Isaiah 53
It is my joy and ah pleasure to open the word of God with all of you this evening for our Good Friday service. And tonight I wanted to speak to something that Josh already mentioned. And there’s something that I hear this time of, of year, whether it’s a meme floating around or even Christians saying it. But every year you hear the question, why do we call this day Good Friday? Why do we call Good Friday a good? And at the heart of this question for many Christians is the love that we feel towards our Savior and his suffering and his death.
We wouldn’t want anyone that we love to be put through that, and that’s at the heart of our thinking. We are genuinely distraught as we think of our Lord despised and hung on a tree, and it is good that we are bothered by that. But we cannot just sentimentalize Jesus as an object of love in our hearts that when we look back at his crucifixion, we say that it was not good.
That is to say, we must guard against thinking about this holiday, this day of celebration, with mere feelings, and think, oh, I wish Jesus didn’t have to go through that. This kind of sentimentalizing is no mere misstep. Matthew recorded in his gospel of Peter’s good confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then right after Peter’s confession, Jesus affirmed this. And Jesus went on to tell them that he must suffer many things and die and the third day rise from the dead. But then Peter, with this sentimentality of wanting to keep Jesus safe, keep the Savior, the Messiah safe, Peter, he takes Jesus aside privately and he begins to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it Lord, that this should ever happen to you.
And you remember Jesus’ famous words from Matthew 16:23. Jesus said. He turned and he looked at Peter and he said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” And when we look back and we feel bad that Jesus had to die, we are not looking at the world through the lens of Scripture. We are not looking at the world with God’s interests in mind. We aren’t even looking at the world with our own interests in mind, but rather just a sentimental feeling that we wish to, Jesus didn’t have to go through that.
But the reason that this is, as Jesus called it out in Peter, a satanic mindset, is because this Good Friday is the whole reason Jesus came to the earth. This was his mission to come and to die and to save a people for himself. The moment that Jesus breathed his last breath, when all the disciples thought that it was over, heaven rejoiced with a celebration of mission accomplished. Jesus finished on the cross that which he came to do. He won. He defeated sin and death.
Do we ever watch an Olympic Awards ceremony or even the Super Bowl awards ceremony and stand there and feel sorry for the people who won because of all the pain and discipline it took to get there? As Travis mentioned, this crucifixion, this was the plan to put away sin for victory and it was the victory, this victory that Jesus won, breathing his last breath on the cross.
Peter recounts after Jesus resurrection preaching the Gospel he tells the Jews, in Acts, chapter 2:22-24. He said, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of lawless men and put him to death. But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power.”
This was the plan of redemption. It was decreed by God the Father from before time began, executed by the sun here. And Hebrews 12:2 tells us that it was, “for the joy set before him that he endured the cross.” So as we remember this day, what Jesus Christ did, let us think God’s thoughts after him and remember this day rightly, not feeling sorry for Jesus, but seeing him as the victor in the greatest contest ever, putting sin and death away. And to reinforce our thinking on this subject, we’re going to look at Isaiah 53.
So, if you would turn your Bibles there now. But in Isaiah 53, we are going to see 10 reasons why Good Friday is good. I’ve titled this sermon The Goodness of Good Friday and we will see 10 reasons why Good Friday is good from Isaiah 53. And there, there are more in here. I paired it down to 10. As I was laying in my bed the other night, meditating on this chapter, I counted at least 15. I’m sure there’s 20, 30 that we could come up with if we thought long and hard, but I have boiled it down to 10 this evening. But let’s read Isaiah chapter 53 together.
“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrow He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastising for our peace fell upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way; But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.
“He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shears, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, That for the transgression of my people, striking was due to Him? So His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in his death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
“But Yahweh was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would place His soul as a guilt offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied, And by His knowledge the Holy One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide for Him a portion with the many, And He will divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.”
Again, as we look at this passage, we will see 10 reasons that this day is good, 10 reasons to call Good Friday good. I’m not going to give you all 10 of them up front for the sake of time, but I will try to repeat them throughout. So if you are taking notes, you’ll be able to jot them down. But overall, Isaiah 53 is all about the Christ and his suffering on the cross, The Suffering Servant. As the title in our bibles reads. It’s a part of the mystery of the Old Testament, clarified in the New, that the Messiah must first suffer for the sins of his people before he is exalted as king. And in this text we have a description of the atoning work, really, what we read in John earlier.
