up and went back to the city and started preaching
again. But it’s something we don’t think about. Again, in the scenes and descriptions of stonings
that we usually see, this element is left out of this form of execution.

Obviously here, this is the text that makes some scholars wonder because it says that a man is
kept covered in front and a woman in front and behind. It seems that the man is given some kind
of undergarment or loin cloth, right, so you strip down to that and then the woman would be
given some kind of undergarment as well just to conceal her. But then others say, “No, a man
should be just stoned completely naked,” right? Completely naked. So there’s no real way to put
into words just how shameful crucifixion was, or for that matter being stoned to death.
There’s another text I didn’t give you here that Chapman mentions about the hanging of men and
women. They said the man would be hung facing outward, but for the sake of decency, they
would hang the women facing the tree, so that you couldn’t see her front. So these are very brutal
time. This is very, very different than what we would be used to given our sensibilities.
https://catholicproductions.com/blogs/blog/crucifixion-the-shame-of-the-cross
The Shame of The Cross
January 31, 2012 by Billy Kangas
• The cross has become the quintessential symbol for the Christian faith. It’s placed on
churches, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, lapel pins, necklaces, tattoos and even baked goods. It is
a symbol of comfort, a symbol of faith, a symbol of allegiance, and even at times a fashion
statement. The casual use of the cross that we see today would not have been what the first
Christians would have expected in first centuries after Jesus was crucified. The early Church
served a God who they believed had become human, and had suffered crucifixion. This was a
huge scandal for the church. Crucifixion was the arguably the most shameful way to die in the
first century and to own a leader who was crucified, was in part, to own the shame. This is why
the story of the cross in the early church is so amazing. The church was a community that was
able to embrace Christ, even in the shame of the cross and was even able to see beauty in the
midst of the grotesque. The cross that finds itself so comfortable in our culture today was only
able to find it’s place of ease through a gradual process of self reflexion by a community torn
between love and aversion toward it.
• The History of The Cross
The Cross was adopted by the Roman Empire with the intent to suppress any and intimidate
people. It was devised as a method of execution that prolonged the suffering and death of a
victim, emaciated the body brought death to the perpetrator at the highest price. Victims were
impaled on a vertical wooden stake or on stakes formed together like the letter T. Victims would
hang there for hours, or even days. While there they were emaciated alive. Measures were often
put in place specifically to lengthen the the suffering of an individual by keeping them alive just
a little bit longer. Bodies were so destroyed by the process that of the few that were able to find a
pardon and come down before they died, a fair percentage still died. Once dead the body would
remain there to rot as an example to the people who passed by what would happen to those who
stood up to Rome. In most cases the bodies were not allowed to even receive a proper burial.
• It was originally reserved exclusively for slaves and was considered one of the most
humiliating and shameful things a person could ever endure, which was it’s aim. It was so

humiliating that Roman citizens were only crucified for grave offenses, like treason, and even
these crucifixions were not common. In fact Cicero argued that, “the very mention of the cross
should be far removed not only from a Roman citizen’s body, but from his mind, his eyes, his
ears.” The cross was a beyond the pale and taboo to the extreme for upstanding Romans.
It’s no wonder that the early church did not begin using the cross as the public symbol of their
identity in the earliest years. The cross was still in use. Many Christians were still being crucified
in the empire up to the time of Constantine. It was only due to the conversion of Constantine to
the Christian faith that Crucifixions came to an end in the empire. Constantine ended the practice
in honor of Jesus. The cross was a symbol used to openly mock Christians for what they
believed. Archaeologists have uncovered an engraving from the time of the early church which
reveals a bit of what the mind of the ancient Roman world was like. In the engraving there is a
picture of a man with a donkey head being crucified. Next to him is another posture that seems to
be worshiping the donkey-man on the cross. The image was a piece of graffiti often referred to as
the graffito blasfemo that is thought to have been written by an ancient slave who was probably
making fun of his fellow slave for his belief in Jesus. With the picture there is an inscription
stating, “Αλεξαμενος ϲεβετε θεον.” This is translated as “Alexamenos, worship God” or
“Alexamenos worships God.” It would appear that the slave being mocked was a man named
Alexamenos. Scholars believe that the reason that the man has a Donkey head was due to a
widely held misconception in the ancient world that the Jewish people worshiped a donkey,
which had led them to water while they wandered in the wilderness with Moses. The artist
mocks Alexamenos by pointing to how utterly shameful it was to worship Jesus as the Jewish
donkey God, since Jesus had been killed in the most shameful way.
To overcome the historical and cultural shame of the cross the church had to re-frame the cross
in a new paradigm. It was no longer seen as a place where Jesus was overcome by shame, but a
location where shame was overcome by Jesus. The author of the book of Hebrews makes the
argument that Jesus καταφρονέω (made nothing of, despised) the shame of the cross, so that the
church would not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:2-3). In other words the Jesus
transformed the cross from a place of shame to a place of victory. The early church found took
up this tradition and more fully developed the understanding of the cross as a seal of victory
placed on believers and a place of redemption. Both of these themes are worthy of a closer look.
Copyright 2008-2020, Patheos. All rights reserved.
The Shame of the Cross
…he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross
Crucifixion was considered worse than decapitation, being killed by wild animals, or being burnt
alive.1 It was considered “a terrible calamity”2, it “was a punishment in which the caprice and
sadism of the executioners were given full rein;”3 it was the supreme Roman punishment.
Such was the horror of Roman crucifixion that Cicero argued that Roman citizens should not
ever have to hear the word ‘cross’. In his defence of Rabirius he said:

