The Need for Atonement or Why Friday is Good

    Why is it "Good Friday?" A day marked with the death of the innocent and we call it good. How can this be? Humiliated, beaten, and crucified, Jesus breathed His last. What makes such horror so good? The answer is atonement, reconciliation, and restoration. To truly understand why Good Friday is a Good Friday, we need to understand man's natural condition and what Jesus accomplishes.

Who is man?

When Adam sinned in the garden, he did more than just mess up his relationship with God. Being mankind's representative, he messed up mankind's relationship with God. We see this not only in his name, Adam sounding like the Hebrew word for, "man," but also explained in Scripture by Paul. Sin spread to all mankind through one man (Adam) and therefore death spread to all man as well (Romans 5:12-14) and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). As R.C. Sproul once put it, "We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners" This is Augustine's idea of original sin and our sin nature within us.

You see, man was created in the Image of God and was created good. However, because of Adam's sin, all are born with a sin nature that inclines us towards sin rather than God. Our nature as been radically altered by our representative's fall in the Garden. We are no longer good nor righteous (Romans 9:10-11) but sinful and depraved. Therefore, since God is holy and cannot be in communion with something that unholy, we lost our ability to have communion with Him. We see this when He banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and guards it with a cherubim. In his children's book, The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross, Carl Laferton writes, "It was like a big keep out sign."

However God, being gracious and loving, provides a way to restore our relationship with Him. He requires His people to build a tabernacle (and later a temple) where they can come to restore their relationship with Him and commune with Him. However, where His presence resides in the Holy of Holies which is separated from the rest of the tabernacle by a curtain. Carl Laferton writes once more, "It was like a big keep out sign."

Only on the Day of Atonement was the priest allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. He was to first make a sacrifice for his own sins and then take two goats. On one goat he would lay his hands on to transfer the sins of the people to the goat. This goat would then be driven out of the camp. The second goat was then sacrificed for the forgiveness of the people's sins and the blood sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies (Leviticus 16). 

This system was imperfect. The sins of the people were imputed to the first goat but the people still had no righteousness. Certainly by the end of the day most of the camp had sinned one way or another. This is why this sacrifice needed to be made every year "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). What then are we to do? The endless cycle of blood shed for the endless cycle of sins? The sacrifices cannot make us righteous and we cannot be righteous enough to be with God; What shall we do?

The answer? Nothing. We cannot do anything. Therefore God must provide us righteousness.

Who is Christ - The Lamb that was Slain?

God became man. The Incarnation of our God is an incredible feat of power and deity as well as weakness and humiliation. God the Son, born in the man of Jesus of Nazereth, was the answer all along. 

Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. This is important because it meant Jesus was born without a sin nature. The Virgin birth is not just a parlor trick by God for the sake of miracles. It was intentional so that Jesus could be born in the same state as Adam was created in the Garden; Good and righteous. When writing on original sin, Augustine explained that Adam was created posse peccare et posse non pecare - created with the ability to sin and the ability not to sin. After the fall, man would be born as non posses non peccare - or born without the ability to not sin because sin enters the world through the seed of man. Therefore, since Jesus is born of the virgin and not of a man, Jesus is born posse peccare et posse non pecare - born with the ability to sin and the ability not to sin.

After Jesus comes into His adult ministry, He is led to the desert to face the same temptation as Adam faced in the Garden. He is tempted with food, He is tempted with doubting what God says, and He is tempted with power. Jesus overcomes this temptation and conquers the enemy. He lives the perfect life without sin and is a truly innocent man. He is good and He is righteous. Therefore, He is the perfect lamb to be slain for the sin of God's people.

The Atonement on the Cross

Like a lamb raised for slaughter, Jesus is sent to the cross to die for the sins of God's people. On that Good Friday, the sins of God's people are imputed to the Lamb of God as He is driven outside the city of Jerusalem to die on that hill. But God does something more tremendous than anything ever seen before. He imputes the righteousness of His Son Jesus to His people.

Not only are their sins taken away once and for all (Hebrews 10:10) but He who knew no sin became sin so we might become righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). When God looks upon His people, He no longer sees their sin but He sees the righteousness of Jesus!!! We are saved by works but they are not our works; They are the works of Jesus the Christ! As Martin Luther wrote, we are, "simul justus et peccator" - we are simultaneously justified and sinners! Yes we still sin, but our sins are covered in the blood of Christ and His righteousness is upon us.

Our relationship with God is restored! We are reconciled to God! We have been atoned for! 

It is a Happy Good Friday Indeed! Jesus has died; but Sunday is coming!