Good Friday is Far Better than We can Imagine

John 10:14 - 18 (RSV) ¹⁴I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me,  ¹⁵as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.  ¹⁶And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.  ¹⁷For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.  ¹⁸No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.” 

2 Corinthians  5:21 (RSV) ²¹For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

1 Peter 3:18 (RSV) ¹⁸For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;  

The words “vicarious” and “substitutionary” describe the traditional understanding of Jesus’ death. The word “vicarious” is more commonly used in daily parlance. When we read a good novel, we might feel what a character feels, we might share in their love life, their heroic escapades, and even their pain and shame. We live vicariously through them. This is purely psychological. We may read an account of some character falling off a building. We may feel their fright as they plummet to the ground, and experience the shock of impact, but we are not injured by their fall. The experience is merely vicarious. 

While a vicarious experience is subjective, to become a substitute for another is objective. For the liberal, they would say that “it was as though Jesus became sin for us.” That is subjective or imaginary. To say, “He was made to be sin” is real life and an objective reality. Jesus died a real death so that your sins are placed on him. This is clearly what the Scriptures teach.

 

In combat, a soldier might jump on a hand grenade so that his body takes the full explosion to save his comrades. This is a substitutionary sacrifice. To make it come closer to matching Jesus’ death, it would be necessary for the soldier to leave a safe place, that is, to choose death when he could have lived. Another example is a mother sacrificing her life during childbirth, so her newborn could live. As profoundly inspiring as such human sacrifice is, its benefit is temporal and limited. When Jesus died for the sins of the Elect, he died “once for all.” His blood was shed, as our creed says, “for us and for our salvation.” 

Beyond the glorious substitution, there is also an act of creature / Creator reconciliation. When Jesus suffers and dies “for us and our salvation” he does so as an eternal transaction between the Second Person of the Trinity and the First Person of the Trinity. Jesus satisfies the Covenant of Redemption, he thereby gives birth to the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant is between the Father and the Son, the second is between God and the Elect.

 

Men may flee from the sunlight to dark and musty caves of the earth, but they cannot put out the sun. So men may in any dispensation despise the grace of God, but they cannot extinguish it. A. W. Tozer (1897–1963) 

God giveth his wrath by weight, but his mercy without measure. Sir Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) 

God of all mercy is a God unjust. Edward Young (1683–1765)

 

God did not abolish the fact of evil; he transformed it. He did not stop the Crucifixion; he rose from the dead. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957)

He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will. William Cowper (1731–1800)