The Cursed One
Although the Jews didn't practice crucifixion as a means of capital punishment, they did have a similar custom for expressing a high degree of contempt for certain outlaws. After a criminal had been put to death by some other means (i.e., the sword, stoning, etc.), the dead body would be strung up on a tree as a symbol of shame and dishonor. This public exposure gave the people an opportunity to express their venomous hatred for a despicable criminal as they hurled their insults and mockery at the strung-up victim. Hanging a body in public showed that that person was under God's curse as described in Deuteronomy 21:
If someone has committed a crime worthy of death and is executed and hung on a tree, the body must not remain hanging from the tree overnight. You must bury the body that same day, for anyone who is hung is cursed in the sight of God. (21:22-23)
It was for this reason that Joshua impaled the king of Ai on a pole (Joshua 8:29) and the bodies of the five kings of the southern confederacy on five sharpened poles (Joshua 10:26-27). Interested in more than their execution, he wanted to expose them to public shame and ridicule.
Because they wanted this shame and ridicule to fall on Christ, the Jews cried out to Pilate, "Crucify him!" Knowing that the Roman idea of crucifixion was paramount to their practice of hanging on a tree, they would be satisfied with nothing less than having Jesus crucified. This would put him to shame and demonstrate that he was cursed by God.
What they did not understand, however, was that it was their shame Christ was bearing on the tree, their curse he took upon himself: "When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing" (Galatians 3:13).
While thousands of people died on crosses throughout history, only one has ever received the full measure of the curse of God while on a cross. There, the One with whom the Father was well pleased received in himself the curse of God-not for his own sin but for the sin of the truly guilty who will turn to him in faith and repentance.
~ You became a curse for me, Jesus. You received the humiliation I deserve, the rejection by God I deserve for my blatant disobedience against the God of the universe. Because of you, I will not be cut off from God; instead, I am welcomed in.
