These are only very brief sermon notes. For full context, please listen to the full sermon audio, or wait for the full sermon transcript online.
https://www.isawthelightministries.com/transcripts/sermon-transcripts.html
Audio available here:
https://this-gospel-of-the-kingdom.mixlr.com/recordings/2402780
This is a correction to our previous doctrine.
Greek 4716: stauros (Staw-ros) stake/pole (Nothing about a cross-beam.)
Matthew 27:32, 40, 42
Numbers 21 Snake on a pole. Not on a cross. Everyone understands/accepts that this was a foreshadowing of Christ dying for our sins. Yet no one believes that it was a cross shape. This indicates that Christ didn’t die on a cross, but rather on a pole.
Greek 3586 = xylon (Zoo-lon) wood/tree
Galatians 3:13 is correct, Jesus hung on a tree
1 Peter 2:24 cross = tree
Revelation 2:7 tree of life. 22:2 leaves of a tree
1 Corinthians 3:12 wood = wood from a tree, not cross.
Greek 4717 Crucify = impale
Matthew 20:19 crucify = impale
Matthew 26:2 crucifixion = impalement
John 19:6 (3 times)
References:
In “Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words” by W. E. Vine, it says that the Greek word stauros means "upright stake" and is:
“to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of the two beamed cross… (which) had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt….
In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system, pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ.”
The Davis Dictionary of the Bible states about the origin of the cross: “The pre-Christian cross of one form or another was in use as a sacred symbol among the Chaldeans, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and many other…nations. The Spaniards in the 16th century found it also among the Indians of Mexico and Peru. But its symbolic teaching was quite different from that which we now associate the cross” (p. 159).
Th Encyclopaedia Britannica records: “It was not until the time of Constantine that the cross was publicly used as the symbol of the Christian religion. … Under Constantine it became the acknowledged symbol of Christianity”.
“From its simplicity of form, the cross has been used both as a religious symbol and as an ornament, from the dawn of man’s civilization. Various objects, dating from periods long anterior [preceding] to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world” (Vol. 7, p. 506).
E. W. Bullinger also noted this distinction in Appendix 162 of The Companion Bible: “Our English word ‘cross’ is the translation of the Latin crux (kruks); but the Greek stauros no more means a crux than the word ‘stick’ means a ‘crutch.’”
“The Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop, 1853:
“The Vestal virgins of Pagan Rome wore it suspended from their necklaces, as the nuns do now. The Egyptians did the same, and many of the barbarous nations with whom they had intercourse, as the Egyptian monuments bear witness.”
“There is hardly a Pagan tribe where the cross has not been found. The cross was worshipped by the Pagan Celts long before the incarnation and death of Christ. "It is a fact," says Maurice, "not less remarkable than well_xfffe_attested, that the Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the Deity they adored, and having cut the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of them to the highest part of the trunk, in such a manner that those branches extended on each side like the arms of a man, and, together with the body, presented the appearance of a HUGE CROSS, and on the bark, in several places, was also inscribed the letter Thau." It was worshipped in Mexico for ages before the Roman Catholic missionaries set foot there, large stone crosses being erected, probably to the "god of rain." The cross thus widely worshipped, or regarded as a sacred emblem, was the unequivocal symbol of Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah, for he was represented with a head-band covered with crosses.”
“...in Egypt the earliest form of that which has since been called the cross, was no other than the "Crux Ansata," or "Sign of life," borne by Osiris and all the Egyptian gods; that the ansa or "handle" was afterwards dispensed with, and that it became the simple Tau, or ordinary cross, as it appears at this day, and that the design of its first employment on the sepulchres, therefore, could have no reference to the crucifixion of the Nazarene, but was simply the result of the attachment to old and long-cherished Pagan symbols, which is always strong in those who, with the adoption of the Christian name and profession, are still, to a large extent, Pagan in heart and feeling. This, and this only, is the origin of the worship of the "cross."
“...we have at once the testimony of Lactantius, who was the tutor of Constantine's son Crispus--the earliest author who gives any account of the matter, and the indisputable evidence of the standards of Constantine themselves, as handed down to us on medals struck at the time. The testimony of Lactantius is most decisive: "Constantine was warned in a dream to make the celestial sign of God upon his solders' shields, and so to join battle. He did as he was bid, and with the transverse letter X circumflecting the head of it, he marks Christ on their shields. Equipped with this sign, his army takes the sword." Now, the letter X was just the initial of the name of Christ, being equivalent in Greek to CH. If, therefore, Constantine did as he was bid, when he made "the celestial sign of God" in the form of "the letter X," it was that "letter X," as the symbol of "Christ " and not the sign of the cross, which he saw in the heavens. When the Labarum, or far_xfffe_famed standard of Constantine itself, properly so called, was made, we have the evidence of Ambrose, the well-known Bishop of Milan, that that standard was formed on the very principle contained in the statement of Lactantius--viz., simply to display the Redeemer's name. He calls it "Labarum, hoc est Christi sacratum nomine signum."--"The Labarum, that is, the ensign consecrated by the NAME of Christ."
Archaeologists have not found any "Christian" use of cross the symbol before 431 AD. And then that was the Roman Catholic Church, not Christians.
It was not until the second council at Ephesus in 449 AD that private homes were required by the Catholic church to possess a cross.
It's an instrument of death.
Not a holy symbol.
It's absolutely not different from using a sword, gun or guillotine as a symbol, which would be silly. Therefore using the cross as a symbol is also silly.
Our faith shouldn't be heavily based upon how He died but rather on why.
Seen many lost people who don't even make any effort to serve Jesus, wearing a cross.
Jesus never claimed to be the Tau/Taw. Only the Alpha & Omega. Despite what the Assyrian Y name cults claim.
666 Swastika connections: X replaced the name of Jesus under Constantine, the same person who demanded the worship of crosses, Sun-day, Christmas, Easter and the pagan trinity.
Revelation 13, “666” is seen in the Codex Vaticanus as the Nazi swastika, the name Allah, and the communist sickle & hammer. (Source.) All 3 symbols are anti-Zionist, pro Anti-Christ and pro-Roman Catholic. “Pope” Satan promotes Nazism, Islam and Communism. The Son of Perdition antichrist Bashar Assad promotes all 3 also.
”Coexist” promotes the blending of all false, pagan religions, of which almost all use the cross.
The swastika is called “the rotating cross”. Hitler discovered the swastika inside a Catholic Church building and had his soldiers sign papers pledging allegiance to the Catholic Church. (Source.)
After the sermon, we came to be aware that we must also now remove all confederate flags that have the X, St. Andrew’s cross.
We will look to see what other flags and symbols that are more acceptable to remember the fight against communism during the American Civil War.