"In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth" (Gen 1:1). No one knows where Heaven is, but people experience earth. Heaven is surreal and earth real. In the beginning before the foundation of the world, God planned a unification between Heaven and the Earth. As people now experience Earth, some will experience Heaven. There is a path to Heaven from Earth and it is narrow and has an intersection. I am speaking of the Cross. Of course, the wooden cross on Calvary is just a representation of the real "Cross."
It must be understood that the Cross of Golgotha was a "tree."
And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree (Acts 10:39), And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him (Jesus), they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. (Acts 13:29)Furthermore, the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden and Paradise in Heaven is representative of Jesus (Gen 2:9 and Rev 22:2). The Trees are the same "tree" in different places. What is known is that Heaven is up from Jerusalem since Jesus ascended from the Garden of Gethsemane. It is no coincidence that Heaven is directly above Jerusalem since that city means "foundation of peace."
The Tree of Life - Jesus Christ - is the Way to Heaven (John 14:6). Jesus is the real "Tree" in that the leaves of his Tree are the twelve fruits of the Spirit (Rev 22:2). Jesus's outstretched arms on the Cross were welcoming "whosoever" would come (John 3:16). The Cross itself represents a decision - to follow Jesus or not - to trust him for salvation or not.
Helena, wife of Constantine, identified the Cross on which Jesus was crucified according to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It was made of three woods according to them: cedar, pine and cypress. It makes sense that if so, cypress would be the trunk of the cross, cedar the likely cross member, and pine the foot support.
On the other hand, Isaiah pointed toward four types of wood: " He (The Carpenter) heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it" (Isa 44:14).
From scripture, it would appear that ash was planted in the ground, hence it was the post of the cross or the tree trunk.
From 2 Samuel 18:9-10 the bars of the cross would be oak since Absalom was hung on the limbs of an oak. But that was Absalom. He was a king, and Jesus the King. Oak seems fitting for a "king" to hang from to die.
It makes sense that the foot support was made of cedar in that bird sacrifices were made on cedar and the blood of the bird mixed with water was sprinkled on the wood (Lev 14:51). Of course, when Jesus was pierced by the soldier, blood and water issued from his abdomen (John 19:34). The foot support was surely made of cedar as was symbolized from the Old Testament.
That would leave cypress for the sign, "King of the Jews." Cypress is only mentioned in one passage in the Bible (Isa 44:14 above). Cypress in nearly all societies are symbolic of death, and is designated "the cemetery tree" (Wikipedia; "Cupressus sempervirens"). Perhaps the death of the King was worthy of cypress. Perhaps the superscription written above Jesus (Luke 22:38) was of cypress wood. The only existing evidence of the woods of the Cross is Holy Scripture.
The Cross is the place of the stairway to Heaven referred to as Jacob's ladder according to scripture: "And he (Jacob) dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it" (Gen 28:12). Jesus is "The Angel of God" with whom Jacob wrestled (Gen 32:24-30). Jacob, I believe, dreamed of seeing the Cross on which Jesus ascended. The Cross points upward toward Heaven from the Earth. It validates the connection between the Heaven and the Earth.
Jesus descended into Hell to deliver all the sins of mankind. Hell is believed to be at the earth's core. I have calculated the temperature of a kiln and compared it to the estimated temperature of the earth's core. It calculated 6.7 or roughly seven times hotter than fire! (Dan 3:19) which is symbolic of Hell. Not by coincidence, the foundation stone on Mount Moriah (Zion) is believed to be both the access to Heaven and the entryway via he abyss below it, to Hell.
The Cross not only may represent the connector between the Earth and Heaven but the ways to Heaven and Hell.
Why a Cross? Why not just a tree trunk? Because the Cross represents choices; the left branch those not persuaded and the right branch those persuaded. Of what? That Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the route to Life (John 14:6).
The most obvious symbolism of the Cross is the foot support and the superscription "King of the Jews." Kings have realms; Jesus realm is the Kingdom of God which is Paradise in Heaven. What about the foot support? "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest" (Isa 66:1)? The foot support was God's aforementioned "footstool" and the "house" built for Jesus and Christians was in Heaven: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). God's throne is in Heaven and sits on a sea of glass (Rev 4:6).
The sea of glass is transparent. Christians below can see the unseen by faith, and those above see the Cross - how they got there. The Cross connects the Earth to Heaven, but also the Earth to Hell. How so? Jesus death on the Cross represents the vicarious death of the Serpent which Moses displayed on a pole - the Serpent's "tree" of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Long before the foundation of the world, God made plans for the ladder to Heaven. Genesis 1:1 alludes to some type of connection between the two. It is not said outright, but Jesus's birth and death were planned before the creation (John 17:24)! Jacob's "ladder" was surely the Cross of Jesus. That cross connected the Heaven with the Earth.
In order to complete the connection, it had to be more than symbolic. Hence, a real tree was hewn to bridge the divided - The Tree of Life died on the Cross on Earth yet still lives in Heaven. Jesus is the bridge between the Heaven and the Earth and the Cross s symbolic of that!
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