A Good Friday Reflection

The Trial of Jesus calls for a judgment. - What is your judgment?

How do we evaluate the so-called “Son of God”? When he stands before us, do we take the judgment seat?

Pilate, we are told, “sat in the judgment seat.” He was asked to give a verdict, to give a sentence based on that verdict.

Pilate wasn’t the first to get a chance to sit in judgment over Jesus. The Gospels tell us that Religious leaders, Herod and the crowd also were giving their verdicts. Jesus was a very judged man. And in the end, everyone who sat in judgment over Christ, didn’t get what they wanted from Him.

Before Jesus got to Pilate, the Religious Leaders had judged Jesus guilty! They were tired of Jesus calling them, the most religious people in the whole society, Jesus was calling them: sinners along with everyone else! They not only followed the Law (as they understood it) and even new parts of the law they made up! How offensive is that to be told your piety isn’t good enough!

Before Jesus got to Pilate finally, Herod had judged Jesus guilty…of not being entertaining enough. Herod demanded a sign! He wanted signs and miracles just for him. He wanted a Santa Claus, giving him goodies. And when Jesus was silent to that request, when Jesus didn’t answer his prayer for goodies, Herod was done with Jesus.

Now, Finally, Pilate sat in judgment over Jesus, but didn’t really find a problem with Jesus, so it seemed. But everybody else seemed to. So Pilate says with his lips that he doesn’t find guilt with Jesus, and then Pilate does what to an innocent man? Pilate has Him tortured. Mocks Him, makes Him the center of ridicule. Which lied, his lips or his actions?

When the crowd, when everyone else wants to be rid of Jesus, when the world is found to cry for his death, when it might be costly and hard to declare the truth about Jesus…Pilate asks “What is truth?”

Pilate denies Truth itself, standing in front of him, Pilate has the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE in front of him, and sends him down the WAY of the Via Delarosa, he lies about the TRUTH, and he sentences LIFE to death.

The Neutrality and apathy of a Pilate, always finds itself crucifying Christ. The fence sitters, seem always to find themselves right along with the crowd when it comes down to the real choice that was before them. The choice was between the INNOCENCE of Jesus or their own INNOCENCE.

Pilate starts by saying “I see no crime in him! He seems innocent,” but ends with saying, “I am innocent of his blood! I wash my hands!” 

Pilate couldn’t be neutral. And neither can you. In the end: only one can be innocent. The Trial of Jesus calls for judgment. All men, in one way or another, attend the trial of Christ. They are asked, as Jesus did to his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

Your verdict on that question, is the most important question you will ever answer. Who do you say Jesus is?

Is He the Son of God? If not, the religious leaders were right to declare him guilty.

Is He supposed to be Santa Claus? If so, Herod is right to dismiss Him when he doesn’t get his every request.

Is He to be the popular King? The cool friend? If so, then Pilate is right to deliver him to the crowd, when the world rejects Christ.

Pilate sat in the judgment seat and made his verdict known. Pilate was more concerned to declare Pilate’s innocence. In fact, everyone there thought they were innocent!

That’s what makes an innocent verdict so hard to pronounce over Jesus. If Jesus is innocent, then what he says is true. When He says He came for sinners, and points to you, either you are a sinner He came for, or He is a lying sinner for saying: you are a sinner.

It comes down to this: Either Jesus was innocent or you are. Which is it?

Are we wrong when we sit in judgment over Jesus for not confirming us, telling us “Good job applying the law to others and not yourself! Good job following your own rules and not God’s!” Are we guilty for dismissing Jesus when he doesn’t do this, or is Jesus guilty?

Are we in the wrong when we sit in judgment over Jesus because he doesn’t give us a all WE want? Are we guilty for treating Jesus like Santa Claus, or is Jesus guilty for not being our personal Santa Claus?

Are we in the wrong for ignoring Christ, for saying we don’t find guilt in him, but in the end, not concerning ourselves with Christ crucified when the world is found to be against him? Are we guilty for going along with the world, or is Jesus guilty for not being what the world wants?

The trial of Jesus demands a judgment. What is yours? Do you sit in judgment over Jesus? Or does he stand in judgment FOR you?

Just know this: Jesus only stands in judgment for the guilty! The minute you say “I am innocent” is the minute you cry out “Jesus is the guilty one! Crucify Him!”

Is Christ’s rightful place on the cross, or is yours? Before the cross is what Christ took in your place, you must see your rightful place is on the cross.

The story of the trial and death of Jesus is not a tragedy. The story of the passion is not in order to parade before you the man Jesus to pity. It is the story of the God-man Jesus Christ having pity on you. It is the story of Jesus saying to the Father “Forgive them.” The Father saying “Only if I forsake you.” And Jesus saying, “Your Will be done.” It is the story of Jesus then saying to the penalty that hung over us: “It is finished.”

