Christian symbols

The Cross in Christianity

The central sign of the faith

The cross is the central symbol of Christianity, the sign of the death by which Jesus Christ gave his life for the world. What was once a Roman instrument of shame and torture became, for those who believe, the very emblem of love, forgiveness, and hope. To wear or make the sign of the cross is to say that at the heart of the Christian faith stands not a teaching or a temple but a person who was crucified and raised, and that his death is the place where the mercy of God meets the world.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.1 Corinthians 1:18 (KJV)

Where the cross came from

Crucifixion was not invented by Christians. It was a method of public execution used across the ancient world and perfected by the Romans as a slow, humiliating death reserved for slaves, rebels, and the lowest criminals. A Roman citizen could not lawfully be crucified. To die on a cross was to be stripped of all dignity and hung up as a warning. This is the horror the first Christians never forgot: their Lord had died the death of the cursed and the condemned.

For this reason the cross was slow to become a public emblem. In the first two or three centuries, when the church was persecuted, believers more often used quieter signs, the fish, the anchor, the shepherd. Open images of the cross grew common only after the fourth century, when the faith could be practiced freely. The oldest surviving mockery of it, a scratched Roman graffito showing a man worshiping a crucified figure with the head of a donkey, is a reminder that to the ancient world the worship of a crucified man seemed like madness.

What the cross means in the Bible

Scripture does not treat the cross as mere decoration. It is the summary of the whole gospel. Paul wrote that the message of the cross divides the world in two, folly to those who are perishing and the power of God to those who are being saved.

The cross means that Jesus took upon himself what belonged to us. The Gospels record that he was condemned though innocent, mocked, scourged, and nailed to the wood between two thieves, and that as he died he prayed for those who killed him. The New Testament reads this death not as a tragedy that overtook him but as a gift he freely gave: he laid down his life. On the cross, Christians confess, the debt of human sin was paid and the door of forgiveness thrown open. This is why the cross, an object of terror, became an object of love.

How the cross has been used

Over the centuries the cross took many forms, each carrying its own accent. The plain Latin cross, with its long lower arm, is the most familiar in the West. The crucifix, which shows the body of Christ upon the cross, keeps his suffering before the eyes. The empty cross, common among Protestant churches, points past the death to the resurrection, for the tomb and the cross are both empty now. The Greek cross has four equal arms; the Celtic cross joins the cross to a ring of light; the Eastern cross carries an extra slanted footrest.

Believers trace the sign of the cross over themselves in prayer, an ancient practice attested already in the early centuries. Churches are built in the shape of a cross. It stands on steeples, over graves, and around the necks of ordinary people, a silent confession carried into every corner of life.

A stumbling block and the wisdom of God

To the world of the first century the message of a crucified savior was scandalous. Paul admitted it plainly: the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews, who expected a triumphant Messiah, and foolishness to the Greeks, who prized wisdom and strength. No one in that age would have invented a god who died the death of a slave. That the church proclaimed exactly this, and was willing to die for it, is one of the quiet evidences of its sincerity.

Yet in that very scandal the church found the deepest wisdom of God. The cross overturns the world's measure of greatness. Where the world counts power, the cross counts love; where the world exalts self, the cross exalts self-giving. Paul could say that he was determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified, for the weakness of God is stronger than men. The cross does not merely forgive the proud heart; it humbles it, and teaches it a new way to live.

This is why the cross became not only a badge but a pattern. Jesus said that whoever would follow him must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and come after him. To take up the cross is to accept the way of love that costs something, to lay down our own comfort and pride for the sake of God and neighbor. The symbol on the steeple is also a summons: the same shape that saved us is the shape our own lives are meant to take.

And so the cross gathers the whole gospel into two crossed beams. It looks back to a real death on a real hill outside Jerusalem, and it looks into every heart, asking whether we will receive the love offered there and let it remake us. It is the plainest possible answer to the oldest question, whether God is for us or against us. The cross says, once and for all, that he is for us, and gave his Son to prove it.

The cross through the ages

Once the persecutions ended and the faith could be practiced openly, the cross came into its own as the public sign of Christianity, and it has remained so ever since. It rose over the first great churches, was carried at the head of processions, and was planted on the graves of the faithful. Pilgrims sought out the places of the passion in Jerusalem, and the shape of the cross was worked into everything from the plan of cathedrals to the smallest personal keepsake.

Different peoples gave the cross their own accent. The Celtic cross joined it to a circle of light. The churches of the East developed the cross with its slanted footrest. Missionaries carried it to every continent, where it was taken up in local forms and materials, so that today the one cross is made in ten thousand ways, in gold and in driftwood, in stone and in beads, by hands of every nation.

Through all this variety the meaning has stayed constant. Whether it is a jeweled cross on an altar or two sticks lashed together in a village chapel, it says the same thing: that here is the sign of the love that saved the world. The endless forms are like many languages speaking a single word, and the word is always Christ crucified.

That a Roman gallows became the most recognized symbol on earth is itself a kind of miracle. The empire that used the cross to terrify its subjects is long gone; the cross it despised is lifted up in every land. The very sign of defeat has become the banner of hope, exactly as the gospel said it would.

How the cross points to Christ

Every other Christian symbol gathers around the cross, because the cross is where the love of God is shown plainly. It says that God did not stay far off but entered our suffering and death. It says that no sin is beyond his forgiveness, since he forgave even from the wood. And it says that the way of Christ, and of all who follow him, runs through self-giving love, for he told his disciples that whoever would come after him must take up his cross daily.

The cross is never the end of the story. Christians hold it together with the empty tomb, for the one who was crucified is risen. The cross is the sign that the worst the world can do has been turned by God into the means of its rescue. That is why a symbol of death has become, for millions, the dearest sign of life.

A note across traditions: these symbols are shared by Christians everywhere as ways to point to Christ, never as objects of worship, for worship belongs to God alone. Where a symbol grew out of a later tradition or legend rather than the Bible, this page says so plainly. In every tradition there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, and every sign the church uses is meant to lead the heart to him.

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