Some commentators say that this passage is the gospel according to Isaiah. It is the message of salvation that we all need, the good news. But with that bit of introduction, let’s get into the outline or reason number one, why Good Friday is good. First of all is because we have heard the report. Look at verse 1, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Now, I’m just gonna speak about this briefly and move on, and we’re gonna return to verse one for reason number 10 later. But for now, reason number one, why this is a good day, particularly for us, is because this report has come to us. This good news has come to us. We’ve received the gospel message. We’ve heard the report. We often take for granted, this report that we hold in our hands in our own language. There are many in our world who have not received this good news, not received this report. People who do not have this in their own language, fact that we can meet together, gather together on this evening to celebrate this day is a blessing many do not share.
But apart from this report, apart from this gospel, we all perish. We are hopeless, is where many still stand today. So first we have heard this report, and again we will return to this aspect for reason number 10. But it is good in and of itself that we have heard this, that it is repeated throughout our nation, throughout the places in the world, leading others to saving faith in this servant who suffered.
But let’s begin to elaborate on this report as we hear from Isaiah and reason number two, reason number two why Good Friday is good. He, that is Jesus Christ our Savior. He was made like us in every way. Look again at verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3. “For He grew up before him like a tender chute, and like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
The word for form there in verse 2 is a word that’s normally used to refer to someone who is handsome or beautiful in appearance, such as Rachel, Jacob’s preferred wife, the wife that Jacob loved. Or Joseph, who is so handsome, Potiphar’s wife wanted him. David, David’s wife Abigail, who is a beautiful woman. Esther, who is made queen because of her beauty. Same word used to describe all of those people who were handsome or beautiful. Here it is coupled with the word for majesty and it clearly, both of these things together refers to the fact that there was nothing about Jesus’s physical appearance, his form, that stood out. There’s nothing about his appearance that would draw the eye of men, the eye of the world.
He was just a normal person. If anything, the text describes him as less than average in appearance. There’s nothing in him that would draw the allure of the world, nothing about his appearance to attract the delight of the senses. He was just like every other average person out there, or less than average, despised. We live in a world where if you are average, you are nothing. But this was good enough for our Lord. He was made like us in every way, just another average person. But being more than, just being average in appearance, he identifies with us in every other way.
Hebrews 2:17 tells us, “He had to be made like his brothers in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiations for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is also able to come to help those who are tempted.” The beginning of verse 3 in Isaiah again says, “He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He was despised and forsaken. This was put one way by one commentator like this, “He was treated with contempt and rejection, as though he were a worthless object.”
Jesus was a man treated with contempt and rejection as though he was a worthless object, like a piece of trash to be discarded, something to be buried and put out of sight that no one wanted to see. He was made like us in every way, so he might help us. When we are treated with contempt. When you are rejected as if you were a worthless object, we find comfort that our Savior endured the same kind of treatment. That he is, the kind of High Priest who identifies with us in our weakness, he understands what we go through.
It was good that he was made like us, that he might sympathize with us in our difficulties in our trials. And beyond being despised and mistreated by men, he was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. This doesn’t necessarily speak of the crucifixion, but it speaks of Jesus’s entire life. He was characterized as a man of sorrows. Sorrows, quite literally, is a word for pain and suffering, both physical pain as well as psychic pain, inner feelings. There’s no distinction made with this word between those two things.
So sorrow refers to pain and suffering. Grief is a word that refers has the basic meaning of being sick or faint. The noun here refers to, can refer to sickness itself, or just the fainting, the faintness, that accompanies a sickness, a weakness. It can refer just to that weakness aspect in contrast to strength, or the weakness that accompanies a long journey. So taking both of these words, the sorrow is referencing the physical and mental anguish of Christ that he just lived out on this earth. But the word grief describes the effects that it had on him, the wearying effects that it had on Christ.
