Good Friday is one of the most important days on the Christian calendar. However, the naming of this sacred day seems a bit questionable. Good Friday marks the day that Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross, counted among common criminals and ultimately died. Even though the crucifixion was the key part of God’s ultimate plan for humanity’s salvation, it can still be difficult to consider it “good.” However, Christ’s crucifixion was ordained by God from the very beginning of time. As soon as Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the garden, sin entered the world (Romans 5:12). With the introduction of sin came the need of a Redeemer.
Good Friday isn’t considered good because of anything that Christ endured. His pain, suffering, rejection and abandonment were all anything but good. However, what His willingness to lay down His own life provided for us is good. Take a moment and reflect on these good things that Good Friday made possible for us.
Propitiation
Romans 3:24-25 (ESV)
And are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Propitiation means the removal of God’s wrath. It’s important that we understand that when Jesus was on the cross, He took the brunt of our sins and the wrath that those sins deserve. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul says that Jesus “became sin.” Sin always incurs the wrath of God, so Christ’s willingness to become our sin meant that He absorbed the wrath that we deserved. Our sinful nature put us at odds with God from the time that we were born. That separation meant that we deserved the wrath of God. However, through Christ’s sacrifice God’s wrath was pointed away from us and onto His own Son.
Expiation
John 1:29 (TPT)
The very next day Joh saw Jesus coming to him to be baptized, and John cried out, “Look! There he is-God’s Lamb! He will take away the sins of the world!”
Expiation means “to remove.” When Christ laid down His life on the cross, he did so in order to remove our sins. This doesn’t mean that we won’t sin. Christ’s sacrifice didn’t take away the presence of sin from the world. Instead, it gave us the ability to repent of those sins and have them removed from our record in Heaven. Romans 14:12 says that one day we will all give an account for every deed that we perform while we’re on Earth. Because of the expiation offered by Christ’s sacrifice, God will not see our sinful deeds. Instead, He will simply see the sacrifice that His son made for us.
Victory
Colossians 2:15 (TPT)
Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away form them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his!
The death of Jesus Christ, while seeming like a defeat on the surface, was actually a victory over the forces of darkness. Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life for all of his 33-plus years on Earth. However, if He had simply been supernaturally transported back to Heaven after those 33 years, the job would not have been completed. The battle for humanity’s soul would not have been won if He had not accepted the cross and suffered the shame.
The Bible teaches us that the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Death was the natural byproduct of sin. That doesn’t simply refer to the passing from this life into eternity. Instead, the Bible discusses the second death which is eternal separation from God (Revelation 21:8). That death had long held the victory over humanity because it was impossible for humans to earn their way into God’s presence. When Christ tasted death, He defeated it on the first Easter when He resurrected with the victory. That victory is now offered to us!
Reconciliation
Romans 5:10 (TPT)
So if while were still enemies, God fully reconciled us to himself through the death of his Son, then something greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, and because we share in his resurrection life, how much more will we be rescued from sin’s dominion! And even more than that, we overflow with triumphant joy in our new relationship of living reconciled to God-all because of Jesus Christ!
Take a moment and picture the Grand Canyon. At its widest point, the Grand Canyon is 18 miles wide. To put that in perspective, that’s over 95,000 feet. Now imagine God standing on one side of the chasm while you stand on the other. You can see God and you realize that your only chance of experiencing true joy, peace and eternal life is getting to the side of the Grand Canyon where He is. How do you do it?
Jumping would be futile. Unless you’re Superman and have some type of hidden ability to leap over buildings in a single bound, you probably can’t long jump the 95,000-plus feet that stand between you and God. Maybe you can hike across. That’s a noble idea, and it may just work! Assuming you can get down the steep sides of the canyon, survive the terrain and then make your way up the other side. Wouldn’t it be easier if there was a bridge?
The cross of Calvary provided a bridge that spanned the gap between humanity and God. For thousands of years, God stood on one side of eternity and begged for humanity to come to Him. However, until the cross, the only way for humanity to do that was through a ritualistic set of rules and sacrifices. The fact that those rules couldn’t be kept furthered the need for the cross. The cross reconciles us to God. It filled in the expanse that stood between us and God, creating a way for us to get to Him while He comes to us. You may never be able to jump across the Grand Canyon, but because of the cross, we don’t have to.
Redemption
The concept of redeeming goes back to ancient days when a person would be forced into slavery because of a debt that they owed. The Bible has several stories of people who were unable to repay a debt and were forced to “work off” what they owed to a creditor. Under ancient law, a person could step in and pay that debt on behalf of the enslaved person. The creditor would accept the payment and the slave would be free. The enslaved person was then said to have been “redeemed.” Peter compared that practice to what was done for us on the cross.
1 Peter 1:18-19 (TPT)
For you know that your lives were ransomed once and for all from the empty and futile way of life handed down from generation to generation. It was not a ransom payment of silver and gold, which eventually perishes, but the precious blood of Christ-who like a spotless, unblemished lamb was sacrificed for us.
Before we accept the gift of salvation, we are indebted to our sinful nature. Because of that debt, we are slaves to sin (Romans 6:20). However, Christ, through His blood paid that debt for us, freeing us from the bondage of sin over our lives.
While Good Friday was a day of death, sadness and mourning, there was a great deal of good that came out of it. We are able to walk in the newness of life because of the price that Christ paid on Good Friday.
A Closing Prayer:
Lord, thank You for the sacrifice that was made on Good Friday. I stand in awe of the fact that You embraced the thorns, the beatings, the mockery, the loneliness and the cross in order to provide a way for me to be forgiven. Help me to walk in the freedom that Your death has made possible, never to return to the bondage of sin. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen!