GOOD Friday?

Roughly 2,000 years ago the only perfect being that ever walked this earth
was put to death. Prior to His last breath, our Lord was mocked, beaten, spat upon,
ridiculed and treated with utter contempt and disdain. Furthering the heinousness
of the event, He was then nailed to a cross, and strung up to die a prisoner’s death.
Fast forward to our current day and most evangelical, Bible believing Christians,
celebrate this event in Biblical history as “Good Friday”. But what is “Good” about this day?

Is “Good” an accurate way of describing what took place?
Giving a defense for the faith we have been given provides one of the great platforms to which we can proclaim the glorious truths of God. Our apologetic efforts will be tested by those outside the church as well as those within the church. Thus, we must be able to properly articulate our reason for celebrating “Good Friday”.

The new life that true, genuine, believers have in Christ is one that rests firmly upon the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. At the cross at Calvary, the greatest act of love was displayed, as the sinless Christ took upon Himself the wrath of God upon our sin. You see, the reason it was the greatest act of love is because we are the ones who benefited greatly from that atoning work of Christ. However, we are also the ones who have nothing to offer God, nothing to give. In fact, the only thing we have to offer is the very thing in which the wrath
of God was pointedly directed toward, sin. John Stott put it this way “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.” The cross was the very necessary means by which Christ would make a full payment for sin, to be the propitiation for the wrath of God upon all unrighteousness. Hebrews 10:11-18 describes this work as a single sacrifice for collective sins, both granting forgiveness as well as eliminating the need for any further sacrifices. Romans 5 explains that our being reconciled to God was accomplished solely through the cross of Christ.

Without the cross of Christ there would be no Christianity, for there would be no forgiveness of sins. If there was no forgiveness of sins, no one would be brought out of spiritual death, for there would be nothing to be brought forth to.  If there was no cross of Christ, Paul would have had nothing to preach and neither would you or I (1 Corinthians 2:2). We would be dead in our sins, separated from God, and hopelessly lost. Brothers and sisters it is for those reasons that we rejoice in the cross of Christ and can proclaim with confidence that it was and is a very “Good Friday.” Because this is the day our Savior died so that we could have life. Praise God for the cross, proclaim the cross, share the Good News that points people to the very foot of the cross, looking unto Jesus, the King of Kings.

By His Grace And For His Glory,

Pastor Sam