And no doubt the perfect son of God experienced physical and mental anguish as he walked on this sinful earth, just as we do. But I can’t imagine, none of us can imagine being perfect, having a perfect conscience, an undefiled conscience. Being exposed to sin all around us, seeing sin, and the corrupting effects on everyone. We can’t imagine the effect that that had on our Lord, the distress and the pain it caused him as he watched closely at ravaging those people around him that he loved. I mean he had compassion on person after person healing their diseases. He ministered tirelessly for years to a people who rejected him and despised him.
All of his ministry resulted in his weariness, sickness, his faintness. And we see Jesus throughout the gospel, so physically exhausted from his ministry, pouring himself out to people. In instances where he would sleep through a raging storm on a boat. He was so exhausted, the disciples were in awe of how he could sleep through it all. But this is, just describes his weariness pouring his life out for those whom he served. He scarcely had time to sleep, wearying himself, giving himself to people he was acquainted.
He knew well what it was like to be sickly, to be spent physically, even to the point of death on the cross where he no longer had the strength to push himself up, to take another breath. And it was good for our Lord to endure this, to suffer even to a greater degree than we ever will. Because it means that no matter what we go through, the pain, the sorrow, the physical exhaustion that we might experience, he knows our pain, he knows our sorrow, he knows our exhaustion. And he is there as a Savior to intercede for us, to help us as we walk through these trials, to help us walk righteously as he walked righteously.
So number two Good Friday is good because it was good that he was made like us in every way. Number three Good Friday is good because he bore our sin and shame. Look at the end of verse 3 and into verse 4. “Like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.” And you can add to this just combining. Look down at verse 12 that says “Yet He Himself bore the sin of many.”
Crucifixion was not only physically brutal, but it was absolutely humiliating, as you would be stripped naked and hung, publicly exposed for all to see. It was the most humiliating, degrading, dehumanizing form of punishment. It was the punishment that we all deserve for our sin. It was the shame that we all deserve to feel for our sin against a holy God. Yet Christ took this sin and shame upon himself. The text says, people hid their faces from him. They didn’t even want to look at him. They scoffed at him. They turned their faces away, despising him. Thinking he was being punished for his own sins on the cross.
But again, as I read earlier, the writer of Hebrews says, “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” He bore not only our shame that we should have felt for our sin, but also our iniquities. The word iniquities there refers to sin but also the guilt and the consequent punishment due for sin.
The point of the author using this word is because it has the idea of guilt and punishment as well. The suffering servant Jesus Christ bore our guilt and punishment. He took the punishment that we deserve. He stood in our place as our substitute. He bore our guilt, endured the shame that we deserve to endure in order that we might be saved from eternal punishment ourselves. Someone had to be punished for our sin and guilt. And this is good, because if you were on death row awaiting execution and someone offered to take your place, I don’t know about you, but I would remember that day as a good day. That is why this day is good.
By nature we go astray and are driven headlong to destruction. In Christ we find the course by which we are conducted to the harbor of salvation.
John Calvin
Peter reflecting on Isaiah 53 says in 1 Peter 2:24, Jesus “bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that having died to sin, we might live to righteousness.” Good Friday is good because Jesus bore our sins in his body, on the tree. He took our guilt away. Just like the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, the priest would lay his hands on one of the rams, symbolizing the people’s guilt being transferred. There was also a second one that he would lay his hands on and one of those would be driven away indicating the escape of punishment and the other one was put to death.
Christ, he played the role of both of those animals. He both carried away our sins and He gave his life for them, shed his blood to wash them away. So Good Friday is good because Christ was made like us in every way. He bore our sin and shame. And number four, he was punished for our peace. Look at verse 5, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; And the chastising for our peace fell upon Him, And by his wounds we are healed.”
Pierced is a very accurate description of what happened to Jesus, having his hands and his feet pierced, being hung on the cross, but also having his side pierced with a spear. The crushed is also a very graphic, violent description. Think of in our modern idiom, being crushed to a pulp. Job 4:19 uses this word to refer to a moth who has been stomped on. We’re familiar with those that are going to start showing up this time of year, and we are familiar that when we step or we squash a moth, it basically turns into a bunch of dust. That’s the idea here, being pulverized to dust. That is what we are due as God’s enemies.
