Biblically Jesus died the Death of an Oppressor

Galatians 3:13 tells us the Crucifixion of Jesus fits Deuteronomy 21:32 “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”  And the Author of The Temple Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls, probably a Jew who lived before Jesus was born, also saw Roman style Crucifixion as fitting that.

Many Christians have stressed this connection, but failed to fully paint the picture that comes from tracing the history in the rest of the Hebrew Bible of times individuals died this death.

Joshua 8:29 documented this form of execution being carried out on the King of Ai, and in chapter 10 on the Five Kings allied against Israel, there the hung victims are specified to be buried in caves with stones rolled in front of them.  These were the tyrant Kings of the Canaanites that Joshua is leading the Israelites in liberating the Promised Land from.

In Second Samuel 21 innocent people are hung on a Tree.  Seven descendants of Saul, the two by his concubine and the 5 sons of Merab.  They were killed to appease the Gibeonites and atone for Saul's sin against them, because he had oppressed them.

When The Book of Esther says Haman and his sons were "hanged", those familiar with Persian customs and the Hebrew text speculate they were Crucified. The Persians are usually credited with inventing Crucifixion, which the Greeks adopted and the Romans perfected.  That's possibly the most famous oppressor in The Hebrew Bible.

Jesus died for the Sins of ALL, I have argued against Limited Atonement on this Blog and that is still my position.  But he died the Death of an Oppressor for a few obvious reasons.  One being that is the worst Sin, Paul called himself the Chief of Sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15, his Sin was being an oppressor, oppressing a religious minority.  And also because it is the powerful who's sins often go unpunished in this life, the ones I named above didn't, but many have.  Meanwhile everyone who's poor and oppressed has probably suffered more then enough in this life for whatever their sins are.

Even though I am absolutely a Leftist in my politics, I have a few things against "Liberation Theology", one was addressed in this blog's previous post.  The other is that they are kind of Calvinists, at least 1 point Calvinists in that they seem to believe in a kind of Limited Atonement, Jesus Died and Rose only for the Oppressed and not their Oppressors.

You see rather then using Scripture to Interpret Scripture they are going off what Crucifixion meant to Rome and those Rome conquered, it was a form of Execution generally carried out on defeated rebels (I believe Barabbas and the two men executed next to Jesus were such rebels, "thief" is an incomplete translation).

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:23 "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness".  It was foolishness to the Greeks (Paul means Gentiles in general here) because they had none of the Biblical context, to them it was a form of execution designed to humiliate the defeated, what God would die like that or allow their Son to?  But the Jews had the context they needed but just couldn't quite piece it together.  They were not against The Messiah dying or being killed by their enemies, they expect that to happen to Messiah Ben Joseph.  The reason a Crucified Messiah was a problem for them was because they knew that kind of Death as a judgment on their enemies who oppressed them.

And now mainstream Christianity has spent centuries making that worse by oppressing The Jews in the name of Christ Crucified.  Calling them "Christ Killers" when Jesus said of all those guilty of persecuting Him (Jew and Roman) "Father forgive them for they know not what they do".