Even if death be threatened, we may die free men; but the executioner, and the veiling of
the head, and the mere name of the cross, should be far removed, not only from the
persons of Roman citizens—from their thoughts, and eyes, and ears. For not only the
actual fact and endurance of all these things, but the bare possibility of being exposed to
them,—the expectation, the mere mention of them even,—is unworthy of a Roman
citizen and of a free man.4
The gospel writers, fully aware of the unspeakable torture, horror, and shame that victims
suffered at the hands of their executioners, almost attempt to distract the reader from the event of
Christ’s crucifixion. In both Matthew 27:35 and Mark 15:24 the record places emphasis on how
the Romans divided Christ’s clothes rather than on what had just happened to the man above
them, whereas Luke 23:33 and John 19:18 focus on the location of the event rather than on what
happened there. In each instance the phrase “they crucified him” appears as part of a sentence
that is about something else altogether. In the same vein, elsewhere in the New Testament
Christ’s crucifixion is sometimes spoken of in almost abstract terms (e.g. Ga 5:24, 6:14) – the
reader is saved the gruesome details of the most awful form of execution practiced in the Roman
world.
However, unlike the actual act of crucifixion, the gospels give us plenty of historically accurate
information about the events leading up to the cross, and those that took place on it.
Before crucifying their victims, the Romans tortured them. They would “…have to endure the
lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of
suffering, he will be crucified…”5; thus began the degrading loss of all dignity. The flogging that
Christ endured (Mt 27:27, Mk 15:15, Lk 23:22, Jn 19:1) would have made “the blood flow in
streams.”6 The sadism didn’t stop there: “They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and
after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand
and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on him, and
took the reed and struck him on the head. After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and
put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.” (Mt 27:28–31)
Of those who tortured a Christian named Blandina before her death Eusebius writes, “…they
were astonished at her endurance, as her entire body was mangled and broken; and they testified
that one of these forms of torture was sufficient to destroy life, not to speak of so many and so
great sufferings.“7 Pre-crucifixion torture was extreme.
The victim would then have to walk to the site of crucifixion, carrying either the crosspiece, or
the entire cross. Luz explains:
Jesus’ cross was either in the shape of a T with a crossbeam laid on top of a vertical beam
(= crux commissa) or it consisted of a vertical beam with a crossbeam inserted into it (=
crux immissa). Then the vertical beam extended somewhat above the crossbeam, exactly
as was later portrayed in pictures. Among the early church fathers we find both images.
The vertical stakes were usually already at the site; then the crossbeam (Latin patibulum)
of each person to be executed was fastened to the stake. The readers of the Gospel of
Matthew, because of v. 37 where the inscription with the charge is placed over Jesus’
head, would most likely have pictured a crux immissa.8
We can get a sense of just how brutal the flogging and beating Christ endured was by the fact
that he had to have help from Simon of Syrene on his way to Golgotha. It’s thought that the