We should have been pierced. We should have been crushed to a pulp by God for our sins. But Good Friday is good because as Romans 5:8-10 says, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son. We were at enmity with God, enemies of God. But because Christ was pierced, because Christ was crushed, he brought us peace. Peace here is the Hebrew word Shalom, which is encompasses more than we think of when we think of peace. It denotes a completeness, a wellness, a wholeness, an intact state of health and prosperity. When you are not in this state of shalom, you are sickly, you are dying. And having being brought into this state is a reference to salvation.
This is where we were. We were sickly and in a spiritually dead state. But Christ took our chastisement, our punishment upon himself. Providing our salvation, our resurrection, from a spiritually dead state to a state of wholeness, completeness, restoration in our relationship with God. He put away the hostility. He made peace. He satisfied the wrath of God, that we might have peace with God. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ because they have been reconciled to God. They have peace with God. So Good Friday is good because he was made like us in every way. He bore our sin and our shame. He was punished for our peace.
Number five, he gathered the straying sheep. Look at verse 6. This was a good day because, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.” The verb, to fall, here is a very interesting word. It has the basic idea of the meeting of two parties. This can refer to a friendly meeting, friends encountering one another, or a hostile meeting of two enemies encountering one another and one falling on the other to kill him.
And it can also, this is a word that’s used at the very end for interceding, in the end of verse 12. But at the basic heart of it, it means to meet or encounter. And here in verse 6 the two things coming together or meeting are our iniquities, our guilt and punishment for our iniquities, meeting the suffering servant as the Lord lays on him guilt and punishment. This is a very peculiar word for Isaiah to use, and in trying to discern the significance of it in this passage. John Calvin was helpful in discerning this significance, which is reflected in my point, he gathered the straying sheep.
But Calvin says this of this verse. He says, “Here we have a beautiful contrast in ourselves. We are scattered in Christ. We are gathered together. By nature we go astray and are driven headlong to destruction. In Christ we find the course by which we are conducted to the harbor of salvation. Our sins are a heavy load, but they are laid on Christ, by whom we are freed from the load. Thus, when we were ruined and being estranged from God, we were hastening to hell. Christ took upon him the filthiness of our iniquities in order to rescue us from everlasting destruction.” End Quote.
But in the context of the sheep going astray, the reason he uses this verb is this idea of coming back together, of meeting together, emphasing, emphasizing that though we were lost in straying, hopelessly lost in the wilderness of sin, Christ, by taking on our sin, gathered us together. So Good Friday is good because on such a day Christ made possible the gathering together of his sheep. We’re reminded in John 10:11-18, of Jesus calling himself the Good Shepherd. He was, his life was not taken from him. He laid it down for the sheep of his own accord, in order that he might gather them together. Christ’s sheep were scattered without a shepherd. They had all. We had all wandered our own way, followed our own passions into the wilderness of sin. But Christ by this act made a way for them to be gathered back to himself.
Not only is Good Friday good because he gathered the straying sheep, but also reason number six, He fulfilled perfect righteousness. Read with me again, verses 7 to 9. And I know there’s a lot more in here, but this is just the one, the only one we’re going to pull out of this. Verse 7, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before it shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered, That He [would] was cut off of the land of the living, That for the transgression of my people, striking was due to Him? So His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, even though He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.”
This is significant for several reasons, but it is also just amazing. I remember reading through the Gospels when I was younger and newly saved, not understanding why Jesus wouldn’t answer for himself. Why wouldn’t he defend himself? Why wouldn’t he fight back? He was innocent, therefore this is an injustice. Why wouldn’t he say something? I mean, if any of us were in Jesus’ position, we would defend our innocence in court. Not only did Jesus not make a defense for himself, but when he was treated shamefully, mocked, spit on, beaten mercilessly, he never sinned.
