Scripture & Creation
Acts 10:39
Christ is Crucified on a Tree
Five times throughout the Book of Acts and the Epistles the Apostles Peter and Paul describe Christ’s crucifixion as upon a tree rather than the cross. Is this just an incidental shift in terminology, or is there deeper meaning in this switch?
A close reading of these passages reveals something remarkable which contemporary theology has not discussed. There is clearly special meaning in each instance where these writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, use the term “tree” rather than cross.
As we examine the context in each of these five passages, something fascinating emerges about the Church, the Holy Spirit and the deeper meaning of the tree. In the passage cited above from Acts 10, the Roman centurion Cornelius of Caesarea, whom the Bible calls “a devout man... who gave much alms to the people” (cf. Acts 10:1ff), has a vision. In it an angel appears and instructs him to send his servants to the Apostle Peter and invite him to come to his home since he was visiting in the nearby town of Joppa.
The next day the Apostle Peter also has a vision. He sees “heaven opened” and a “great sheet” comes down wherein are found all manner of beasts and creeping creatures (Acts 10:11-12). Peter is told to rise and kill and eat. But Peter, adhering to Jewish law, denies the voice, as if it were a temptation. He replies, “No, Lord, for I have never eaten any thing that is unclean.” The voice speaks again. “What God has cleansed, do not call unclean” (Acts 10:15). Three times this happens before the vessel is lifted up and the vision ends.
While Peter is reflecting on the vision and its meaning, Cornelius’ servants arrive. They invite him to Caesarea according to the instructions in their master’s vision.
When Peter arrives in Joppa, he describes to Cornelius his vision. He is not to call any person or food unclean even though Jewish custom requires Jews to avoid people from other cultures. Peter adds, “I perceive that God is no respecter of persons,” but in every nation God accepts those who are righteous (Acts 10:34-35). Then he describes how God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit who then went about doing good, but they killed him and hung him on a tree (Acts 10:39).
Just prior to this story, Peter previously resorted to this tree image while speaking to the Jewish religious authorities about Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit working through his disciples (Acts 5:17-32). In this situation the Holy Spirit, through Peter’s inspired testimony, serves notice to the Jewish priests about the power of God whom they killed and “hanged upon a tree.” Again, when Peter refers to Christ being hung on a tree, something important is being said which advances the Gospel message. Thus the invocation of the tree image heralds this special, first time witness to the Jewish religious authorities about the power of the resurrected Christ through the Christian Gospel. The Church is moving forward.
Similarly, when Peter spoke to Cornelius in the above-cited passage, the Church was moving forward, this time as a special witness to the Gentiles as the Holy Spirit pronounced the goodness of all animals and all people. This vision lifted and transformed the early Church’s understanding of food and diet beyond the thrall of the old Jewish law and heralded the announcement of the universal scope of the Gospel.
The third time in which Christ is described as slain upon a tree, the Apostle Paul is in the synagogue at Antioch on the Sabbath. He is preaching to the congregation and showing through Scripture, the Law and the prophets that the history of salvation is fulfilled in Christ Jesus (Acts 13:29-43). Again the Church is moving forward, this time through a face-to-face declaration to the Jewish people explaining salvation history and its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. With this event the Church realizes that Christ is the fulfillment of the ancient prophesies as that was not yet understood.
Next, we see the tree used by Saint Paul as he introduces a crucial doctrine about the nature of Jesus Christ to the Early Church. He declares that Christ has redeemed us from the ancient curse (Galatians 3:11-28), and if they have been baptized into Christ, they have put on Christ, and so are one in the Lord. Once again the Church is moving forward, this time by announcing the Gospel as the transformation of the ancient covenant in Christ.
Finally, in the fifth example of the special meaning of tree when used in lieu of the cross, the Apostle Peter invokes the suffering of Christ on the tree as a witness for all Christians in all times. In this teaching to the whole Church Peter urges all the faithful to follow in Christ’s footsteps and to live unto righteousness (1 Peter 2:24). Through this teaching about Jesus Church, Christians are made aware of the Gospel command to follow in the steps of Christ on His path of suffering (1 Peter 21-25).
These five passages share several crucial themes: they are joined together first through their use of the tree metaphor for the cross, but second through what theologians call “a kerygmatic moment” — a divine event, filled with the Holy Spirit, that moves the Spirit-directed and empowered evangelists to reveal the further form and contours and scope of Christian faith. The image of the tree as an aspect of the cross is invoked in each of these ancient moments of the revelation and articulation of the further meaning of the Church of Christ. This cannot be mere coincidence. It is true that, in linguistic terms, Peter often spoke in metaphors (synecdochically, to be precise, substituting the whole for the part) when he proclaimed, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.”
There is more. By the instrumentality of a tree, the first people sinned. This disobedience through a tree, symbolizing the entire creation, caused their fall from the paradisal state. Again, at the end of the Bible, the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2). In between we have the tree as cosmic cross, breaking the hold of sin and ushering in the path of salvation through Jesus Christ.
The passage in Galatians 3:13 alludes back to Deuteronomy 21:23, where it is written, “cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree,” suggesting this tree in Deuteronomy was a prefiguring of the cross. In that ancient day trees were apparently used as places for executions. If that is true, then the meaning of the tree in the history of salvation moves from ignominy to glory, from a sign of the curse of the Law to a universal symbol of grace and truth and life. Having borne the weight of the physical body of Jesus, the tree as cross shares something of the weight of the glory of Christ.
A double parallel shows itself here. First, if by Adam came sin, then by Christ came freedom from sin. But, second, if by the disobedience of Adam and Eve in regard to a tree came sin, then it is also through the obedience of Christ in regard to a tree that the abolition of sin comes. And so the opening to a return to the paradisal state comes by a tree.
A further question now emerges. Why does Scripture use a tree as its symbol for creation? And why does restoration of the cosmos and the inauguration of the New Earth come by a tree? The answer must be that the tree is a symbol of the created cosmos, because of the way that it synthesizes heaven and earth. Its roots reach deep into the earth while its branches extend into the sky. It takes of earth and water, and through air and sun, it expands and grows. It pulses with the seasons, extending leaves in the Spring and dropping them in the contractions of Fall. The tree possesses density in its wood, but it has sap and a life energy that combines the elements of creation with the forces of life and spirit. All this is done in obedience to God its Creator so that the trees, says the Prophet Isaiah, even “clap their hands” in praise.
The relentless prominence of the Tree throughout Scripture means that for popular purposes, we might identify the tree as the Biblical symbol of creation.
