Why do christians use the cross as their symbol if it was the tool used to kill Jesus?

I'm not a Christian, but I believe the idea is that the cross represents Jesus's sacrifice. I would imagine that it started with depictions of Jesus on the cross, then eventually evolved into just a stylized depiction of the cross itself over time.

I Corinthians 1:23-24

... we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The cross shows the love and power of God. It was used to carry out a humiliating execution, one used for criminals. The pain was excruciating (a word that shares the same root as crucifixion). Sometimes with all the pretty crosses with the nice jewelry and diamonds and flowers and birds and doilies, I think we forget the blood and suffering.

St Paul is the one who spoke about the cross of Christ.

Christianity is based on substitution. That is that Christ died for me. The cross is the meeting place between God and man.

even while i develop right into a xian I puzzled approximately that. it consistently stricken me. I later got here upon that the pass is an historic image of conflict. Makes you look on the NT a touch closer in that regard. Has no longer conflict observed that image on condition that? M, that's giving reverence to conflict.

Because the cross symbolizes our atonement for sin, through Jesus's willing sacrifice, and resurrection, He defeated death, and through HIM, we can as well.

Take care!

“The cross,” says one encyclopedia, “is the most familiar symbol of Christianity.” Many religious paintings and works of art depict Jesus nailed to a cross. Why is this symbol so widespread in Christendom? Did Jesus really die on a cross?

Many would point to the Bible for the answer. For example, according to the King James Version, at the time of Jesus’ execution, onlookers made fun of Jesus and challenged him to “come down from the cross.” (Matthew 27:40, 42) Many other Bible translations read similarly. Today’s English Version says of Simon from Cyrene: “The soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.” (Mark 15:21) In these verses, the word “cross” is translated from the Greek word stauros′. Is there a solid basis for such a translation? What is the meaning of that original word?

Was It a Cross?

According to Greek scholar W. E. Vine, stauros′ “denotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake. On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroō, to fasten to a stake or pale, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed cross.”

The Imperial Bible-Dictionary says that the word stauros′ “properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling a piece of ground.” The dictionary continues: “Even amongst the Romans the crux (Latin, from which our cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole.” Thus, it is not surprising that The Catholic Encyclopedia states: “Certain it is, at any rate, that the cross originally consisted of a simple vertical pole, sharpened at its upper end.”

There is another Greek word, xy′lon, that Bible writers used to describe the instrument of Jesus’ execution. A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament defines xy′lon as “a piece of timber, a wooden stake.” It goes on to say that like stauros′, xy′lon “was simply an upright pale or stake to which the Romans nailed those who were thus said to be crucified.”

In line with this, we note that the King James Version reads at Acts 5:30: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree [xy′lon].” Other versions, though rendering stauros′ as “cross,” also translate xy′lon as “tree.” At Acts 13:29, The Jerusalem Bible says of Jesus: “When they had carried out everything that scripture foretells about him they took him down from the tree [xy′lon] and buried him.”

In view of the basic meaning of the Greek words stauros′ and xy′lon, the Critical Lexicon and Concordance, quoted above, observes: “Both words disagree with the modern idea of a cross, with which we have become familiarised by pictures.” In other words, what the Gospel writers described using the word stauros′ was nothing like what people today call a cross. Appropriately, therefore, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures uses the expression “torture stake” at Matthew 27:40-42 and in other places where the word stauros′ appears. Similarly, the Complete Jewish Bible uses the expression “execution stake.”

If the Bible does not really say that Jesus was executed on a cross, then why do all the churches that claim to teach and follow the Bible—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—adorn their buildings with the cross and use it as a symbol of their faith? How did the cross come to be such a popular symbol?

The answer is that the cross is venerated not only by churchgoers who claim to follow the Bible but also by people far removed from the Bible and whose worship far predates that of “Christian” churches. Numerous religious reference works acknowledge that the use of crosses in various shapes and forms goes back to remote periods of human civilization. For example, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and depictions of their gods and goddesses often show a cross in the shape of a T with a circle at the top. It is called the ansate, or handle-shaped, cross and is thought to be a symbol of life. In time, this form of the cross was adopted and used extensively by the Coptic Church and others.

According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, “the primitive form of the cross seems to have been that of the so-called ‘gamma’ cross (crux gammata), better known to Orientalists and students of prehistoric archæology by its Sanskrit name, swastika.” This sign was widely used among Hindus in India and Buddhists throughout Asia and is still seen in decorations and ornaments in those areas.

It is not known exactly when the cross was adopted as a “Christian” symbol. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words states: “By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols,” including the cross.

Easy to draw, back in the years 34 to present, when posting signage for what may have been-back then- a generally illiterate group.

Because cross is victorious. Jesus won against satan when he died on the cross.

because the cross is look at as salvation, an if Jesus Christ saves us then we will be with God in the end, im just paraphrasing it.

Christianity indoctrinates people with the constant fear of Hell and eternal punishment so it makes sense to use a symbol of torture as their icon so people are constantly in fear making controlling them easier.