Body on the Cross

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I am glad we are correcting this error, too. Our present church is largely indistinguishable from a Protestant one…Mostly becasue of the empty cross.
 
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SPOKENWORD:
Jesus is no longer on the cross. He is now seated on the right hand of the Father. [Sometimes He does stands] So why place Him where He is not. It is finished. 😃
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The cross is merely a symbol. The crucifix makes more explicit what the symbol means.
 
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theMutant:
In addition, the body on the cross reminds us of our own sinfulness and how that added to Christ’s pain. It is a tool to help us repent because of the tremendous love He had for us. The main reason that Protestants don’t use the image is an aversion to using images and their misinterpretation of the commandment about not having idols (graven images).

By the way, we are not the only denomination that uses the image of Christ on the Cross. Most Protestants do not but the some do and the Orthodox do also.
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Not to quibble, but we are NOT a “denomination.”
 
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SpokenWord:
But you see its all about the cross.Jesus died for me on the cross but He is no longer on the cross.
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He’s no longer in a manger, but most Christian families still put up a nativity scene as well, or send out nativity based Christmas cards.

I’ve seen them out in front of almost every denomination I can think of, including the ‘Bible’ mega church down the street. Is that wrong?
 
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SPOKENWORD:
Jesus is no longer on the cross. He is now seated on the right hand of the Father. [Sometimes He does stands] So why place Him where He is not. It is finished. 😃
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  1. Why use a cross at all, since it’s meaningless to you?
  2. My salvation was not accomplished by the Resurrection, but by the once-for-all Sacrifice.
  3. What is finished? For an explanation of the true meaning of “it is finished” go to ewtn.com/library/answers/4thCup.htm
  4. Behold the wood of the cross, upon which hung the Savior of the world. Come let us worship. (Good Friday liturgy)
 
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MartyL:
P.S. Now about angels on the head of a pin … 53. It says so in the Bible somewhere! 😛
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Angels are spirits. Therefore the answer to the question, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin” is ZERO. 1. Angels have no legs and can’t “dance” as we understand the term; 2. Spirits do not occupy space.

You sure that’s in the Bible? I don’t think so . . .

😃 Jay
 
Andrew Larkoski:
This weekend I went to a non-denominational service (check out my post in “Non-Catholic Religions” for the gory detail) and I thought of something I had heard (not 100 percent that it is true though) that Christ’s Church is the only Christian denomination to put the Body of Christ on our Crosses. I know why we do, but why does no one else? Do they think that Christ’s Body was dirty or unclean? Christ was the pure sacrifice, so putting His Body on the cross only makes sense to acknowledge what He did and how much He loves us.
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Why the Crusifix?

Lest we forget Gethsemane
Lest we forget Thine Agony
Lest we forget Thy love for me
Lest we forget Calvary

That is why.

God bless and keep you
 
Irish Melkite:
Marty,

I agree with your kudos to Servant1. But, … that table needs to be heptagonal and the failure of the Bible to establish a normative standard against which the head of a pin can be determined to be in conformance with accepted dimensions has resulted in a congressional investigation intended to rectify this shortcoming. However, the point may be moot since OSHA no longer allows angels to dance on the head of a pin, unless they wear safety harnesses, something about risk factors.

Many years,

Neil
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The proper answer, of course, is that an angel is wherever it is “in place”. So there is no single answer to to the question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin ?”​

There is a complication, however - the head of a pin is composed of an infinite number of discrete points, so that being “in place” on the head of a pin is impossible: there is no “where” in the entity commonly called a pin-head in which to be present. But then, being “in place” anywhere is impossible: as is motion. (As angels are pure spirits, they are not bodies - and motion is impossible for bodies; it may or may not be possible for pure spirits.)

Zeno’s Paradoxes

If place is a mere convention, of course, then the question becomes rather hard to answer. ##
 
1 Cor 1:21-25 * “21* For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. 22 For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: 24 But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
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Calvin:
… yes “Christ crucified.”

The Greek is perfect tense (action is completed in the past) not present progressive (action continues in the present). Don’t take my word for it, look it up in the Greek: users.mstar2.net/broman/editions.html.

Your quote proves the Protestant argument, not the Catholic one.

-C
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Gods peace be with you theophilus (freind of God) Calvin,

Actually Calvin, Sacred Scripture proves beyound a doubt the Catholic teachings. If you understood what the Catholic Church teaches then you would understand her position on “Christ crucified”. You also point out that the protestant sects have also put their spin on this verse.

