Jesus' Sacrificial Agony - Stripes Produced by Scourging

Jesus' Sacrificial Agony - Stripes Produced by Scourging

We are/were healed by His stripes - (1 Pet.2:24; Isaiah 53:5) The word "stripes" in Greek refers to “a bloody wale trickling with blood that arises under a blow". Under Hebrew law the strokes were limited to 39; a slave could receive 40; Roman law was not so limited. The scourging post was only 2' high, iron rings were placed close to the top and these rings projected out from the two sides. The prisoner was forcibly stripped naked, thrown to the ground and his wrists were firmly fastened to the iron rings. Then he was stretched, face down, with his feet pointing away from the post and the prisoner was whipped by professional "lictors" who used a "flagra (flagrum or flagellum)". The flagrum had a short handle, to which were attached several thin iron chains or several long, thick leather thongs. At the ends, balls of lead or the small bones of sheep were attached. As the whip descended, the chains/thongs fanned out across the back, and each link cut through the skin and deep into the flesh. The weights crashed with bruising force into the ribs and flesh. When a prisoner is scourged like this there is no relief from the pain unless the victim either fell unconscious or dies. Sweat poured from the victim's brow and into his eyes. With each stroke of the flagra, the victim's body twitched or convulsed. The very juice of life is torn away with every stroke of the lash. There is only the blinding, burning pain as the cruel, dirty whip whistles again and again through the air and down across the victim's back and shoulders. The thongs/chains cut through the skin and the balls and the little bones dig deep contused wounds into the victim's flesh. There is a lot of hemorrhaging and considerable lowering of the victim's ability to stay alive. A lictor with his flagrum could literally skin or flay a man alive - leaving just a breath of life left in the victim for the agony of the cross. The veins, muscles, sinews of the victim were now open to exposure. It was called the near or little death. During the laying on of the stripes some men passed out momentarily and some bit their tongues off! In fact, a Roman flogging was so severe an insult to the victim's body, that many died from the resulting blood loss, inflammation, and infection of the wounds during this preliminary part of the torture. Then the victim's limp body was cut away from the post. His wounds had water thrown on them. The victim's next step was to carry the top of his cross to the execution ground where the victim would be crucified. The Romans always liked to make examples of condemned men. The long, slow parade along public streets was designed to serve as a warning to others that Rome dealt quickly and mercilessly with those who opposed or disobeyed its earthly power. The terrible nature of this means of execution helped enforce Rome's control over the Jews whom they hated anyway. In the Law of Moses hanging a criminal on a tree or cross was reserved for the most serious crimes, "And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of G-d), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your G-d gives you as an inheritance." (Deuteronomy 21:22-23) Note: Jesus had to bear with many, many wounds that were now inflamed with infection. The crown of thorns didn't help Jesus either. (The scalp bleeds very profusely.) So, in addition to his inflamed, infected stripes - Jesus had to suffer debilitating dehydration caused by the blood loss - all of which made Him only making Jesus only marginally capable of carrying the horizontal or top part of His own cross up to Calvary.



DEATH BY CRUCIFIXION

Crucifixion was an ancient method of execution in which the condemned person was tied or nailed to a large wooden cross (of various shapes) and left to hang until dead. The term comes from the Latin crucifixio ("fixing to a cross", from the prefix cruci-, from crux ("cross"), + verb figere, "fix or bind fast".) Crucifixion was in use particularly among the Seleucids, Carthaginians, and Romans from about the 6th century BCE to the 4th century AD. In the year 337 AD, the Christian Emperor Constantine I abolished it in the Roman Empire, out of veneration for Jesus Christ, the most famous victim of crucifixion. Alexander the Great originally borrowed crucifixion as a method of execution from the Persians but, the Greeks didn't practice it because of their horror of it. But the Romans, who were excellent students of military efficiency, embraced this execution method because of its capacity to allow the Romans to kill many people at the same time and send terror throughout the lands they occupied. Many prisoners could be simultaneously crucified and best of all their deaths were guaranteed. The Romans made many sweeps of criminals, undesirables, rabble-rousers, and the politically incorrect. And crucifixion allowed for orderly mass executions. Men hung on crosses, powerless to run and hide as Roman guards made rounds to make sure all died. It wasn't like pillaging a town, where every person had to be hunted down to be killed. The victims of crucifixion were just hanging there helpless, ripe for death like apples on a tree ripe for picking. They were a captive audience, and the job of killing them would certainly get done. Crucifixion was certainly efficient and without question totally effective in killing all of the prisoners.

