Did Christ Die by Crucifixion?

The crucifix hanging at church is a relatively tame depiction of the crucifixion of Christ. 

As a child growing up in the Catholic church, the agony in the garden, the scourging at the pillar, crowning with thorns, carrying of the cross, and the crucifixion were terms that I was familiar with but they were more abstract depictions rather than tangible actions. During the Passion readings, I would try to imagine what it was like to experience what Jesus did, but it was hard to wrap my head around the utter depravity and torture to its full magnitude. It was only after watching the Passion of the Christ that the passion came to life.

Now if you were like me, you were probably horrified. Each of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary is a horrifying, excruciating ordeal that each singly seems could have been the catalyst to our salvation. From Holy Thursday evening to the full six hours that He suffered on the Cross, Jesus was in constant physical, emotional, and spiritual agony.

As a part of my Lenten reflections focusing on the Passion, I found a YouTube video entitled, Jesus’ Suffering and Crucifixion - A Medical Point of View. It wasn’t a Catholic video specifically, but it posited an interesting question: after experiencing all this torture and painful death on the cross, what was Jesus’ medical cause of death? 

 
Crucifixion does not kill you outright. No victim of crucifixion dies outright once the nails are placed in their hands and feet, but the act of crucifying begins a set of simultaneous potential causes of death. 

•  Asphyxia: In crucifixion, the victim is at the mercy of gravity. You can breathe in but breathing out requires the victim to lift their body weight onto their arms and legs to allow the arm to escape their lungs. Thus, if the victim failed to pull themselves up, then they were unable to breathe. Whenever the soldiers were ready for the victim to die, they would break the victim's legs so that they could not use them to push himself upward to exhale. Subsequently, they would suffocate to death.

• Cardiac Rupture: when one or more ventricles or atria of your heart muscle become lacerated and you bleed out internally. 

• Heart Failure: when the victim’s heart becomes so fatigued that it stops beating altogether. 
• Hypovolaemic Shock: this is when you bleed out to such a degree that there is no longer enough blood to carry oxygen to the rest of your body, and you experience multiple organ failure. Many victims of crucifixion also were scourged beforehand, so they could have experienced severe blood loss before cardiac arrest.

• Takotsubo Syndrome: when the victim experiences a surge of adrenaline and norepinephrine which creates a toxic environment for cardiac tissue. The victim’s arteries tighten to such a degree that it stuns the heart into a rapid rise of blood pressure, the consequence of which is congestive heart failure.

After all the suffering that Jesus experienced, any of these things could have easily killed him, but this mediation provided another option. 

Maybe none of these things killed Christ.

Rather than any earthly cause or by the impetus of any singular person or group of people, Jesus had complete control during His passion. He could have had it stop at any time, but He chose to endure to the very end. Rather he abandoned himself completely to the Father's will for the world's salvation.

In John 10:18, Jesus says, “No one has taken [my life] away from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back.” In fact, one of the last words he offered on the Cross was, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). 

It wasn’t the agony in the garden, the scourging at the pillar, crowning with thorns, carrying the cross, or even the crucifixion that caused Jesus’ death. It was His love for us that sentenced him to death on the cross. It wasn’t asphyxia, cardiac rupture, heart failure, hypovolaemic shock, or Takotsubo syndrome but rather His own will and the fulfillment of salvation that resulted in His death.

As St. Paul of the Cross says, “The Passion of Christ is the greatest and most stupendous work of Divine Love. The greatest and most overwhelming work of God’s love.”

As we contemplate the cross and the glory of the resurrection, all that remains is the overwhelming love of God. I think it is only fitting to close with the words of St. Augustine of Hippo:

As they were looking on, so we too gaze on his wounds as he hangs. We see his blood as he dies. We see the price offered by the redeemer, touch the scars of his resurrection. He bows his head, as if to kiss you. His heart is made bare open, as it were, in love to you. His arms are extended that he may embrace you. His whole body is displayed for your redemption. Ponder how great these things are. Let all this be rightly weighed in your mind: as he was once fixed to the cross in every part of his body for you, so he may now be fixed in every part of your soul.