It is the story of what you deserved, and what Jesus took for you. Only then, can you see the good in Good Friday.

I’ll tell you the good I see in this Friday: In the cross of Christ, there is my judgment, as He takes my cross, the cross I earned, the cross I deserved, and He bares it in love for me and His Father.

The Trial of Jesus calls for a judgment. Who is the guilty one? My judgment: I AM guilty. What is your judgment?

Prayer: Father, for the sake of the Pure and Spotless Lamb of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.

Justice and Mercy

There have been a lot of replies to Rob Bell's video "asking questions" leading towards Universalism. I really like this one though. Instead of hitting on "love" vaguely defined, it hits on justice, defined and satisfied:

Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love...

Genesis 22:1-2 - After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”



I am teaching a Sunday School lesson on Genesis 22 and thought I would offer a few thoughts here.

We read this narrative and think:

“How can it be that God would require Abraham to sacrifice his all, his prosperity, his full love of his heart, his treasure, his son?!”

We see Abraham’s detailed meticulous preparation, over a long period of time, readying the sacrifice, preparing for the place and time of the sacrifice of his son for the sin’s of Adam’s race.

Yet, at the last moment, God stays Abraham’s arm and provides a substitute. A male sheep, a ram, a lamb of God.

But the Lamb was not the final substitute. The sacrifices continue throughout the story of the Old Testament.

Finally, when we reach the New Testament, we have a repetition of the themes of Genesis 22:

Genesis 22:2 He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…

Matthew 3:17 And behold! A voice out of the heaven saying, “This is My Son, my Beloved, in whom I have been delighting.”
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Genesis 22:6 “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went up both of them together.”

John 19:17 and [Jesus] went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.
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Genesis 22:8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

John 1:29 The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

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Genesis 22:12b – “for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

John 3:16-17 "For God loved the world in this way, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
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As Tim Keller put it: “And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”

We began asking:

“How can it be that God would require Abraham to sacrifice his all, his prosperity, his full love of his heart, his treasure, his son?!”

Now we are wondering:

“How can it be that God would supply what he required of Abraham, to sacrifice His all, His prosperity, His full love of His heart, His treasure, His Son?!”

The story of the Old Testament is God’s detailed meticulous preparation, over a long period of time, readying the sacrifice, preparing for the place and time of the sacrifice of His Son for the sins of Adam’s race.

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior's blood!
Died he for me? who caused his pain!
For me? who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Torrance on Suffering and Incarnation

Lately I've been thinking about the problem of pain, suffering, and evil as related to God. In pastoral matters, it seems that God's sovereignty has a component, but left alone is insufficient when dealing with the topic. Ultimately, the answer to the problem of pain, suffering and evil is the Incarnation (and the Atonement). That lead me back again to Torrance's masterful work on the Incarnation which (despite its few errors) is so wonderful on the Incarnation:

"The agony of Jesus - and how he was constrained until it was accomplished - was that he was the judging God and the judged man at the same time, the electing God and the elected man at the same time, and in this unspeakable tension he remained absolutely faithful as the Son of God and Son of Man." (113)

"[Christ] stooped to shoulder our weakness, astheneia, and to bear it as our high priest, as our shepherd priest before God, so that by his stripes we are healed. The term astheneia on the pages of the New Testament is a profound term speaking of the disease of the body and of the soul, and so his compassion met the double need of the sick and the sinful." (134)

"'From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence'...How does the kingdom of God press in, how does it storm into the hearts of men and women? By the cross. But the cross is the kingdom of God suffering violence, and there we that the weakness of God is stronger than man, so that the preaching of this cross, where the kingdom suffers violence, is the power of God...like Elijah, John had misunderstood the violence of God and was offended at the weakness of Jesus, but in Jesus the still small voice of God has become flesh, and that was more powerful than all the imaginable forces of nature put together and unleashed in their fury" (149-150)

T.F. Torrance. Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ

Hymn: It is Finished

Jonathan Evans was a Congregational minister who penned this hymn, variously called "It is Finished" for its contemplation of those words and "Hark! the voice of love and mercy" for the first line:

Hark! the voice of love and mercy
by Jonathan Evans

Hark, the voice of love and mercy,
Sounds aloud from Calvary!
See, it rends the rocks asunder,
Shakes the earth and veils the sky!
“It is finished, It is finished,”
Hear the dying Savior cry.

“It is finished,” O what pleasure,
Do these charming words afford.
Heavenly blessings, without measure,
Flow to us from Christ the Lord.
“It is finished, it is finished,”
Saints the dying words record.

Finished all the types and shadows,
Of the ceremonial law;
Finished all that God had promised;
Death and hell no more shall awe.
“It is finished, it is finished,”
Saints from hence your comfort draw.

Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs;
Join to sing the pleasing theme;
Saints on earth and all in heaven,
Join to praise Immanuel’s name.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Glory to the bleeding lamb!