It was "normal" for the prisoner to be forced to carry the top part of his own cross which was called the "pantibulum" to his own crucifixion. Then that top part would be attached to the vertical pieces of the crosses that were already waiting - that had been planted firmly in the ground at Calvary. The vertical pieces designated the exact place, spacing, and height for the various crucifixions. Once the victim arrived with his piece of the cross, a centurion called the Carnifex Servorum - who was the executioner met the victim. Then as the victim was held down by 4 Roman soldiers - The centurion placed a 5" spike in the dead center of the victim's palm/wrist. This caused damage to the median nerve, resulting in a torture all its own. As he hammered it through the flesh and into the wood - he turned the nail so that the arm could not slip free. Then a sedile, a hook, that looks like a rhino horn - was fitted solidly thru the naked crotch, this took most of the weight off the hands/wrists; then the feet were nailed together onto the cross. Fainting only relieved the victim temporarily. The nail wounds sent fire thru the victim's limbs. Pain in the back, arms, legs, hands, feet, and crotch constantly built up, a dull throbbing, piercing, mind shattering, horrible pain. It built up, increased, multiplied - it was cumulative ever increasing and there was no respite.

The cross was placed so exposure to the greatest amount of the blinding sun would pierce the victim's eyes. The victim suffered shame, humiliation, public viewing, ridicule, and taunting -- then the thirst began. The mouth and lips were dry and parched, fever set in - water was denied. The executioners drank and gambled below. The sun was directly in the victim's eyes - even when closed a red glare penetrated. The tongue thickened. Saliva was now like uncombed wool - swelling first began in the hands and feet - the sedile dug deeper into the victim's crotch. No way to relax, rest or even change position – all of the muscles began to twitch one after another, the back muscles gathered into tight knotty cramps. There was no way to escape or ease them away. Then the terrible cramps went down through the shoulders into the thorax and into the abdomen - within two hours every muscle was cramped into solid knots - agony was beyond human endurance, minds snapped into insanity. The pain and symptoms were identical to tetanus (lockjaw). Psychotic sadists have never devised a more cruel or more agonizing death than that of death by crucifixion - the slow, steady contraction of every muscle. During crucifixion men shrieked and cursed - their agony was purposely made to last as long as possible, each minute was an eternity - the victim longed for death - nothing else – the victim could only pray for his own death. As the helpless victim hung there in absolute agony - flies and other biting insects, dogs, birds and vultures all came to the smell and/or taste the helpless victim's blood and flesh. The tiny blood vessels that feed the nerves were squeezed flat and with the accompanying lack of circulation came a numbing paralysis; for those who lingered thru the suffocation of crucifixion - by standing up, the victim could gasp a small gulp of air and in doing so would extend his own agony by living a little longer - then the mucus membranes, the thin slippery tissue which line and lubricate the sensitive areas of the body, dried to a fine gravel - like consistency. It tore the victim's tortured throat, it became like stones in the victim's sinuses, it scraped the victim's anus, it ripped layers of the victim's eye tissue, away every time the victim's pupil was moved or the victim's eye blinked. The prisoner had been slowly smothered and tortured to death - If the victim still held a spark of life they broke his legs with an iron mallet, so that he could no longer stand to relieve the pressure of the sedile digging into his genitals', or gasp another small gulp of air into his lungs. Crucifixion slowly exhausted the air from the victim’s lungs until the lungs collapsed and the victim finally died by drowning in his own juices. Other ways of hastening death were by kindling a fire beneath the cross or by allowing the hungry beasts to attack the victim's naked, defenseless body. The Roman soldiers waited until all the victims were dead, Then the soldiers would tidy up for the next batch of prisoners. It was the responsibility of the family or friends of each victim to take the body and make burial preparations. Those dead bodies without family would simply be carted off and thrown in a dump.

What does Jesus' terrible sacrifice mean for you dear one? Jesus was whipped with the "near death", He was shamed, humiliated, taunted, ridiculed, tortured, fevered, mocked, went through intense brutal suffering for all of us and then finally died. Dear One, it was your sins and mine that He paid for; He took our place; He saved us - you and I, He paid for it all - accept His pardon and sacrifice today. Make Him your Lord and Savior – ask Him into your heart. David's Psalm 22 had amazingly prophesied Jesus horrible crucifixion in unbelievably realistic terms; this execution by crucifixion was a Roman and Phoenician custom unknown to the Jewish people until over 400 years after David wrote this prophetic psalm. A reading of the gospel narratives concerning the death of Jesus will show that He was nailed to the cross at 9 o'clock in the morning, and was dead by 3 in the afternoon. His terrible ordeal, was over in six hours. Six is the number of man who was created on the sixth day. And in six terrible hours on the Cross - Jesus saved all Mankind - if they will only accept His eternal salvation. "For our sake he made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of G-d." (2 Corinthians 5:21) "For G-d so loved the world that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For G-d sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of G-d. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in G-d." (John 3:16-21)