Good Friday

This Friday, March 29th, is Good Friday. I’ve been in church for forty years and I’ve never been a part of a church that had Good Friday services until I church planted in Greenville in 2011. God put in on my heart to have Good Friday Services to meditate on the suffering of the Son of God. All the churches I was a part of on my grace journey put a lot of effort into their Easter Services, which I’m all for. But before we celebrate the glorious resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, let’s remember his glorious death in our place, for our sin.

Propitiation. This a word that is found only 4 times in the New Testament (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). It’s interesting that this word appears twice in 1 John, the beloved apostle who speaks more of God’s love than anyone.

But, you can’t speak of God’s love apart from the cross.

This is the Greek word Hilasmos. It is a fairly controversial word when it comes to translating it into English. Most English translations translate that word as expiation, or sacrifice of atonement.

The ESV gets it right. They translate Hilasmos - propitiation, which means the wrath of God is absorbed; satisfied; pacified; appeased. Many translators think translating this word as propitiation makes God look capricious in nature, and no different from the Roman and Greek gods of that day. But, Scripture speaks of God’s anger against sin. God’s anger, however, isn’t capricious in nature, because God’s nature is not changing or subject to change based on circumstance. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is immutable; unchanging.

Most people don’t like to talk or think about God’s anger and wrath. But Scripture speaks some 400 times of God’s wrath and some 200 times of His anger. But His anger is good. It reveals His holiness. It reveals His character, His nature, and His Justice. And the Cross reveals His love. That’s what 1 John 4:7-12 tells us.

Good Friday is about meditating on these truths, praying and acknowledging the holiness of God, the grossness of sin, and the beauty of justice and mercy kissing at the cross when Jesus appeased the wrath of God so we might go from being children of wrath (Eph. 2:3) to children of God (John 1:12-13; Eph. 1:4-5). Only those in Christ are truly God’s children.

Good Friday is about prayerful meditation and fasting, and for some, penance. There is a group of people in the Philippines every year on Good Friday that scourge themselves and hang themselves on a cross to try to identify with Jesus and somehow punish themselves for their sin. This is folklore superstitious religion. Jesus took our punishment, in our place, for our sin. No sort of minimal or maximal self-punishment can begin to compare to the gruesome scourging and sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God.

Isaiah 52:14

[14] As many were astonished at you—

his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

Most people think Jesus got 40 minus 1 lashes. That was Jewish law. Jesus was tried and convicted of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin which is punishable by death, but they had no authority to exercise that because they were under Roman rule. The Romans had their own laws. That’s why they brought Jesus before Pilate- the governor of Judea. He could not find fault in Jesus so he delivered him over to be scourged. This was certainly unlike the Jewish flogging. This was where they beat you for sport, until they got tired; then they’d rest and beat you some more. Jesus was beaten beyond human semblance; to the point of flesh being ripped from his body and vital organs being exposed.

Churches and Christians don’t do enough to commemorate Good Friday. We rush to get to Easter so we can put on our new outfits, do Easter baskets, and go to our all-out Easter services shouting and celebrating the Resurrection. I’m all for celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus which is the crowning moment of Christianity and the sealing proof of the deity of Jesus.

But we need to give His suffering the same energy. His glory and power is also seen at the cross, in his death. When he shouted, “It is finished!”

And that is what I’ll preach on this Good Friday - tetelestai - It is Finished!