Someone told me recently that wearing a cross is a sin. They offered me quite the informative lecture about how even displaying one in your home is idol worship. That’s a graven image, a violation of God’s law! “All those who use even the image of the cross as decoration are cursed!” they said.
I didn’t respond or react immediately in any meaningful way. I purposely allowed the accusation to go by, because I didn’t (and still do not) want my response to be defensive. It doesn’t need to be.
Instead, I’ve been sitting with it, waiting on God to show me how to respond appropriately. I asked Him to show me how to respond in a way that could teach and inspire someone who is concerned only about fighting, not about actually teaching, helping, or even saving, someone else… much less learning themselves. “I am not interested in arguing a point. I only want to be a witness of Christ, and a servant of You,” I told Him.
This morning as I was reading Scripture, I was able to see exactly where He has been pointing me for days. Here’s what He keeps bringing me back to:
There is no curse. Not anymore, at least. It is just as simple, yet complicated to understand for many, as that. The One who hung on that cross already broke all curses for us.
To understand this, a study of Scripture rather than the random slinging of supposed evidence (the person mentioned above was adamant about the second commandment, for example) is necessary. You first have to understand the reality concerning graven images, and where the misunderstanding around them today, under the new covenant, actually originates compared to antiquity under the original covenant of the Old Testament.
The Old Testament Law and What It Actually Required
When God gave Moses the second commandment on Sinai, Israel had just come out of Egypt – a nation completely saturated in idol worship. The gods of Egypt were everywhere. They were carved from wood and stone, cast in gold and silver, and they were bowed down to and served as living deities. God was not setting a universal rule against all images in all contexts for all time. He was drawing a sharp, necessary line between His people and the nations surrounding them who made objects and called them gods. To do that, God commanded:
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. (Exodus 20:4-5)
Notice the second part of that verse. The prohibition is not simply against making an image. It is against bowing down to it and worshiping it as a god. That distinction matters enormously, because in that very same wilderness, God commanded images to be made.
He instructed Moses to place two golden cherubim upon the ark of the covenant, their wings spread, facing each other, above the place where God himself would meet with His people. (Exodus 25:18-20) He commanded cherubim to be woven into the curtains of the tabernacle itself. (Exodus 26:1) Solomon’s temple was filled with carved images – cherubim, palm trees, pomegranates, open flowers lining the walls. (1 Kings 6:29)
Were these graven images? Technically, yes. Were they violations of the commandment? No, because they were not being worshiped as gods. They were made at God’s own, very clear instruction. He commanded these things in order to point to His glory, His presence, and His provision, not to replace Him.
One of my favorite examples of God commanding images to be made is found in Numbers, when God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent, lift it on a pole, and promised life to everyone who looked at it in faith.
The Lord said to Moses, make a snake and put it up on a pole. Anyone who is bitten can look at it and live. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. (Numbers 21:8-9)
If the image itself was the sin, God would not have commanded this. If looking at it brought death, God would not have promised life through it. Centuries later, Jesus revealed exactly what that moment had always been pointing toward:
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. (John 3:14-15)
The lifted serpent was always a picture of Christ on the cross. God designed it that way. These are not contradictions in Scripture. Instead, they are signposts, each one pointing forward to the cross, each one pointing away from itself and toward the One who saves.
The New Covenant, the Cross, and the Curse It Broke
What exactly did He save us from? And how did He do it? To receive the fullness of what the cross means, we have to understand the curse the law carried – and what it cost to break it. The law, with all of its commandments, its sacrifices, and its rituals, was always meant to lead us somewhere. In the New Testament, we are shown exactly where that somewhere is.
The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. (Galatians 3:24-25)
Christ is the fulfillment of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4)
What did fulfilling the law require? It required Christ to enter the curse itself.
Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. (Galatians 3:13)
Christ didn’t come to abolish the law. He came to fulfill it from the inside out – to be everything the law required, and everything none of us could ever be on our own. Why was that necessary? Because the law itself is clear:
Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. (James 2:10)
And it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. (Romans 3:10)
The law was never designed to save anyone. It was designed to reveal our need for a Savior. Those who live by the works of the law are already under its curse. That is not an opinion, nor a judgment. It is simply what the law itself declares. But then came the good news:
For as by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)
Salvation cannot be earned. It was never meant to be. What Adam’s disobedience broke, Christ’s perfect obedience restored. God did what the law could never do – He sent His Son to stand in our place, to take the curse we could not escape, and to absorb the full weight of it so that we would never have to.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)
Give diligent attention to this verse – it is important to fully understand it. “No condemnation.” Not, “less condemnation.” Not, “condemnation with exceptions.” None. When you understand this, you understand that the cross is not a monument to sin. It is the place where sin was swallowed whole, and the curse was swallowed with it.
This is the life God calls us toward, and He has always set before us a choice:
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
“Choose life.” That is His command – not just for our own sake, but for the sake of those around us. And that choice is reflected in what we carry and what we spread. Are we carrying the weight of condemnation to others, or are we carrying the news that the weight has already been lifted?
He told us to go and carry the good news, not to perpetuate the bad news of the law’s condemnation, but the freedom found in Christ’s redemption. It is not a mere desire, but an obligation, that I ask any person who accuses those who wear or bear the image of the cross of being sinful, or cursed: what are you spreading?
It seems like a simple question, but it is layered. Are you carrying the weight of the law to others, reminding them of every way they fall short? Or are you carrying the cross – the sign of the One who said it is finished?
Closing Thoughts
The law brings condemnation. The cross brings freedom.
The law curses. The gospel blesses.
The cross around the neck of a humble and spirit-filled believer, or hanging on their wall, is not an idol. It is a reminder that a Savior paid a price none of us ever could. It is the assurance that the battle against evil has already been won – that anything that comes against us has already been defeated by Him, and will be defeated forevermore. That is not something I want to hide. It is the whole point.
Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
The cross does not curse you. It was carried by Christ, the One who absorbed our curse so we never would have to. That is the good news. He has redeemed us.
That good news is not only something believers should want to share, but something we are commanded to share. Whether through words, testimony, images we wear or display, or simply our character and the way we live, we should never be ashamed to carry it – and I will not be.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. (Romans 1:16)
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