cross

Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:

(across). A gibbet of wood of various forms (Deut. 21:23; John 19:17; Gal. 3:13). Now a sacred emblem.

Concise Bible Dictionary:

The wooden structure to which criminals were nailed. Jesus died on a cross: hence it is an emblem of the crucifixion of Christ, so that we read of the “death of the cross,” and the “blood of his cross” (Phil. 2:8; Col. 1:20); also the “preaching of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18). The cross of Christ makes nothing of man and sets aside all his pretensions: therefore to preach “the cross” arouses man’s hatred and persecution (Gal. 5:11; Gal. 6:12,14). “The cross” is also a symbol of the shame and self-denial that lie in the believer’s path. He is exhorted to take up his cross daily and follow the Lord (Luke 9:23).

Strong’s Dictionary of Greek Words:

Greek:
σταυρός
Transliteration:
stauros
Phonic:
stow-ros’
Meaning:
from the base of 2476; a stake or post (as set upright), i.e. (specially), a pole or cross (as an instrument of capital punishment); figuratively, exposure to death, i.e. self-denial; by implication, the atonement of Christ
KJV Usage:
cross

From Manners and Customs of the Bible:

John 19:17. And he bearing his cross went forth.
A cross sufficiently large and strong to hold the body of a man, and long enough to allow a suitable portion to rest in the ground, would be too heavy for any ordinary man to carry. Some have, therefore, supposed that the cross which the condemned bore, according to the Roman law, was merely a miniature representation of the cross on which he was to suffer death; and that he was compelled to carry it to the place of execution to indicate to the spectators in the streets through which he passed the kind of death he was about to suffer. It would thus be a public badge of his shame. Lipsius, however, says that only a part of the cross was borne by the condemned, and that this part was the horizontal beam, which was the lighter of the two pieces of which the cross was composed. The heavier part, the perpendicular, was either planted in the earth before the arrival of the procession, or was ready to be set up as soon as the condemned man arrived with the transverse beam.

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