extreme nature of the beating also led to his quick death – very often death on the cross could
“come slowly, sometimes after several days of atrocious pain.”9
As it was as much a deterrent to would-be criminals as it was a punishment, crucifixion normally
took place next to a busy road. Quintilian explains:
When we crucify criminals the most frequented roads are chosen, where the greatest
number of people can look and be seized by this fear. For every punishment has less to do
with the offence than with the example.10
This was certainly the case for Christ as “many of the Jews read this inscription, because the
place where Jesus was crucified was near the city…” (Jn 19:20). It was also on or near the rocky
outcrop that Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb was cut out of (Jn 19:41).
The victim was then stripped, and crucified. It’s clear from Josephus that “there was no fixed
pattern for crucifying people. Much depended on the sadistic ingenuity of the moment.”11 Seneca,
a Roman philosopher, writes: “I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many
different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private
parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet.“12
In Christ’s case, his hands and feet (Lk 24:39) were nailed to a cross that allowed Pilate’s
inscription to be seen above his head (Mt 27:37), so the cross shape traditionally used as a
symbol for Christianity seems likely.13 The cross would then have been lifted up and dropped
into the hole cut out for it to stand in. The jarring of the cross as it fell into place would have
caused unimaginable pain in his hands and feet.
https://i1.wp.com/living-faith.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ankle.jpghttps://i1.wp.com/living-
faith.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ankle.jpgA nail through the anklebone of Yehohanan the
son of Hagakol, discovered in Givat ha-Mivtar in Jerusalem, the only anthropological evidence
for crucifixion ever discovered. (Replica, Israel Museum)
A common misconception is that the cross would have lifted Christ high over the soldiers below
him. Instead, victims were often kept close to the ground allowing stray dogs to chew their legs.
It is recorded that, “…they are fastened (and) nailed to it in the most bitter torment, evil food for
birds of prey and grim pickings for dogs.“14 In Scotland, it was bears: “Laureolus, hanging on no
unreal cross, gave up his vitals defenceless to a Caledonian bear. His mangled limbs lived,
though the parts dripped blood and in all his body was nowhere a body’s shape.”15
Some victims lasted for days on the cross; others died quite quickly. A recent
studyHYPERLINK l "16 shows that there were a number of reasons a victim might die on the
cross:
• They could choke themselves to death when they became too tired to hold their head up.
• They could die from blood loss as a result of the flogging and the bleeding from the nails.
• They could die from dehydration after spending more than a few days on the cross
without water.
Why all this grim detail? Surely if the gospel writers left it out we can be spared the reality of
crucifixion? We must remember that the original audience of the gospels would have known full
well about the details. It was because they knew the details that their opponents thought them
mad. Justin Martyr writes “For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a
crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they

do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to
give heed.“17
An appreciation of the reality of crucifixion and what people thought of it can give context to
many parts of the New Testament. For example, Paul in his letter to the Corinthians writes:
1 Co 1:18–24 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the
one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God
made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did
not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our
proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire
wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God.
Christians have the same difficulty today as they did in the first century – the cross was an object
of scorn; it was “foolishness.” To become the disciples of a man executed by the state made no
sense to many who heard the apostles preach. But to follow a man who suffered crucifixion, the
supreme Roman punishment was taking this “foolishness” to an extreme, a point made by Paul in
his letter to the Philippians:
Php 2:8 …he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death
on a cross.
This same counter-cultural aspect of Christ’s calling is aided by an understanding of the brutality
of crucifixion, e.g.
Mk 8:34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become
my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
The Galatians had explained to them exactly what that meant, and the same words guide us
today:
Ga 5:22-26 The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those
who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Further reading
• Martin Hengel, Crucifixion: In the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the
Cross (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 22.
• Gerald G. O’Collins, “Crucifixion,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible
Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1208.
• Maslen, M. W., & Mitchell, P. D. (2006). Medical theories on the cause of death in
crucifixion. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99(4), 185–188.
• Footnotes
1. “All this also helps us to understand how in his speech against Verres Cicero could
already describe crucifixion as the summum supplicium. The continuing legal tradition
which can be seen here is brought to an end by the jurist Julius Paulus about AD 200. In

