The crux of the Christian faith is the cross.
This is the moment in history where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, voluntarily laid down His life so that humanity might be set free from sin and restored to life, Christians have believed through the ages.
Yet this pivotal moment that has so much meaning to believers in Jesus worldwide, God incarnate crucified, is fraught with vigorous debate about what exactly Jesus accomplished.
Theologians have for centuries gone back and forth about the nature of the atonement — how Jesus paid for sin and reconciled mankind to God — and the particularities of what unfolded during the Jewish Passover more than 2,000 years ago, where Jesus, the Paschal Lamb, was sacrificed.
Here are three misconceptions, historical errors or seemingly biblical but not specifically scriptural inferences about the crucifixion and the events surrounding the death of Jesus.
1. “The Jews” killed Jesus
For centuries in church history, the notion that "the Jews," broadly speaking, were the ones who crucified the Lord has been a recurring anti-Semitic theme among professing Christians. It's also a myth.
"It was the Temple establishment, not the Jews generally, who conspired with the Romans. Bad translations of John’s gospel have contributed to this fake news," Gerald McDermott, Anglican Chair at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, clarified in a media email Wednesday.
McDermott is the author of Why Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently About the People and the Land. His most recent work is Everyday Glory: The Revelation of God in All of Reality.
"The same word in Greek is used there for both 'Jews' and 'Judean leaders'—Iudaioi," he said, noting that most English translations read “the Jews” when they ought to distinguish in most places in John’s gospel and specifically say “the Judean leaders.”
Moreover, it is unlikely that the same crowd that shouted “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday cried “Crucify him!” later in the week, McDermott noted, adding that "the crowds who hailed him on Palm Sunday probably never switched their allegiance."
"It was members of the Sadducean party and political hacks in the Temple establishment who were in the crowds that cried for crucifixion." The Sadducees and Temple establishment political hacks of that era are comparable to the party activists in Washington, D.C., whereas the Jewish populace is the regular residents of the U.S. capital, he explained, drawing an analogy.
2. Jesus went to Heaven or Hell on the day He died
The hours between the moment of Jesus' death and the moment of His resurrection, known as Holy Saturday, have been subject to intense scrutiny over the centuries.
In liturgical churches where congregants regularly say the Nicene or Apostles' creeds, Christians confess that after He was crucified Jesus "descended into hell." This phrase first appeared in the creed in the middle of the 3rd century.
And yet, when Jesus is dying on the cross, one of the men who was hung next to Him appeals to Him to remember him when he comes into His Kingdom. Jesus then replies: "Today you will be with me in paradise."
That comment has prompted some to believe that Jesus went to Heaven the day he died. But countering that, many point to John 20:17, where Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
In 1 Peter 3:19, it is noted that “this Jesus, who by the same spirit by which he is raised from the dead goes and preaches to the lost spirits in prison,” which is a portion of Scripture most often cited as evidence proving that Christ, soon after He died, did indeed descend into "hell."
Similarly, 1 Peter 4:6 is also referenced in this context: "For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit."
Whether this was to experience the depths of suffering in "hell" and provide a full atonement for sin — a claim disputed by many in light of Jesus saying "it is finished" on the cross — or to free the souls held there from ages past, the details of how and for what Jesus "descended into hell" are not spelled out in Scripture with precision. The phrase reflects a subsequent theological development in church tradition.
The passages in 1 Peter are indeed very difficult, McDermott noted, "but the [church] Fathers believed it provided answers to the question of what happens to those who don’t hear the Gospel before they die."
The verses suggest "that God is just and fair, in His own way and time reaching those who have not heard with what they need to hear," he said, noting that Martin Luther claimed that on Holy Saturday Jesus went to proclaim His victory and rescued those that were His.
"The implication is that the rescued were not the damned in Hell but those who waited in a Hades-like realm because the Messiah had not yet come," McDermott said.
Many theologians argue that "hell" should actually be translated as "sheol," or the place of the dead — a temporary place until the final judgment.
3. The Father "turned his face away" when Jesus was on the cross
Another thing some have come to believe is that while Jesus was on the cross the Father "turned his face away." When a sinless Jesus took the sin of the world upon Himself, God the Father, watching from above, looked away from His Son.
Meanwhile, Scripture never specifically asserts that the Father did so, though some have inferred it.
This line "the Father turned his face away" appears in a relatively recent hymn by Stuart Townend, "How Deep the Father's Love for Us," a beloved song sung in many evangelical churches.
The hymn appears to be influenced by German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, whose work The Crucified God argues that the vital moment of Jesus’ saving work was where He was literally abandoned by God the Father at Calvary, Baptist theologian and professor at Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University Roger Olson noted in a June 5 blog post on the subject.
The German theologian also maintained that the Father suffered the death of Jesus but in a different way than the Son; nevertheless, many accused him of “tritheism” for suggesting a split within the Trinity.
Meanwhile, some argue that Jesus' feeling of abandonment was more subjective and that God the Father was with Jesus the entire time, Olson noted.
Olson maintained that "it’s impossible to prove one way or another whether 'the Father turned his face away' and abandoned Jesus as he was dying on the cross."
Personally, Olson has "no qualm about believing that as Jesus was dying on the cross for our sins 'the Father turned his face away' and Jesus was actually abandoned by God for a time in order to fully identify with us in our sinful condition and take on himself the penalty for sin in our place."
"Of course, I would want to emphasize immediately and also the Father’s pain and suffering (as Moltmann does in The Crucified God) in abandoning the Son," Olson added.
"Is this tritheism? Well, no more so than believing that in the incarnation the Son of God limited himself, divesting himself of the use of his divine attributes of power and glory ('kenosis'), in order to live a truly human life among us."
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