Christ died but once and He has risen from the dead, but His sacrifice never ended. You see His sacrifice was timeless. His death forgave sins from those dead for years and those not yet born. If His sacrifice ended then my sins and yours could not be forgiven by His death on the cross. Our sins are forgiven by His death 2,000 years ago which proves this event was beyound time as you know it.

By your interpretation of Christs sacrifice having ended then no more sins could be forgiven after His death. By the same logic then our U.S. Constitution no longer gives rights to us today. Since the Constitution was written 200 years ago it no longer applies to us today anymore then Christs sacrifice for us. By Catholic Dogma we have our sins forgiven today by an event that occured 2,000 years ago the same as our Constitution gives us rights today. Both of these are timeless events because they did not end, they endure through time continually giving us their benifits.

I hope I said this in a way that you and other protestants can understand (and even some Catholics too?) His death and sacrifice happened but once, but His sacrifice is beyound the limits of time.

Perhaps others could explain this to you in other ways too. Anyway, I enjoy your posts and (name removed by moderator)ut.

A prisoner of Christ,
 
My experience is that my NonCatholic Christian family & friends are afraid to do anything that appears TOO Catholic.

Protestant family & friends explanations
  1. Focus on the resurrected Christ

    An analogy from me: When somebody accomplishes
    something great such as a breaking a world record,
    we not only celebrate their win but all they sacrificed
    to acheive such a victory. It is the same but to a
    MUCH greater degree with our Lord.
  2. Idol worship

    My comments/questions: How about that basketball
    player’s picture in your son’s room? That can be
    more of idol worship if you let it. It’s not the crucifix
    or the poster but your attitud toward them.
 
One of my Fundamentalist family loved The Passion of the Christ so I sent them a poster which they loved & hung up. Whoops! They now have a crucifix on their wall.
 
Cross=symbol

Crucifix=representation

One is further removed from reality than the other. Nothing wrong with that. Math is a super-reductive scaling down of reality into quantities. This is not sinful.

But there is an inherent danger in relying only on the reductivist approach – you lose your footing in reality a little too easily. Like Gallileo who said nothing that can’t be mathematically quantified can exist. This means angels are not real. It could also go on to disprove the existence of God who is eternal and infinite and therefore impossible to quantify. This flies in the face of the foundation of math and science. An ordered and quantifiable universe screams out that it is the product of intelligence even if that intelligence Himself is not quantifiable.

This former Baptist really likes his many crucifixes.

Peace
 
I don’t mean to sound flippant about it, but an omnipotent God ressurecting Himself from the grave is not all that surprising. I mean, He’s omnipotent, right? OTOH, an omnipotent God not only taking on all the frailities of man, but suffering a barbaric, tortured death for a bunch of people who can’t even be bothered to listen to Him for the most part is just downright astounding. At least, that what I usually think of when I look at a crucifix.
 
The crucifix represents Catholocism more than Christ crucified to nonCatholics.

Therein lies their concern.
 
When I see the Crucifix, I am reminded of the fact that Christ died for our sins and was not resurrected for our sins.
 
I think that it is interesting that this thread has been, risen should we say – with the Feast of Christ the King coming up for some.

Lutherans are taught in the first communion catechesis to always accept communion in cruciform hands bent into a throne.
 
Of course, if you want the symbolic cross, Catholics have that too. The sign of the cross gesture has no corpus – nor does the sign of God we wear on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday.

“The shall see the Lord face to face and bear His name on their foreheads.” Rev 22:4
 
Why no body (corpus) on a Protestant cross.

They think Jesus has risen, and they dwell on that resurrection, while Catholics first dwell on the sacrifice Jesus made to pay for our sins…before He overcame death and rose. We have Good Friday and Easter too. We do it all.
 
I wish I could remember where I read this…it was on some anti-Catholic website somewhere.

The writer, a fundamentalist, was attempting to explain the Catholic “preoccupation” with the crucifix. There was the usual “no graven images” explanations. The writer then went on with this angle…when Christ was on the cross, He took on our sins and was dirty, and shamed, and humiliated…even God could no longer look upon Christ on the cross and turned away from him (trying to explain the “why have you forsaken me” statement and missing the point of the sacrifice, Psalm 22, Scott Hahn’s ‘The Fourth Cup’, etc.). So when we Catholics have the crucifix, we are (allegedly) holding Christ up to ridicule, we are keeping him in his moment of shame, and how-dare-those-awful-Catholics do that, etc…and a real Bible-believing Christian would never want to gaze upon Christ in his most shameful, humiliating moment.

Too bad this writer didn’t understand. When I look at the crucifix, I don’t see Jesus in a moment of shame. I see Him in His moment of triumph!
 
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