the Sententiae compiled from his works towards AD 300, the crux is put at the head of
the three summa supplicia. It is followed, in descending order, by crematio (burning) and
decollatio (decapitation). In the lists of penalties given in the sources, damnatio ad bestias
often takes the place of decapitation as an aggravated penalty.” Martin Hengel,
Crucifixion: In the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (trans. John
Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 33.l "
2. “Nay, he was not ashamed to look even that audience in the face and bring such a terrible
calamity upon an innocent man…” Dem., 21.105. Demosthenes, Demosthenes with an
English Translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. (Speeches (English); Medford, MA:
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1939).l "
3. Martin Hengel, Crucifixion: In the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the
Cross (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 25.l "
4. Cicero, Rab. Perd. 5.16. M. Tullius Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero,
Literally Translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. (ed. C. D. Yonge; Medford, MA: Henry G.
Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden., 1856), 266.l "
5. Plat., Rep. 361e–362a. Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes & 6 Translated by Paul Shorey
(vol. 5; Medford, MA: Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William
Heinemann Ltd., 1969).l "
6. Op. cit., Hengel, 32.l "
7. Eus., Hist. eccl. 5.1.18. Eusebius of Caesaria, “The Church History of Eusebius,” in
Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of
Constantine (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert; vol.
1; A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church,
Second Series; New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 1214.l "
8. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary (ed. Helmut Koester; Hermeneia—a Critical
and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2005), 531.l "
9. Gerald G. O’Collins, “Crucifixion,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible
Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1209.l "
10. Quintilian, Decl. 274. Quintilian, The Lesser Declamations, Volume I (ed. D. R.
Shackleton Bailey, Loeb, 2006), 259.l "
11. Gerald G. O’Collins, “Crucifixion,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible
Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1209.l "
12. Seneca, Dial. 6 [Cons. Marc] 20.3.l "
13. Op. cit., Luz, 531.l "
14. Op. cit., Hengel, 9, translated from Apotelesmatica 4.198ff. (Koechly, p. 69)l "
15. Martial, Liber Spectaculorum 7. Martial: Liber Spectaculorum, (ed. Kathleen M.
Coleman, OUP Oxford, 2006)l "
16. Maslen, M. W., & Mitchell, P. D. (2006). Medical theories on the cause of death in
crucifixion. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99(4), 185–188.l "
17. Justin, 1 Apol. 13. Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin,” in The Apostolic Fathers
with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A.

Cleveland Coxe; vol. 1; The Ante-Nicene Fathers; Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature
Company, 1885), 1167.l "
Author: Nat Ritmeyer
Nat lives in London with his wife and son. His main interests are the Ancient Near Eastern
background to the bible, the Iron Age I period, and travelling through the Modern Near East. He
is also scared of geese. View all posts by Nat Ritmeyer
The "Shame of the Cross" and its Glory
Or: The Curse of the Cross and its Blessing
This article attempts to be a quite comprehensive overview and interpretation of all the Bible and
the Qur'an say on the topic of the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Messiah: Whether it happened, and
what its meaning might be.
I want to deal with the topic in three parts:
Part 1: The Message of the Prophets before Jesus
Part 2: The Teachings of Jesus himself and of his Apostles
Part 3: The statements in the Qur'an and final conclusions
And after the "theological discussion" is presented, I think the following will be an important
appendix:
Part 4: Consequences: Where do we go from here?
Although I feel like apologizing for the length of this treatise, I hope that its length will allow it
to be thorough and helpful in providing a deeper understanding of our respective views. If you
have any interest in understanding the Christian faith and the content of the Bible, I urge you to
stick with me, because at the end, you will see that this whole question and its supposed "Islamic
solution" will prove to be a major headache to Muslims [that is, if you dare think about it -
instead of just dismissing the problem] and it uncovers a big inconsistency in the Islamic faith.
Though being an Ahmadiyyan, Mr. ...'s argument below is also one of the usual Muslim
arguments against Jesus' dying on the cross.
But I think that the Muslim "solution" is more consistent than the Ahmadiyyan one. Muslims
say, because this is a shameful death, Allah would not allow this to happen to His prophet, and
the Qur'an indeed says, that Jesus did not go to the cross but was 'rescued' from it and some sort
of illusion was staged instead. [Qur'an 4:157]
In the contrary, the Ahmadiyyas say that Jesus DID go to the cross but did not die there. He
supposedly survived it, was resuscitated and then emigrated to India where he eventually died of
old age [in order to make room for Mr. Ahmad to come and claim to be the Messiah].

