QUESTION: Why does WLC use the word “cross” to refer to the way
Yahushua died?  The cross comes from pure
paganism and is a symbol of the sun god! 
It would seem the word “stake” or even “tree” would be better than
“cross” which was always a pagan symbol. 
Referring to the “cross” when it is so pagan is offensive and seems to venerate
it.

ANSWER: It is true that the cross is a pagan symbol.  People were crucified in a variety of
ways.  Some crosses were in the shape of
an X.  Others were a T or the more traditional †,
and still others were stakes: I.  Sometimes, if the executioners were in a
hurry or had run out of crosses or stakes, people would even be crucified on
living trees. 

Those
who were crucified, hanging between the earth and the heavens, were considered
to be an offering to the sun god.  They
were, quite literally, a human sacrifice to a blood-thirsty pagan god.  

The
cross is pagan and it is offensive.  That
was the entire point!  The fact that
Yahushua would humble Himself to the point of dying on a pagan symbol, an
offering, is the very thing that reveals the immense love of the Father and the
Son for a people that did not love Them.

The offensiveness of the cross was acknowledged by Paul when he stated:

For since,
in the wisdom of Yah, the world through wisdom did not know Yah, it pleased
Yahuwah through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who
believe.  For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we
preach Yahushua crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks
foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Yahushua
the power of Yahuwah and the wisdom of Yahuwah.  Because the foolishness
of Yahuwah is wiser than men, and the weakness of Yahuwah is stronger than men.  (See 1 Corinthians 1:21-25.)

The
entire point of Yahushua’s death on this grossly pagan symbol was to reveal the
offensiveness of sin and what Satan would do if he had the opportunity: he
would kill Yahuwah Himself.

There
is nothing wrong with referring to the cross as a “stake” or a “tree.”  Scripture itself refers to being crucified as
“hanging upon a tree.”  (See Acts
10:39.)  However, to do so for the
express purpose of avoiding the pagan symbolism of the cross, is missing the
entire point!  The offensiveness of the
sinless Son of Yahuwah, being offered as a human sacrifice to the sun god,
Satan, is to emphasize upon sin-darkened minds the extreme offensiveness of
sin. 

Paul
actually emphasized Yahushua’s manner
of death when he wrote:

Let this
mind be in you which was also in Yahushua, who, being in the form of Yah, did
not consider it robbery to be equal with Yahuwah, but made Himself of no
reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of
men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and
became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  (See Philippians 2:5-8.) 

This
passage shows the depths to which the Messiah was willing to humble Himself –
clear down to death, "even the death of the cross!" 
The word "even" emphasizes the form of death.  Death by
crucifixion was not only "excruciating" (the very word
"excruciating" comes from the root word "crucifixion") but
it WAS pagan: it was an offering to the sun god!  Some sources link the
cross to Tammuz, others to Saturn.

WLC
does not “venerate” (or show respect to) the cross as a sacred object.  It is indeed pagan.  But if the cross is so completely “sanitized”
as to remove every last vestige of paganism, the entire point of having the
Saviour die on a pagan cross is lost.  Yahushua could have died in
any number of other ways.  The infinite wisdom of the Almighty decreed
that it should be by a pagan method of execution.

Paul,
the scholar who knew the law of Moses so well, quoted from Deuteronomy 21:23
when explaining why Yahushua had to die on a pagan cross:

Yahushua has redeemed us from the
curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every
one that hangeth on a tree.  (See
Galatians 3:13.)

The
sinless Lamb of Yahuwah came to save sinners by becoming sin for them.  This was the entire point of the plan of
salvation! 

For he [Yahuwah] hath made him
[Yahushua] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of . . . [Yahuwah] in him. 
(2 Corinthians 5:21, KJV)

Just
before the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, their rebellious
accusations against Yahuwah were punished when He “sent fiery serpents among
the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.”  (Numbers 21:6, KJV) 

When
the people cried unto Moses for help:

Moses prayed for the people.  And . . . [Yahuwah] said unto Moses, Make
thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that
every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.  (Numbers 21:7-8, KJV)

Yahushua
Himself explained the spiritual lesson of this acted-out parable in the
Wilderness when He told Nicodemus:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up:  That whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have eternal life.  For . . .
[Yahuwah] so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For . . . [Yahuwah] sent not his Son into the
world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  (John 3:14-17, KJV)

Let
no one lessen the impact of the sacrifice which Divine Love has made in saving
sinners by glossing over the Saviour’s death on the cross, sanitizing it of all
paganism.