Eternity Daily Bible Study No. 158 - Good Friday Received this from a friend? Why not join Eternity Daily Bible Study by sending a blank email to: eternitydbs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Free ebook on Spiritual Warfare: http://www.aibi.ph/ebooks/spirwarfare.htm What is good about Good Friday? As Friedrich Nietzsche said "God is dead and it is we that have killed Him". Now Nietzsche was not referring to Easter but to European atheism. Yet he also said: "Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a time: "Even God hath his hell: it is his love for man." And lately, did I hear him say these words: "God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died." While Nietzsche was mocking Christianity and its fading from the face of Europe yet he was, quite accidentally, referring to the cross. God's "Hell" is His love for man! Because of this "love for man" He suffered humiliation, self-emptying incarnation, lowly servant-hood, injustice, flogging and crucifixion. And God did die - on a cross out of His pity for man. (If Jesus was fully God, and Jesus died, then God, in some way, died.) But God did not stay dead but rather rose triumphant over the Devil and all his works. A God that would love us that much is hard to believe in. What God would come and die for beggars in Calcutta or tramps in Hollywood Boulevard or hustlers in Manila? What God would suffer on a cross for selfish suburbanites and mean and nasty bureaucrats? What God would bleed and die for pimps and con-men and politicians and lepers and homosexuals and teachers and soldiers and academics and businessmen and pastors and missionaries? A God that loved sinners and was totally committed to the people He created. (Romans 5:6-8 NKJV) For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. {7} For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. {8} But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is Good Friday - the day God's commitment to us is fully revealed. God demonstrates His love toward us - in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Its plain and obvious, unconditional love. God committed to His Creation! God was in Christ on the cross. God had a purpose - the reconciling of the world to Himself. Real relationship at last with those He had made to know and love and rejoice with! (2 Corinthians 5:19 NKJV) that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. God has an intense desire for reconciliation with a stubborn and sinful creation that is hostile to Him in mind and deed and engaged in pursuing its own lusts and perishing in its unbelief. God is so moved by the staggering state of our sin, our unbelief, our eternal peril, that He Himself took all the blame due to us on the cross and placed Himself between heaven and earth. By doing this He demonstrated that He would "suffer anything" to be at one with us! God died out of pity for man. Then rose again. God was not extinguished by our sin or destroyed by His love for us. His love for us went as deep as Creation goes (to the grave) and rose as high as Creation goes (to the right hand of the majesty on high - Hebrews 1:3). In the death, resurrection, ascension, enthronement process the whole universe from first to last was brought within the compass of God's love for people and His plans for the Church. God's love for you and I is difficult to understand, let alone comprehend. Do I love even one person, even my beloved wife, that much? But God loved even His enemies that much! It is mind-boggling that the Creator of Heaven and Earth would send His Son, for whom all Creation was made, to die an ignoble and painful death on a cross! Paul was so confident of this astonishing love of God that he wrote: (Romans 8:31-34 NKJV) What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? {32} He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? {33} Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. {34} Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. How can a wicked man like Nietzsche understand more of the love of God than many Christians? How can he comprehend the anguish of God for man and God's "weakness" on our behalf - and yet we insist on viewing God as a grumpy parsimonious legalist perched on a cloud with a clipboard listing all our sins! Such a view of God is a travesty! An utter blasphemy! God is not perched on a cloud picking faults - he is hanging on a cross for the forgiveness of sins! God is not stingy but gracious: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" We call Good Friday good because it fully reveals the goodness of God toward us. Good Friday is good because it shows that God wants to do good things for bad people. Its shows us that God loved us while we were ungodly, while we were yet sinners, while we were weak and helpless (Romans 5:6-8). It shows us that God is absolutely committed to doing us good and "works all things for good for those who love Him". It shows that God is not as interested in punishing us as He is in saving us. God is not eager to leap from Heaven with a shout and destroy the wicked from the earth. He would rather the wicked repented and found reconciliation with Him. God is astonishingly in love with people -with you. (see Romans 8) Blessings in Him, John Edmiston Asian Internet Bible Institute http://www.aibi.ph/ Free Online Bible And Ministry Training Dozens of free Christian ebooks: http://www.aibi.ph/ebooks/ Visit the Eternity home page at: http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ This devotional may be freely forwarded to others and used for non-profit ministry purposes as long as the following copyright notice is included. © Copyright John Edmiston 2003