Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/80

Contributor - Bouwe Visser

Title - God, In Christ, Reconciling The World Unto Himself

Topic - Crucifixion

Good Friday is a day of death, in which everyone who is not fully imprisoned in the power of Satan, looks in horror at the cross and wonders how such a terrible crime could be committed.

Jesus the Son of God, who not only has seen God's Glory, but was a part of that Glory, this Jesus who was God in God, without sin, but willing to die in our place, was on this day brutally nafled to the cross and killed. And in this Season of Lent, we think especially about His suffering. Leaving the Glory of heaven was already the beginning of this suffering.

And when He came into this world, He knew that His would be a way of grief, humiliation, pain and death. That Jesus was willing to go this way, proves how terrible it would have been if we were to have been lost in our sin for all eternity.

And so, God gave therefore His Son, and usually in the time of Lent, we follow the Lord Jesus Christ on His way of suffering; the Via Dolorosa. But, for a moment I would like to reflect on the place that God the Father takes in this event. Often we are in danger, by focusing our attention on Christ and the cross, of forgetting about the love of God. It seems, especially when we hear the cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" that God is absent at the crucifixion, and sometimes we get the impression that Jesus Christ is the loving, sacrificial Son, who is willing to die for our sins, and that God, the Father, is representative of the punishment and wrath, demanding as a tyrannic Father the death of His Son.

But do we realize how much it must have cost Him? Because it was His SON whom He sent into the world, who was humiliated, abused and killed. It was the Father who was willing so sacrifice His Son. It was the Father who supplied the offering.

Do you remember when John the Baptist saw Jesus, and how he said, "See the Lamb of God, which carries away the sin of the world!" He said, "The LAMB of God." The offer was given by God Himself. Jesus sacrificed Himself, but God took the initiative. And every parent can understand what this means for a father. He knew as well as Jesus did, that humiliation, scorn, denial, libel, suffering and a terrible death were awaiting Him.

What God did for mankind, through Jesus Christ, came forth out of the depth of His love for men.

If we have looked at Calvary's cross in such a way, we will realize just a little bit of what this has meant to the Father. Jesus' suffering was His suffering; in Jesus, He himself died on the cross.

Jesus prayed, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are". He also said, "Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me". This proves and confirms the ONENESS of God the Father and God the Son.

Paul gives us a clear insight into this intimate relationship of the Father and the Son in Christ's suffering, in 2 Corinthians 5: 19, "To wit, that God was IN Christ reconciling the world unto Himself".

0 let us rejoice in such an amazing love and know, that the price of salvation was, the tears and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and who can resist such love. Open your heart today for this Good News that is also proclaimed in the Season of Lent .

I began by saying that Good Friday is a day of death, but it is also and ever more so, a day of certainty and joy, for eternal life is offered to all who will but accept it in Jesus Christ.

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