Bible_Belt said:
I really hate the name "Good" Friday. "Bad Friday" seems a lot more appropriate, considering Jesus spent the day being tortured and murdered. That sounds like a bad day to me. Calling that good is just sick.
I also hate the eerie fixation that your typical church has on the crucifixion. It's a lot easier to have a creepy Pagan-looking blood cult worshiping a ritual murder than it is to pay attention to what the guy said and actually live that way.
It was very good for those who place their trust in him for the remission of sins.
In Isaiah it says it
pleased God to crush his son, because it would result in many formerly doomed people to become sons and daughters.
Jesus said several times that no one had the power to kill him, that he purposely laid down his life to save others. He said, "Greater love has no man than to lay his life down for his friends".
This statement is illustrated practically when in Gethsemane when those who arrived to arrest him were knocked over backwards. Clearly he was illustrating that he could have crushed them like gnats had he chosen to.
People think of an eerie fixation because they don't realize the gravity of sin to a sinless God.
He's in a position where he can't overlook sin and still be called a just and righteous God (because according to his perfect law, all sin is punishable by death), and man is in a position where he can't save himself (who can erase his own past sins? No one.).
So he had to provide his own sacrifice. This is foreshadowed when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. He brought his son to the place of sacrifice and at the last minute Abraham's hand was prevented from striking the blow. But before this, Issac had said, "Father, we brought no animal with us to sacrifice." Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the sacrifice." And this is what he did when he sacrificed his own son. Abraham was a shadow of things to come.
That's the story of the gospel, which when transliterated means "good news". The good news is that God did for us what we can't do for ourselves (live a sinless life). Jesus led that sinless life, and when we trust in him for the remission of our sins (instead of trusting in our "good works"), his righteousness is credited to us through this faith in him.
Mankind's problem with this is that he has a very difficult time answering to a higher moral authority. Each man wants to be his own god, defining right and wrong for himself. Therefore to many the gospel is cast aside as "myth" and "fairy tales".
The true follower of Christ has dwelt on both sides of the fence... as an unbeliever and as a believer. He fully knows both sides. The unbeliever has only seen one side of the fence, and the other side is a complete blank, an utter mystery to him. What is the power that broke down believers' "certainty" that the gospel was a fairy tale?
What has caused died-in-the-wool scoffing intellectuals to come to an understanding of God's ways and acceptance of the gospel message? What caused these people to stop vilifying followers of Christ and instead become one themselves? What power could possibly do this? Human argument? We all know this cannot be.
Hint: God says that "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God". His way of implanting faith in us is through his scriptures. This is a process that he orchestrates and he does indeed bestow understanding on those who seek him with the intent to know the truth.
But how many men want to seek out God when it means that he himself will be dethroned as the "god" of his life? Sadly, very few. Jesus said that narrow is the way, and few there be who find it.
My pastor today gave a very rousing message, and he mentioned that he has been with unbelievers at death, and also with believers, and that the difference is profound. The believer has peace and a relative or even complete lack of fear. The unbeliever has absolute terror when faced with death. Where does this terror come from? People run around saying, "Death is natural". If this is so, if we just cease to exist just like before we were borne, then from whence comes this absolute terror of death? This terror is ingrained in us because we innately know that there is something terrifying to come after death... judgment for our lives. And God says, "There is none righteous, not even one". For many, atheism goes right out the window on their deathbeds.
Reading scripture, I found, revealed that God actually reasons with us. Faith is not blind; it appeals to sound minds.
Of course every man is free to say "hogwash", but wise is the man who at least investigates the matter. I always recommend to people I speak to that a great book to read is the gospel of John. This gospel portrays Jesus in his deity. Mark portrays him as a servant, Matthew as a king, and Luke as a man. But John stands out as the gospel that shows his divinity.
Forget about the nut jobs you see on TV, prancing around, asking for money, you know, the "name it and claim it" or "blab it and grab it" crowd. These morons are demonstrating a false, emotion-based "christianity".
God appeals to men's capacity reason.