Now, looking at the verse and the reasons supplied by Mr. ... below, even to hang on the cross is
shameful and accursed, not only to die on it, so I do not see how the Ahmadiyya interpretation is
any solution to the problem he is presenting himself.
Nevertheless, I will answer to the general claim, that this is a shameful and humiliating event
which Allah would never allow his prophet to suffer.
Since this is already a very long article, I didn't want to quote in full ALL the many references I
am giving. It will be worth it to have a Bible handy and to look up and verify what I say. For
those who do not have a Bible, there is one one the world wide web and you can just click on the
reference and your browser will give you the passage. For general reference, the Web Bible is at
http://bible.gospelcom.net/ and I would suggest you use the NIV translation, but feel free to
check the same passage in different translations. There are at least 5 available at the above
address.
In article <4elvst$g0r@shellx.best.com>, Mr. ... writes:
Jochen here is another thing I would like for you to explain.
Hazrat Ahmad wrote:
"Apart from this, it was necessary that he (Jesus) should escape death on the cross, for it
was stated in the Holy Book (Bible), that whoever was hanged on the wood was
accursed. It is a cruel and an unjust blasphemy to attribute a curse to an eminent person
like Jesus, the Messiah,
...
It is clear that the significance of the word Mal'un, viz. accursed, is so foul that it can
never apply to any righteous person who entertains love of God in his heart. Alas!
Christians did not ponder over the significance of a curse when they invented this belief;
else, it impossible for them to have used such a bad word for a righteous man like Jesus.
...
Jochen I find this as a very convincing reason to believe Jesus did not die on the cross.
...
Thank you.
Mr. ... (who decided he rather be anonymous)
As I indicated above, I would understand, based on your reasoning, if you would therefore deny
that Jesus even went to the cross. But why would it be less accursed and shameful to nearly die
there than it is to actually die there? After all, everybody thought he was dead. The soldiers, the
onlookers, the Priests, even the disciples... And so in the sight of everybody, he DID die this
shameful death. That is what everyone thought. So, everyone would think exactly what you say
nobody should be allowed to think. This special Ahmadiyyan solution is no solution at all. And
in addition, it seems that the Ahmadiyyas claim some sort of special revelation on this event,
since nobody before them, at least not in the first few hundred years ever had such an idea.
But I will nevertheless answer all your questions above, i.e. the meaning of this curse, and how
the Apostles preached on it. I will also show that the Christians have indeed thought deeply
about this problem and that the solution is all "written up" in the Bible, both in prophecies of

earlier prophets, saying it would exactly happen this way and in the teaching of Jesus himself on
this very topic.
You referred correctly to the curse of God, as it is written in the Torah:
If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you
must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him than same day,
because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not desecrate the
land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)
Actually, the usual procedure was to put the condemned person to death and after he died to put
him up on the tree as a demonstration of the punishment of evil and to deter others from
following his evil ways. But the fact that Jesus died on the cross instead of being hung on the
cross after dying is not much of a difference. He has been hung on the cross/tree and that is
understood as a sign of God's curse on him.
Christians did very much ponder about the meaning of the cross, the curse upon the one on the
cross and what it all means. It is not that the Ahmadiyya are the first to find this 'shameful'. It
was shameful to the very people who saw it. It is part of the horror of the death on the cross. And
it is one reason that many Jews did NOT accept Jesus as the Messiah. Even some of his
followers thought it was over, now that Jesus had died, and even died in a way that displayed the
curse of God on him. Luke reports of a conversation two of the disappointed disciples have then
someone asks them why they are so sad. Their answer is:
"[It is] about Jesus of Nazareth", they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and
deed before God and all the people. The chief priest and our rulers handed him over to be
sentenced to death and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was
going to redeem Israel [i.e. the Messiah]." (Luke 24:19-21)
They understood well, that this kind of death, the crucifixion, meant (in the usual understanding
of the Jews) that he couldn't be the Messiah. How could the Messiah be under God's curse?
Now, this stranger who is joining these two disciples and asked them for the reason of their
sadness is none other than the risen Lord, Jesus. And as he joins them on their way, he starts to
explain them the true meaning of the scriptures and that all this has happened exactly like God
had foretold it through his earlier prophets.
He (Jesus) said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe ALL that
the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his
glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was
said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
(Luke 24:25-27)
Now, WHAT do the earlier prophets say? Sadly Luke was a bit short in this account and I am
sure many would like to know what Jesus taught them on this way. But we can only guess and
have to search the Old Testament for ourselves to see what indeed is written there. And note that
Jesus put suffering and glory together. Yes, ultimately he will enter his glory, but the way is
through suffering and this is not a contradiction in his mind.
I would like to do in this article the same for you as Jesus did for his disappointed disciples, who
thought that God would never let that happen to His Messiah. Well, they had SEEN Jesus hang
on cross and die, so claiming that it never happened was not an option for these very
disappointed and confused but honest people. So the only solution to the dilemma for these Jews

