By Elizabeth Prata
Holy Week is that period between Psalm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday. It is a period rightly somber, and many Christians meditate on the meaning of the different things Jesus did in His last week of earthly life.
The Gospels were not written chronologically so it is hard to exactly tell when Jesus did what during that specific week, except for Thursday. Yesterday was the day Jesus washed the disciples’ feet,(John 13:3–17), established the Lord’s Supper, (Luke 22:19–20), and was the evening of His betrayal and arrest. (John 18,John 19,Isaiah 52:13-53:12). Also, today we know Jesus was crucified.
Today is known as “Good Friday”. What is ‘good’ about it? What can possibly be good about an innocent man executed in the most brutal way, making Him a spectacle? What is good about death and the cross? What is good about a perversion of justice, where betrayers are monetarily rewarded and notorious murderers set free?
That is the finite, human view. What is ‘good’ to us is quite different in God’s economy. It was good that the Son willingly left glory to incarnate on earth, live all the phases of a human male until an adult, and teach and preach truths for 3 years. It was good that the Son submitted to the Father’s will for all His life, including death on a cross. It was good he was sinless and sacrificed Himself for those who would believe or we would all be doomed to God’s wrath for our sin in hell for all eternity. Now, anyone who will repent and believe will enjoy the gift of eternal life. All this is good.
He laid down His life for us. He was stripped, nailed, and speared. Why? For us. His love for us. His love for the world. Spurgeon says in his sermon, The Death of Christ for His People,
Come, now, my soul, and worship this man, this God. Come, believer, and behold thy Saviour; come to the innermost circle of all sanctity, the circle that contains the cross of Christ, and here sit down; and, whilst thou dost worship, learn three lessons from the fact that “he laid down his life for us.”
The first lesson should be,—Did he lay down his life for us? Ah! then, my brethren, how great must have been our sins that they could not have been atoned for at any other price!
Secondly, did he lay down his life for us? Ah! then, beloved, how great must have been his love! He would not stop short anywhere, until life itself had been resigned.
Thirdly, did he lay down his life for us? Ah! then, my soul, be of good cheer; how safe art thou! If such an atonement hath been offered, if such a sure satisfaction hath been given to Almighty God, how secure thou art! Who is he that can destroy him who hath been bought with the blood of such a Redeemer?
The cross of Jesus is all in all. Paul preached about the cross 19 times in the Gospels, said Horatius Bonar in his essay The Cross of the Lord Jesus.
Bonar wrote “The crucifixion transformed the evil into good.” Bonar unpacks each of these in his essay, but for brevity’s sake here are the themes:
One. It is the place of propitiation (Lev 16:15; Rom 3:25). The altar was there for the burnt-offering. The place without the gate for the sin-offering was there. He “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1Pe 2:24). The sin-bearing work was completed there when the cry went up, “It is finished” (Joh 19:30).
Two. It is the meeting-place (Exo 29:42). It is the place where we meet with God, and God meets with us in friendship, and love, and joy.
Three. It is the place of love. God’s love is there, shining in its full brightness, unhindered and undimmed. “God so loved the world” (Joh 3:16) gets its interpretation at the Cross.
Four. It is the place of acceptance. Here we become “accepted in the beloved” (Eph 1:6). Here the exchange takes place between the perfect and the imperfect.
Bonar goes on to explain 20 accomplishments of the cross. He summed up-
The right knowledge of the Cross is everything to a sinner; and error respecting it must be fatal. It is by the knowledge of Himself and of His Cross that the Father’s righteous Servant justifies many; and to be ignorant of the Cross is to be ignorant of that which justifies. To be in error as to that Cross is to be in error as to that in virtue of which God forgiveth sin and receives the sinner into favor.
To add anything to that Cross is to destroy its efficacy as well as to deny its completeness; to take anything from it is to rob it of its saving virtue. It can only save as it stands—the perfection of God’s wisdom and the revelation of His righteous grace.
It is finished.
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