He maintained his perfect righteousness, never reviling in return. And this is significant because this is his active obedience, his perfect righteousness that we receive as we are reconciled to God. His perfect life that he lived, never sinning, is accounted to us. Even had he sinned once, would have obliterated his active righteousness, and we would have none to stand before God. Not only was he passively obedient in his suffering on the cross, but he was actively obedient, living a perfect life, never reviling in return. And it is this act of obedience that we receive in the great exchange of our sins for his righteousness as 2 Corinthians 5:21 said, “He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
In order to be accepted by God, we need a perfect righteousness of our own. And this was accomplished by Jesus Christ suffering unjustly at the hands of men, and yet never reviling in return, acting in perfect righteousness towards them. This righteous requirement to stand before God, we could never accomplish this on our own. Paul tells us this in Romans 8:3-4. He says for what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
So this is such a good day, because in the face of great injustice Christ maintained his perfect righteousness, never reviling in return. And it’s also significant, as Peter tells us in 2 Peter or 1 Peter 2:21-23, that he did this as an example for us that we should follow in his step. When we’re treated unjustly, we don’t try to take justice into our own hands. Many people in our world, they say if you are being unjustly treated, that is an excuse to treat others poorly. This is the mentality of the entire woke movement. If you can demonstrate some kind of injustice against you, it justifies any of your bad behavior toward those oppressors. That is not true righteousness.
Jesus demonstrates here true righteousness, not reviling in return in the face of unjust treatment. When we’re treated unjustly, we don’t try to take justice into our own hands, form our own mob to meet out justice. Rather, we ought to follow his example here, not reviling in return, but entrusting ourself, as Peter says as Jesus did, entrusting ourselves to God who judges justly. And when we fail, we remember that Jesus Christ succeeded on our behalf. Though we fail, he fulfilled all righteousness for us. This is the perfect standard that we seek to emulate. But when we do fail, our righteousness is secured in Christ. Because he was perfectly righteous.
So Good Friday is good because we’ve heard the report. He was made like us in every way. He bore our sin and shame. He was punished for our peace. He gathered the straying sheep. He fulfilled perfect righteousness. And now number 7. He pleased Yahweh by his atonement. Look at verse 10, “But Yahweh was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; if You would place His soul as a guilt offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in His hand.”
Yahweh, the Father, took delight in putting the Son to grief. He took pleasure in the obedience of Christ to his will. Might be difficult for many of us to think as we look back on this that it pleased God to crush his Son. It wasn’t the injustice against Christ that pleased him. It wasn’t that he was pleased as wicked men worked out their sinful desires towards his Son. But what pleased him was that the Son glorified the Father by his obedience. God was pleased as he was glorified in the pouring out of his wrath on the Son for the sins of all those who would believe. God was pleased that his gracious plan of redemption was put on display for all the world to see. God took pleasure in pouring his wrath out on his Son because. It accomplished redemption, glorified, magnified his love, his grace, his mercy, his faithfulness, his kindness, His justice, etcetera. It glorified him. It magnified him.
Good Friday is good because it pleased God to crush his Son as a guilt offering, glorifying himself, putting on display God’s love for all to see. Number eight, Good Friday is good because he justifies us who know him. Look at verse 11. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Knowledge here, the word knowledge here is an objective genitive meaning knowledge of him, that is knowledge of him as Savior. One commentator has said, “the righteous one makes others partakers of righteousness through their knowledge of him, his person, and his work.”
It’s not the Savior’s knowledge that saves us, but our knowledge of him, knowing of his person, and work on the cross. And not just an intellectual knowledge, but a believing knowledge, a faith, simple faith and trust that what Christ has done. What is described in these passages, these verses, taking our sins upon himself as our substitute, trusting in that knowledge of that is how we are justified, how we are declared righteous before him.
We are declared righteous by the righteous one, Yahweh’s servant. Declared righteous by him in the courtroom of God as sheep who have wandered, who have strayed, sinned, and rebelled. He declares us righteous because Christ paid the penalty in our stead, giving us his perfect righteousness. And this only happens when we embrace and trust this suffering servant as our Savior and Lord. This is the reason the report has gone out, because without knowledge of this person and the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, there is no salvation. We have to have this report, this good news, in order to be saved.
God was pleased as he was glorified in the pouring out of his wrath on the Son for the sins of all those who would believe.
Bret Hastings
So Good Friday is good because it provided our justification. We can be declared righteous and enter into God’s presence. And number nine Good Friday is good because he purchased us for himself. Look at verse 12. “Therefore, I will divide for Him a portion with the many, And He will divide the spoil with a strong; Because He poured out His soul to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.”