was, that Jesus could not have been the Messiah after all. And that is their verdict on it to this
day. But what has Jesus shown these two? I don't know the exact verses they were talking about.
But I want to show you a few (out of many) which Jesus might have used to show them the
meaning of it all.
The King and Prophet David wrote this Psalm which is prophecying about the crucifixion of the
Messiah (1000 years before the birth of Jesus!), and this is the very prayer/passage Jesus
prayed/quoted while on the cross as we can see from the first verse. In brackets, e.g. [John 3:35],
I will give (one or more of) the parallel passage of the New Testament relating to the Old
Testament prophecy in the specific verse that precedes it. Please do check them out.
Psalm 22.
For the director of music. To [the tune of] "The Doe of the Morning."
A psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so
far from the words of my groaning? [Matthew 27:46]
...
6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he
delights in him." [Matthew 27:41-49]
Yes, even David prophesied that the Messiah would be despised and die a shameful death with
mockers around him.
...
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to
wax; it has melted away within me.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
[In John 19:28 Jesus expresses his thirst - and in general, this description is very accurate of what
a crucified person would feel. And note the last word, it is about dying: death.]
16 Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.
[This expression of "piercing" will come back later! And, as we know, Jesus was nailed to the
cross through his hand(wrist)s and feet - and this is one of the signs of recognition by his
disciples, see Luke 24:40, John 20:20,25]
17 I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.
18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. [Mark 15:24]
...
24 For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not
hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
[Although this person is so afflicted and despised, God is not rejecting him, contrary to what
everyone would expect.]
25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear
you will I fulfill my vows.

26 The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him -- may
your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of
the nations will bow down before him,
[What happens here at the cross, this despised death, will result in the spread of God's message
all around the earth, people from all nations will turn to the Lord and will worship Him.]
28 for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations.
29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him -- those who cannot keep themselves
alive.
30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.
31 They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn -- for he has done it.
And this message of the Lord's righteousness will spread throughout the earth and throughout the
generations [Luke 24:46-47]. And though it doesn't look like it at the time, David concludes his
prophecy with "He has done it". And "he" is the Lord himself. This whole event is God's plan,
this was not an accident. God foretold it 1000 years before it happened in history.
Whom is David talking about? Was he describing a nightmare he had after overeating at the
evening meal? That would not have been included in God's word then. And a nightmare wouldn't
contain these precious words of worship to God, of His righteousness proclaimed to all people.
No, as Jesus has said, God's Word is is full of prophecies about the Messiah and who else could
be so important as to give such a detailed description of his death? And none but Jesus fits this
prophecy. And as verse 27 says, this event leads to the fact that all the ends of the earth will turn
to the Lord, and people from all different nations will bow before the Lord.
Let me give you another astonishing Old Testament passage, this time the Lord speaks through
the prophet Zechariah, about 500 years before Christ. In chapters 12 and 13 we read:
Zechariah 12:
1 This is the word of the LORD concerning Israel.
The LORD, who..., declares:
2 "I am going to ...
...
10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of
grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced,
and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him
as one grieves for a firstborn son.
On the cross Jesus was pierced through his hands, feet (by nails), and his side (by a spear), John
19:34, John 20:20,25.
And this passage will be considered again in my exposition on the Trinity but here we are only
concerned with the prediction of crucifixion.
God speaks in this whole chapter in the first person, and says that Israel will PIERCE Him and
then LOOK at Him. These are very tangible words of the physical world. And what is happening
at this day when they pierce him (God!)? The mourning will be like for a son!

And the next verse continues in Zechariah 13:
1 "On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
Another such passage explaining in clearest terms the meaning of the death of the suffering
servant of God, is Isaiah 52-53 (Isaiah was a prophet around 740 B.C.):
Isaiah 52:
13 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him -- his appearance was so disfigured
beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness --
[Resulting from the torture before the crucifixion, scourging etc]
15 so will he sprinkle many nations,
[The sprinkling of blood is a sign of cleansing and forgiveness of sins, Hebrews 9:11-
15,Leviticus 16:15-19.]
and kings will shut their mouth because of him. For what they were not told, they will
see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
Chapter 53:
1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no
beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire
him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
[This is said about the servant of the Lord - seemingly shame and humiliation does not disqualify
a person from being God's servant. But "who will believe?" (verse 1), that is the first question at
the beginning of the chapter and this is the question still asked today. And following this
question, God again explains the meaning of this death]
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him
stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
[As it SEEMED, he was under God's punishment and curse but the contrary is true]
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the
punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the
LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb
to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his
descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my
people he was stricken.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had
done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the
LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and

Jesus was a shameful sufferer

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