Easter Devotional 18th of April 2025
by Bruce Billington
Easter Devotional 5: Good Friday
Read Mark 15:15-37
This represents the saddest event in history. The most perfect human who ever lived, sinless and righteous, is crucified on the cross as if He were a common criminal.
Why did this happen?
The Cross of Christ is God’s judgment on sin. As much as it was an appalling way to treat the Son of God, it wasn’t a failure; it was a tremendous victory. A friend of mine, who passed on years ago, used to say, “If Satan had known what was going to happen as a result of the Cross, he would have gotten rid of every tree in the area.”
Oswald Chambers agrees by saying,
… it was a supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right–standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
Wow! We must meditate on this until its reality penetrates our hearts, all the while understanding that it can never be fully comprehended by any living being. The primary reason Jesus came to earth was to die. He is “the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Without the Cross, His coming to this earth would have been in vain. The purpose of the incarnation was redemption – and this was done for us. Jesus did not need redemption; He was pure, but something had to occur to pay for our sins as required by a righteous and holy God. Instead of demanding this from us, God came in the flesh to remove our sins and pay the full price for all sin. The Cross is the central event in both time and eternity, addressing all the problems of each.
The Cross is not just the cross of a person (Jesus); it is the Cross of God. It serves as the gateway through which anyone can enter into oneness with God. It prepares us to approach the throne of God with confidence and to enter into His presence (Hebrews 4:16).
The heart of salvation lies in the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. Chambers again describes this beautifully by saying,
The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
The debt has been paid. Though our sin left a crimson stain of blood, Jesus own blood washed it as white as snow. No matter how long we have sinned, or what we may have done, we can meet God with absolutely no sin upon us, for God has taken it upon Himself. 1 John 1:7 says,
“but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
As if that were not enough, more is still to come. The Cross is only half of the Gospel. Its story describes how and why Jesus Christ suffered, died, and was buried. But next, we must journey through Easter Saturday, which confronts life without Him, and then rejoice as Easter Sunday arrives, bringing us the wonderful news of the resurrection. The Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit then follow this.
Don’t miss these devotionals, which are still to come.
God bless you.
Bruce Billington