The cruel art of crucifixion

Deuteronomy 21:22-23: And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

Psalm 22:16: For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

Isaiah 52:14: As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:

David’s prophecy of Jesus in the twenty-second psalm is marvelous for its detail and that he foresaw crucifixion before it had even been invented! David lived around 1000 B.C., whereas crucifixion would not come into existence until its invention by the Persians in around 400 to 300 B.C. We want to take a look at this most painful of deaths invented by humankind and which was refined and perfected by the Romans, to truly appreciate and understand what our Lord Jesus endured when He hung on the cross with our sin laded upon Him.

Before Jesus went to the cross, He had already been tied to a post and severely beaten by a whip with metal tips on the end of every strap. These shard tips of the whip were beaten into His back, buttocks, and legs, tearing into his flesh and exposing rib bone as the skin and muscle were ripped away each time the whip was pulled back from his body, just to thrash Him again and again. The beating from the whip caused Jesus to experience hypovolemic shock or a state of nausea, dizziness, profuse sweating, and a loss of consciousness from so much blood loss and lack of oxygen that is carried by the blood all around the body.

Having been mocked and spat on, and having had tufts of beard ripped from His face, the Roman soldiers then forced a crown of thorns onto Jesus’ head, causing long, deep lacerations, and blood to flow from these wounds into His eyes, causing them to burn and making it difficult for Him to see. After this, and being immensely weak from the beating and blood loss, Jesus was forced to carry (and was later helped by Simon of Cyrene) the wooden crossbeam to the place of His crucifixion. This crossbeam weighed about 100-pounds. Jesus collapsed under its weight, and the beam came crashing down on Him each time He fell.

As He carried the beam, the rough, jagged wood rubbed into His back, pushing splinters into His open flesh that further aggravated His wounds. Even later, when He hung from the cross, the splinters continued to exacerbate His wounded back as He shifted His weight about from feet to arms, and then back to His feet again. This movement caused a constant stabbing into the open wounds, and some of the wooden shreds, being lodged into the muscle, further tore the wounds open, and exposed highly sensitive nerve endings that sent sharp pangs of pain to His already tortured mind.

Having arrived at the place of crucifixion (Golgotha), Jesus was stripped naked that He might be humiliated and die with as little dignity as possible. After this He was laid on the ground and His wrists were nailed to the crossbeam with iron spikes of between five and seven inches in length. As they were driven into His wrists, the nails pierced the main nerve of the arms, so that when Jesus would push Himself up to breathe, His wrists rotated against the thick metal of the nails, which irritated the nerves and caused a recurring and excruciating pain to shoot up His arms.

The vertical beam that would hold the crossbeam was already in the ground at this time, for it was not till after Jesus had been nailed to the crossbeam that it was lifted up into position and secured to the upright beam. Jesus’ feet were therefore not nailed-up until the crossbeam had been fixed to the vertical beam. Jesus’ shoulder joints dislocated when the crossbeam was lifted up into position, having being pulled out of their sockets from the weight of His hanging body, causing the arms to extend by about six inches beyond their normal span of reach.

With His shoulders dislocated and His feet now nailed to the upright beam, Jesus’ body hung from the cross in a slumped position which forced His chest cavity to protrude. This protrusion of the chest cavity meant that Jesus could still inhale, but exhaling became extremely difficult, resulting in a build-up of carbon dioxide throughout the body, which caused a condition of acidosis, leading to the eventual failure of the central nervous system. The body not getting enough oxygen whilst Jesus hung from the cross is what brought on hyperventilation, making the heart pump harder, leading to cardiac stress and then a ruptured heart. Jesus would die of a broken heart on the cross of Calvary.

When Jesus’ feet were nailed to the cross, His knees were bent at a 45-degree angle so that He was forced to support the weight of His body using the thigh muscles. Hanging in this position for hours would have created unimaginable pain. Having been nailed in this position and unable to move His arms and legs about, gravity then went to work pulling the blood downward, away from the vital organs that so need this oxygen-supplying blood. These vital organs responded to this unnatural position by sending warning signals to the brain. Such signals are sent through the nerves of the body and lead to the pain centers of the brain. Thus whilst His body endured all kinds of excruciating torture on the cross, Jesus’ oxygen-deprived organs contributed to this by sending intense pain signals to the brain.

The pain and suffering coupled with severe dehydration that Jesus endured on the cross did not happen in a sequence, but was a combined effect of every part of His body screaming out for relief at the same time. Such pain and suffering that Jesus endured on the cross of Calvary, along with the Roman spear being rammed into His side, are truly indescribable to fully grasp. Added to this was His being forsaken by God and man as He bore our sins upon Himself. The prophet Isaiah so aptly wrote of Jesus’ visage being marred to such a degree that He no longer resembled a man, but hung there on the cross as a mess of blood, bruising, and lacerated, hanging flesh. What Jesus experienced that day on Calvary was a combination of physical and mental anguish beyond the full comprehension of any human being.