What’s good about Good Friday?

Jesus told us to repent and to believe the “Good News” (which is what the word “Gospel” means). But we may well ask, what’s so good about this Good News? And why at Easter do we celebrate the day Jesus suffered the awful agony of his crucifixion, as “Good Friday”?

Jesus’ coming into the world should be seen as the greatest act of kindness possible for our holy Creator who is also our loving Saviour. Why? Because instead of intervening in human history to bring cataclysmic judgment for human sins, he came, Jesus affirmed, “to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19.10). 

Now anyone with a sensitive conscience can see two things: they are not perfectly righteous, but rather guilty of many sins; and that before a holy and righteous divine Judge, they cannot say they have been so good as to deserve heaven. So facing the coming of the divine Son of God is a fearful prospect. Yet when Jesus did come into the world, he said, “I came not to judge the world but to save the world” (John 12.47).

In the Bible we read these astounding words with a universal scope: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1.15). I had to acknowledge that I was a sinner in God’s sight; but as I did so, I realised that therefore Jesus came into the world to save me. (And you can have the same assurance).

Jesus’ way of saving sinners can be considered in two stages: first of all, our sin has to be paid for, for we are guilty in God’s eyes. But the only way we can pay is in hell for ever – that’s what our sins deserve. But Jesus came in order to pay for our sins. He did this by suffering our hell, condensed in his infinite person as he suffered on the cross. The God-forsakenness of hell is what Jesus suffered as well as the physical horror of crucifixion, for as he bore our sin, he cried out, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

We cannot fathom the depth of what Jesus suffered, but the Bible sums it up: “He bore our sins in his body on the cross… Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 2.24, 3.18). Without our just punishment being borne out of love by our saviour, we could never be justly forgiven. That’s why Good Friday was Good News!

But then, to be forgiven and saved, every individual must appropriate it for themselves. It is not automatically given to everyone. The way to receive it is to repent (see previous blog) and to “receive Christ” as your personal Lord and Saviour. That’s what “believing in Christ” really means: not just believing that he existed, or that he came from God, though that is essential. But also believing that Jesus’ death on the cross paid for your salvation and that he rose from the tomb, showing God’s full approval of his saving work; and then coming in prayer to Jesus to ask him, “Come into my life and be my Lord and Saviour; I thank you for loving me so much as to die for my salvation; in return I will follow you and live for you and grow in faith to love and trust you more and more as I read your word”. You may count on Jesus to answer that prayer as you commit yourself sincerely to him.