The significance of a person’s death depends largely on two things: who they are and what caused them to die. Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, is the Christian day to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus and His death at Calvary. Jesús willingly suffered and died by crucifixion as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10). Still, why call the day of Jesus’ death “Good Friday” instead of “Mourning Friday” or something similar? Some Christian traditions take this approach: in Malayalam, for example, the day is called “Thukkavelliyacha”, or “Sorrowful Friday.” In English, the origin of the term “Good” is debated: some believe it developed from an older name, “God’s Friday.” Regardless of the origin, the name Good Friday is entirely appropriate because the suffering and death of Jesus, as terrible as it was, marked the dramatic culmination of God’s plan to save his people from their sins.
Jesus’ death was and continues to be significant first because, although a real man, He was not a mere man but God “revealed in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). D.A. Carson wrote, "It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will—and it was his love for sinners like me." It is a good day because he traded places for you and for me. It is a good day because it was the day he conquered sin and death so that we will never be apart from God on this side of heaven or the other.
Beyond etymology, Good Friday can be called “good” because of the results of Christ’s death on the cross. Jesus’ sacrifice was a demonstration of God’s love for us (Romans 5:8). Through Jesus’ death, we can have peace with God: “While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). As 1 Peter 3:18 says, “Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.”
We call Good Friday good for several reasons. First, we remember that Good Friday did not end on that Friday. We had Resurrection Sunday a few days later to look forward to. It is good in the sense that we anticipate what will come to pass days later. Secondly, we call Good Friday good because we cannot have the Good News of the Gospel without the bad news of sin first. Good Friday helps us to realize the gravity of our sinful nature and how much we need a Savior. People do not need good news unless they have endured something bad before. Ever since Jesus died and was raised, Christians have proclaimed the cross and resurrection of Jesus to be the decisive turning point for all creation. Paul considered it “of first importance” that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and was raised to life on the third day, following what God had promised in the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3).
The Bible tells us that it was a failure on the part of humanity to keep God’s perfect standard that brought in death: “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). It also tells us that Jesus, the Son of God, “committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:22); more than that, “in Him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5). Death, therefore, had no claim on Him. When the right moment came, He surrendered His own life: “No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily” (John 10:18).The Jewish leaders condemned Jesus to death under the charge of blasphemy, because He was claiming to be God: “he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7). However, the charge was false, because He was the Son of God, equal with God the Father (John 10:30), and His resurrection on the third day proved it: “declared to be the Son of God . . . by his resurrection” (Romans 1:4).
On Good Friday, we remember the day Jesus willingly suffered and died by crucifixion as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins (1 John 1:10). Easter follows it, the glorious celebration of the day Jesus was raised from the dead, heralding his victory over sin and death and pointing ahead to a future resurrection for all who are united to him by faith (Romans 6:5).
For the gospel's good news to have meaning for us, we first must understand the bad news of our condition as sinful people under condemnation. The good news of deliverance only makes sense once we see how we were enslaved. Another way of saying this is that it is essential to understand and distinguish between law and gospel in Scripture. We need the law first to show us how hopeless our condition is; then, the gospel of Jesus’ grace brings us relief and salvation. In the same way, Good Friday is “good” because, as terrible as that day was, it had to happen for us to receive the joy of Easter.
The remarkable thing about the death of Jesus is that, although Jesus was sinless, His death was because of sin – the sin of others. He died to satisfy God’s wrath against human sin. The wrath of God against sin had to be poured out on Jesus, the perfect sacrificial substitute, for forgiveness and salvation to be poured out to the nations. Without that awful day of suffering, sorrow, and blood at the cross, God could not be both “just and the justifier” of those who trust in Jesus (Romans 3:26). Paradoxically, the day that seemed to be the greatest triumph of evil was the death blow in God’s gloriously good plan to redeem the world from bondage.
When Jesus died, he did something very significant. He died to take your place. He stood where you deserve to stand. He hung where you deserve to hang. He died the death that you deserve to die. He fully, personally, and directly received on himself the punishment that you rightly deserve to receive for your sins. But instead of you receiving this punishment for yourself, Jesus became your substitute. He took your place. He received on him the punishment that you deserved.
