One of the most famous paintings depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is Diego Velázquez’ Christ Crucified:

As you can see, it depicts rough-hewn beams, fashioned together perpendicularly. Nailed to those boards is the man Jesus, blood seeping from both hands and both feet. There’s also the crown of thorns, with blood trailing down Jesus’ neck. Blood trails from a several-inch cut on his upper right chest—the slice from the Roman soldier’s spear.

This nearly five-hundred-year-old painting is typical of the kinds of images that have been used to depict Christ’s death. Yet it doesn’t even begin to capture the reality of what he endured.

What he endured was the most severe form of capital punishment ever devised, one that was usually reserved for the Roman Empire’s most notorious political rebels.

A Punishment Fit for Terrorists

While most retellings of the crucifixion story portray Jesus as enduring a common form of punishment for common criminals, this isn’t entirely true. In reality, this form of punishment was mostly reserved for insurrectionists, enemies of the state, and terrorists. (Think Osama Bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.)

This form of execution wasn’t used against just anyone, but was mostly reserved for those who tried to directly challenge Rome’s authority. It was the most horrifying death imaginable. Rome understood this, and they used it to instill the fear of the Empire in their subject people.

Rome would line up cross after cross after cross of crucified terrorists to show their subjects who was boss. In one instance, after the Siege of Jerusalem, it was reported by Jewish historian Josephus that hundreds of captured rebels were crucified—letting everyone know what would happen to those who tried to take on Rome.

We know from the account of Jesus that one such terrorist, Barabbas, was waiting to be crucified: he “had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder” (Luke 23:19). While some have suggested that Jesus was crucified between petty thieves or criminals, the original Greek word used in Matthew and Mark to describe them is lestes—“insurrectionist” or “rebel,” the same word used for Barabbas after he had terrorized the city in rebellion against Rome. In fact, it’s possible Jesus hung in the very spot reserved for Barabbas—the purported leader of these two terrorists. Political insurrection is also the charge the Jewish religious leaders leveled against Jesus before the Roman governor—that he was “subverting our nation” (Luke 23:2), like a terrorist.

This is how Rome treated Jesus: as a rebel, an insurrectionist, a terrorist who threatened the order of the empire. And the punishment they doled out fit the crime.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Before a crucifixion, guards would often flog their victims with a device called a flagrum—a wooden handle with several strips of metal-studded leather. Before the main event, guards would flog the convicted terrorists, destroying their backs, ripping out pieces of their scalps, tearing off the sides of their face.

Jesus was flogged. And then he was beaten by soldiers with a staff, clubbed to the side and head and ribs—again and again and again. He was spit upon and mocked for being a supposed “king of the Jews.” The guards shoved a crown of thorns on his head and draped a purple robe around him in mockery. In the eyes of Rome, Jesus was obviously a failed terrorist, for he was succumbing to the might of Rome.

After hours of this pain and suffering, victims were forced to carry their own beam to the site of their crucifixion. Jesus’ beating and flogging left him physically incapable of carrying that burden, so one of the guards pulled a man out of the crowd and forced him to carry it for Jesus.

Once at the site of crucifixion, Jesus would have been laid on the cross naked, stripped bare of his clothes—an important feature of crucifixions missing from most depictions. We know this is true because after the soldiers had crucified Jesus they gambled for his clothes.

Then there were the spikes. Seven-inch-long pieces of sharpened metal that were pounded through each of his wrists and feet—through flesh, tendons, and bones. The posture these instruments created allowed for maximum agony… often for days.

For hours Jesus hung on the cross completely exposed to the crowd and elements—to flies, birds, animals, the sun. His nakedness added to the humiliation, increasing the shame and excruciating experience. Flies buzzed around his wounds. Birds probably tried to scavenge flesh off his body. He wouldn’t have been able to hold his waste. The heat would have been suffocating—baking in 100 degrees without relief, dehydration would have set in.

Imagine the struggle, imagine the pain, imagine the suffering—for over three hours.

For you, for the world.

Death with a Purpose

Christ’s brutal, undignified death at the hands of Rome served a purpose that has rippled through all of history.

As the early church father Cyril of Alexandria commented, “He made his life to be an exchange for the life of all. One died for all, in order that we all might live to God sanctified and brought to life through his blood, justified by his grace.”

Remarkably, the Son of God died for those who had rebelled against him! He wasn’t the rebel or insurrectionist, we were. And at just the right time, the Bible says, Christ died for us ungodly rebels:

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:7–8).

Because God loved the world so much, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die the death we should have died to pay the price of our sin. Rome didn’t take Jesus’ life—he freely offered it! And the result?

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation (Colossians 1:21–22).

Because Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross, drinking the cup of pain and judgment completely dry,we don’t only have peace with God; we’re holy, forgiven, justified, and free of any shame or guilt.

Puts the familiar, sanitized version of the crucifixion in its proper context, doesn’t it?