The rood is both a physical entity and a spiritual symbol, but these are not separated in the poem. The paradox of physicality and spirituality in the poem can be explained and wholeness in Christian faith can emerge in the individual worshiper only after the miracle of God's grace is taken into account.
Grace alone restores the totality, the wholeness, of life-death existence.
Anglo-Saxons, whose intellectual outlook included metaphysicality, were well prepared to accept Christian missionaries. Perhaps that is why the poem has been overlooked as an example of the subtlety and sophistication of intellectual thought in Anglo-Saxon culture. Perhaps too, that lacuna is due to the fact that many critics unconsciously approach Anglo-Saxon literature as exemplifying physicality, crudeness, and cruelty. In its contrasting yet complementary qualities the poem shows a culture whose processes of thought rival the Platonic awareness of classical Greece. Generally speaking, the literature of the Anglo-Saxons shows surprising sensitivity to the concerns of justice, morality, courage, honor, fidelity, and generosity.