Adobe Stock – Travel Faery (Constantine with his mother Helena. She is said to have discovered the relic of the so-called Holy Cross.)
What the Cross Has in Common with Sunday
By George Burnside
The author was a well-known preacher and evangelist of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia. He passed away in 1994. The following article was evidently written at a time when it was generally considered offensive among Adventists to wear or display crosses. Here are the reasons they held back then—reasons that are worth reconsidering.
“Why don’t we have crosses on our churches?” someone asked me. “Why is there no cross at our places of worship?” It is good for us to reflect on some facts.
1. The Biblical Testimony
These questions are best answered by “the law and the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20). When we search the Bible, we find that neither the Old nor the New Testament records a single instance of a three-dimensional cross being erected at a place of worship or associated with it.
2. The Time of Its Introduction
Furthermore, we discover that there is no evidence in either Scripture or early Christian history that the cross was used as a Christian symbol during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Even the Roman Church confirms this:
“It may be safely assumed that Constantine did not adopt the cross as the permanent sign of our redemption until after the Edict of Milan (A.D. 312). De Rossi, a Roman Catholic archaeologist, expressly states that none of the monograms of Christ found in the catacombs or elsewhere can be dated earlier than A.D. 312.” (American Ecclesiastical Review, September 1920)
There is, therefore, general agreement that the cross became a Christian symbol only from the time of Constantine onward.
According to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 4, pp. 298–299, Constantine placed a monogram of the name of Christ on the Labarum, the imperial standard of Rome. When Constantinople was dedicated in A.D. 330, the ceremonies were half Christian and half pagan. The chariot of the sun god was set up in the marketplace, and above it was placed the so-called Cross of Christ, while the Kyrie Eleison was sung (which, according to Cardinal Newman, was another survival of paganism).
“Constantine was the first emperor to enforce the great civil code of Sunday rest. He was the first to officially replace the Lord’s Day with Sunday, the day of the sun … The life of Constantine had two sides—he was half Christian and half pagan. He was as popular among his pagan subjects as among his so-called Christian ones … [He enacted the first Sunday law, and] under his rule the cross became the recognized symbol of Christianity and was abolished as an instrument of execution.” (Edmund Klut, These Times, June 1956, p. 28)
Is it not significant that Sunday and the cross were introduced into the so-called Christian church at the same time? The one is as pagan as the other. Neibuhr aptly summarizes Constantine’s motives for adopting the cross as a Christian emblem:
“His motives for establishing the Christian religion were indeed peculiar. The religion he had in mind must have been a mere mixture. His coins bore the inscription ‘the unconquered sun’; he worshiped pagan deities, consulted soothsayers, and remained faithful to pagan superstition. Yet he closed the temples and built churches.
No, nothing justifies the claim that the cross is a Christian symbol. Before A.D. 300, the Christian symbols were the fish, the anchor, the ship, the dove, and the palm branch. The cross was not introduced as a Christian emblem until the Roman Empire politically identified itself with Christianity and thus became papal Rome!” (Neibuhr, Bible and Modern Discoveries, pp. 104–105)
3. The Pagan Origin
“The cross is found in both pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures. It was a well-known pagan symbol. In the British Museum stands a statue of Samai Vul, king of Assyria, 825 B.C., bearing this † on his chest. The garments of the priests of Horus—the Egyptian sun god—were adorned with this †. In the royal tombs of Thebes, royal cows are depicted plowing, a calf plays in the foreground, and each animal bears the familiar † at various points. M. Rassam found buildings in Nineveh marked with the Maltese cross. Osiris and Jupiter Ammon had the † as their monogram.” (New Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. 4, p. 473)
“The cross was venerated from early antiquity in Egypt and Syria. The Buddhists of the East revered it in the same way.” (W. D. Killen, 1859, p. 316)
“The cross originated in ancient Chaldea (Babylon), where it was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz, as the initial letter of his name.” (W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Vol. 1, p. 256)
“The sign of the cross, represented in its simplest form—by crossing two lines at right angles—was known both in the East and the West long before the introduction of Christianity. It goes back to a very remote period of human civilization.” (Catholic Encyclopaedia, 1908, Vol. 4, p. 517)
“An altar of the Philistines in the innermost sanctuary was the most valuable find: a paneled basalt altar, on the top of which a cross was carved in high relief.” (J. Carrow Duncan, Digging Up Biblical History, p. 109)
“The cross was the emblem of worship in the transitional period between high and late antiquity in Egypt and Syria. Solemn religious ceremonies resembling the Lord’s Supper and baptism [referring here to the Catholic mass and infant sprinkling] were practiced by pagan peoples upon whom the light of Christianity had never shone.” (William Hickling Prescott, Conquests of Mexico, Vol. 2, pp. 382–383)
4. The Unchristian Use in Christian Times
“Was the cross used by pagans even in the Christian era?” someone asked me recently.
Undoubtedly! Among the New Hebrides, pagans still use it today. When the Spaniards invaded Mexico some 500 years ago,
“they could not suppress their astonishment when they beheld the cross—the sacred emblem of their own faith—set up as a religious object in the temples of Anahuac. They encountered it in various places. The image of a cross may still be seen, sculptured in low relief on the walls of a building at Palenque.” (ibid., p. 381)
“As the Jews professed to honor the law, so the Roman Church claims to exalt the cross. The symbol of Christ’s sufferings is elevated, while He whom it represents is denied in practice. The followers of the Pope adorn their churches, altars, and garments with crosses. Everywhere the insignia of the cross are seen; everywhere it is outwardly revered and exalted. But the teachings of Christ are buried beneath a mass of senseless traditions, false interpretations, and rigorous demands.” (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 568)
The True Cross of Jesus
Jesus said, “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24). He did not mean that one should wear a golden cross around the neck or hang it with a chain or string. Nor should it be placed inside or outside a church building.
When Paul said, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he immediately added, “by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Galatians 6:14). It is the crucified and risen Savior who saves—not a physical cross.
One might ask, “Why don’t we have crosses?” Why not rather ask, “Why don’t we display crucifixes?”—they at least seem more distinctly Christian. Why not ask, “Why don’t we make the sign of the cross?” That would be just as consistent as placing a cross on a church building.
We do not need these remnants of paganism. Since the time Emperor Constantine adopted the cross as his emblem, all churches that were half Christian and half pagan have used this symbol. Many Protestant churches have followed the same pattern. As Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom, so too many Protestant churches have pitched their tents toward Rome. Let us heed the call, “Come out of her, My people!” instead of asking whether we should adopt some of her ways.
“The badge of Christianity is not an outward sign—not the wearing of a cross or a crown—but that which reveals the union of man with God. Through the power of His grace, seen in the transformation of character, the world is to be convinced that God has sent His Son as its Redeemer. No other influence that surrounds the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life. The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.” (Ellen White, Ministry of Healing, p. 470)
Condensed from: The Anchor, Kalbar QLD, Australia, September 1999
Source: hoffnung-weltweit.info
