Hebrews 6:6, says the Crucifix is bad?

[CorrWaveClan]

I have been told that Hebrews 6:6 says that showing Christ on the cross is evil because it is shameful to God. How can I refute this? Thank you for all the help!!

 

[mark_a]

CorrWaveClan:

I have been told that Hebrews 6:6 says that showing Christ on the cross is evil because it is shameful to God. How can I refute this? Thank you for all the help!!

One of the apologists I really like, John Martignoni, recommends reading the whole chapter when someone gives you a verse that appears to be problematic for Catholics. And at the bare minimum read the verse before and after the verse being discussed.

Or maybe suggest this to your friend.

Anyway, the link below is directly to the footnotes for the scripture in question.

usccb.org/nab/bible/hebrews/hebrews6.htm#foot1

 

[adrift]

mark a:

One of the apologists I really like, John Martignoni, recommends reading the whole chapter when someone gives you a verse that appears to be problematic for Catholics. And at the bare minimum read the verse before and after the verse being discussed.

Or maybe suggest this to your friend.

Good suggestion. This is what verse 5 and 6 says

 For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift 2 and shared in the holy Spirit     and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 3

6
and then have fallen away, to bring them to repentance again, since they are recrucifying the Son of God for themselves 4 and holding him up to contempt.

It is talking about people who have fallen away from the Church and that by doing so they are crucifying Jesus again.

 

[zian]

So what they are telling you is that having a visual representation of the Crucifixion is actually recrucifying Christ.

Ludicrous.

If anything, we need more and better reminders.

 

[Church_Militant]

zian:

So what they are telling you is that having a visual representation of the Crucifixion is actually recrucifying Christ.

Ludicrous.

If anything, we need more and better reminders.

AMEN! Perhaps if more “Christians” were reminded of the price that Our Lord paid for our sins, they wouldn’t submit to temptation so easily.

This argument is completely out of context, (as has been shown above) and then twisted all out of what the passage means, since artistic and reverent representations of the crucifixion have absolutely not one blessed thing to do with what that passage is talking about.

It is an Iconoclastic attack and THIS THREAD will offer you ample answers to this debate.
Pax tecum,

 

[Didi]

Paul, the author of the Epistles which include Hebrews and Corinthians, says this in 1 Cor. 1:23: “…we preach Christ crucified.”

As others have mentioned, you cannot just take one verse out of context of the entire chapter or out of context of all the author has to say.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

CorrWaveClan:

I have been told that Hebrews 6:6 says that showing Christ on the cross is evil because it is shameful to God. How can I refute this? Thank you for all the help!!

The verse gives us one half of a paradox:​

• St.Paul gloried in the Cross (Galatians 6)
• The Cross is shameful (Hebrews 6 &12)

With a paradox, two true things are put together that on face of it are contradictory. Both things said are kept, even so, because neither can be rejected without rejecting a valuable truth. Both those statements are true, neither is false, neither is complete.

The paradox comes about because crucifixion in the world of the first century AD was the most vile and degrading of punishments; it was reserved only for the lowest and most despised members of the population: slaves, robbers, criminals of base origin. It was not the kind of thing that was normally mentioned in decent society -

and yet

• it was through the utterly degrading death of the Cross, that the Father showed His righteous judgement upon sin, by providing His Son Whom He Loves, Who is always Well-pleasing to Him, & through this Son brought to nothing sin, death & the devil -

so

• the union of God’s Righteousness against sin, with the unspeakable shame of the cross, make this crucifixion, & this Cross, a combination of shame and Divine Kingly Glory. For the Fourth Gospel, the Cross is the Throne of Christ, on which He is “lifted up”. The Cross represents God’s masterpiece of Love, His supreme saving act - and also the masterpiece of sin: sin is such that it is not ashamed to kill God Himself.

It is because it was so horrible a death, that the Love of God is so obviously shown - that, shows us how far God was prepared to go to be Our Saviour. He did not die in a good old age, full of honour and wealth and years, seeing His descendants to the third and fourth generation, as an OT saint might have done, such as Job or Abraham. Anything but - He died the lowest of deaths, in the depths of humiliation, in appalling bodily pain, with the jeers of a holiday crowd in His ears. A crucifix can only hint at it.

And yet this crucified Jew is Lord of all creation, and has been exalted to be such by His Resurrection and His Ascension, as St.Paul says, in more than one place. This gallowsbird, is God Almighty. Philippians 2.5-11 shows the distance between the humiliation of Jesus, & His exaltation by His Father: both are crucial for us to appreciate Him.

That’s why the paradox of the Cross is so important - is, quite literally, crucial - to faith in Christ. Without the shame of the Cross, there is the danger of forgetting that He shared the death of the very people who might today be dismissed as trash; while if it were not made glorious by His Death, it would be equally easy to forget that He is unlike all others who were crucified, because He is Lord and Messiah & not less than God.

 

[Quatsch]

Didi:

Paul, the author of the Epistles which include Hebrews and Corinthians, says this in 1 Cor. 1:23: “…we preach Christ crucified.”

As others have mentioned, you cannot just take one verse out of context of the entire chapter or out of context of all the author has to say.

Just an fyi, Hebrews is not attributed to Paul. From what I’ve read, we don’t know who the author of Hebrews is.

Blessings,

Q

 

[Psalm45_9]

zian:

So what they are telling you is that having a visual representation of the Crucifixion is actually recrucifying Christ.

Ludicrous.

If anything, we need more and better reminders.

I hope the people that are saying this did not watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, that was re-crucifying him too… I mean why reflect on his sorrowful passion, why “keep him on the cross?”

 

[NotWorthy]

The Crucifix is biblical, isn’t it? What are we to get out of Galations 3:1:
O stupid Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
Isn’t this a Crucifix?

Where am I mistaken in this?

Notworthy

 

[Jaypeeto3]

When I was a teenager, the Jehovah’s Witnesses used Hebrews 6:6 on me to convince me that crosses and crucifixes were “eeeeeeeeeeevvviiiiiillllllllllll” and “from Satan.”
And like an idiot, I fell for it.
JW’s still use that verse today when trying to convince prospective converts to give up wearing religious jewelry.
The verse refers, in context, to a form of Apostasy on the part of a spiritually-mature believer and has nothing to do whatsoever with wearing crosses or crucifixes.
Love, Jaypeeto3

 

[Fidelis]

Quatsch:

Just an fyi, Hebrews is not attributed to Paul. From what I’ve read, we don’t know who the author of Hebrews is.

Blessings,

Q

Depends what Bible scholar you listen to. Hebrews has, until recently, traditionally been attributed to Paul, but that has been called into question (though not proved, which would be as hard as proving he did write it). That is the most that can be said about it.

Since it’s impossible at this time to empirically prove he didn’t write it, I prefer to follow tradition and assume he did.

(Sorry for hijacking the thread – please resume )