The point of this is that the spoils go to the victor. The suffering servant, by his suffering was victorious, and his reward, his portion, his spoil, was the many that he died for. Jesus Christ, by pouring out his soul to death by shedding his blood on the cross, he purchased a people for himself and to himself. He purchased the people by his blood, satisfying the wrath of the Father. And the Father turns around and gives these same people back to his son as a reward, as spoils for the victory. And in this exchange, as we are given to Christ as a reward, we also benefit from Christ’s work. We receive grace and eternal life.
So this victory of winning a people to himself. This is what the Psalmist speaks of in Psalm 68:18, which tells us that when he ascended on high he took former captives for himself, slaves of sin, now slaves to himself, slaves for Christ, he took men as gifts, that Psalm tells us. But the flip side of the coin is explained by Paul in Ephesians 4:8, as God taking these captives and giving these men gifts of grace, two sides of the same coin. God receiving the men as gifts and also giving them. In winning a people for himself.
Jesus both won a people for himself and to himself, giving those same men grace. Christ both won for himself a people and gave to us himself. He both won a people for himself his reward, and won to himself our benefit. Thus without Good Friday, there’s no grace for sinners. There are no men who are one for Christ, or to Christ. Without Good Friday there is no lasting good from God to us. Without Good Friday we are still in our sins awaiting condemnation. But this day is good. Good Friday is good because he won a people for himself and to himself.
And finally reason number ten. And for this we return back to verse 1. But reason number ten, that Good Friday is good and particularly good for us is that we have believed this report. “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?” We began our list of reasons with the fact that it is good. It’s a privilege that we have even heard this report. It’s good that this report has come to us, but the implication of this verse is that there will be few who believe this report. And Good Friday is in particular good to us, because we have believed. We, of all people, have reason to look back on this day and shout from the rooftop reason after reason as to why it is good.
It is good because on this day, nearly 2000 years ago in time and space, God dealt with our sins once and for all. It is on this day that we remember that our Lord spilled his blood. He gave his life for us. He bore our sin and our shame. He atoned for our sin. All our guilt was laid on him, and he was punished by God for it. And in return by our knowledge of his person, by faith we receive his righteousness. We receive a declaration from God that we are righteous before him. We are reconciled to him, we have peace with him. We are his reward, and he is ours.
This day is in particular good for us who believe this report, whom God has revealed it to. But I would be remiss if I didn’t stop and ask a question here. And that is, do you believe this report? Do you know this suffering servant Jesus Christ? Do you know him with saving faith? Not just bear facts? Or is this just a sentimental story that really hasn’t changed your life one bit? Maybe like Christmas, you celebrated because it makes you feel good, brings family together. Listen, if this report of what Jesus did almost 2000 years ago, if it has not fundamentally changed your life, your affections, your desires, your actions, then it hasn’t changed you.
Don’t walk out of here tonight on your merry way thinking little of this report. Jesus Christ died for sinners like you and me. And he declares that by the knowledge of him and faith in him, you can be set free from slavery to sin. You can be united to him in eternal life, a life of eternal blessedness and happiness. If you believe and repent, you can be his and he can be your reward. But I would encourage you, don’t leave tonight in that state. Any of the people sitting around you would love to talk to you about this. But as we who have believed this report, we have put our confidence in Jesus Christ, his person and his work on the cross.
We, who believe there is no greater joy than to remember what he has done for us by partaking of the Ordinance of communion. We are privileged above everyone else. We are blessed beyond all others because to us the gospel has been revealed. And as we transition to partake of communion, let us just be reminded of the reasons we have gone over tonight, that Good Friday is good.
It is good because we have heard this report. It was good that he was made like us in every way. He can identify with us, sympathize with us. It was good that he bore our sin and shame. It was good that he was punished for our peace. It was good that he gathered the straying sheep. It was good that he fulfilled perfect righteousness. It was good that he pleased God and glorified God by his atonement. It was good that he justified all of us who know him. It was good that he purchased us for himself. And it is good that we have believed this report. For these reasons and many more in this passage that we don’t have time to look at. It is a good day and it is good for us to remember what our Lord has done, giving thanks by partaking in communion.