Paul alludes to this when he wrote, “He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5:21).” The little English word for in the phrase “sin for us” is used for a Greek word which means “in the place of.” You could read this verse in this way: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin in our place.”
The cross is where we see the convergence of great suffering and God’s forgiveness. Psalms 85:10 sings of a day when “righteousness and peace” will “kiss each other.” The cross of Jesus is where that occurred, where God’s demands, his righteousness, coincided with his mercy. We receive divine forgiveness, mercy, and peace because Jesus willingly took our divine punishment, resulting from God’s righteousness against sin. “For the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). In another place, Paul uses this word when he says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). Jesus endured the cross on Good Friday, knowing it led to his resurrection, our salvation, and the beginning of God’s reign of righteousness and peace.
What was the price Jesus paid for our freedom? Peter teaches, “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ” (Eph 1:7; 1 Pet 1:18-19). Jesus paid the most expensive price. Nothing is more precious or priceless than this. For what were you redeemed? You were redeemed so that you would do good works, the kind which are genuinely good (Tit 2:14). Furthermore, you were redeemed so that you would someday be received into the family of God for eternity as a child of God. The Bible calls this “the adoption of sons” (Gal 4:5). Ultimately, you have been redeemed, liberated, and purchased out from the slave market of sin so that you will glorify and serve the God who loves you (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23). Jesus not only died to be your substitute and to redeem you from enslavement to sin (and the consequences of sin). He also died to appease God’s wrath towards sinners, including you. John tells us, “He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2).
Propitiation is an important theological and doctrinal word. It means “to satisfy the wrath of another person by means of an offering or a gift.” Jesus died to restore peace between God and sinners. Paul describes this concept in this way, “All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18). Reconciliation means “to restore peace between two opposing, hostile parties.” By nature, every person is hostile towards God. But your hostility to God is unlike the kind that often exists between two people or two groups of people.
According to Romans 5:1, those who believe that Jesus is their Savior — that He died in their place, satisfying God’s wrath against them — will experience peace with God.
Death and resurrection are two important events in the life of Jesus and the life of the church. Jesus, the Christ, the King of the Jews, God who became man in the womb of the virgin Mary, died one Friday afternoon between two criminals. He had lived obediently to God the Father, worked miracles to demonstrate the power of a coming kingdom, spoke of a day when God would judge the nations, painted word pictures of blessedness and abundance; suffered under the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died, and was buried. Yet, the Sunday morning following the Friday of his death, Jesus rose, passing from death to life.
Through death, Jesus defeated Sin, death, the devil, and the rebellious world.
The authorities took great care to guard His body. His own disciples were not expecting a resurrection, but later preached it with conviction. He appeared to more than five hundred people at once, many of whom, at the time of the record of it, were available for questioning. These facts alone combine to produce compelling evidence that, having died on the cross, Jesus rose again on the third day. This was the beginning of God’s victory over rebellion, God’s victory over death, and God’s victory over the demonic powers that hold men and women captive to self-worship, cruelty, and hate. We need not feel sorry for him. He willingly gave himself up. He voluntarily died. Paul taught, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col. 2:15).
Paul taught, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14). Through trusting Jesus, you receive his life in exchange for yours. His death becomes your death. His suffering becomes your suffering. His condemnation under God’s law becomes your condemnation under God’s law.
If you trust in Jesus, God looks at you as one who has already died, as one whose sin has already been punished, as one whose life is seen as the perfection that Christ attained. God sees you this way because he sees Jesus in your place. Jesus lived as a substitute for sinners. He lived in your place. He died in your place. He rose from the dead as victor over death. And in the same way, you and I who trust in Jesus will rise from the dead as victors over death.
In the Old Testament, God pictured Christ’s death through the ritual of circumcision. In circumcision, a part of human flesh was cut off, portraying what God must do to sinners. In the New Testament, water baptism pictures sinners passing from death to life. The apostle Paul, making use of these two images, wrote,
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col. 2:11 12) It is tangible evidence of what God will accomplish for those who trust in Jesus. Through faith in Christ, together with Christ, we become conquerors waiting for the final victory of the resurrection.
