This coming Friday is Good Friday. And it's not called Good Friday because of what happened on that day was in and of itself good. No, it was anything but good. But we call it Good Friday because of the good that came from what happened on that day. That's why we call it Good Friday. And so this morning we want to look at the three things that happened, or at least look at three things that happened on Good Friday, and look at some of the good that came from those three things. So we're not gonna cover everything that happened on Good Friday, but we'll look at three things, and then the good that came out of those three things. And the first thing that we wanna look at what happened is that Pilate condemned Jesus to death. So on Good Friday, the Jewish authorities took Jesus to Pontius Pilate so that Jesus could be put on trial, declared guilty, and sentenced to death. Now obviously when they did that, they could not guarantee a guilty verdict or a death sentence, but that's what they wanted, that's what they were looking for. And since only a Roman judge at the time could administer rightfully the death penalty, they had to bring Jesus to Pilate. Trying him in their own courts was not sufficient. They wanted a death sentence, and so they had to bring Jesus to Pilate. And they refused to give up prosecuting their case against Jesus until they got what they wanted. That's what we see all through the various accounts of the trials of Jesus. But as you do look at the biblical accounts of Jesus, in particular the one in John, one point that sticks out like a sore thumb is that it becomes obvious that Jesus is innocent, that he's not done anything wrong, certainly not done anything wrong worthy of death. Pilate himself recognized this fact and he declares it several times. He even knew that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him because of their envy of him and not because really he was guilty in anything. In fact, in Luke's account, we read this, Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people and said to them, you brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him, neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving of death has been done by him." So Pilate is convinced, and so is Herod, in fact, that Jesus is not guilty, and he has done nothing deserving of death, and yet he's still condemned. which is the second thing that is striking about these accounts of Jesus' trials, that he's clearly innocent, and yet, he's still judged to be guilty and sentenced to death. Now, since Pilate did not want to give what the Jews wanted, because he did not like them, and since he is convinced that Jesus is innocent, he is inclined, actually, to let Jesus go free. But the Jewish authorities don't let him do that. And they're able to force Pilate's hand because they back him up into a political corner in that if Pilate were now to release Jesus, he could get into a lot of hot water with the emperor. And that could mean some terrible things for Pilate. And Pilate's not the kind of guy who's going to release an innocent fellow at the risk of his own life. He's gonna look out for himself first. And so he does eventually, officially pronounce Jesus guilty of treason and sedition, and so sentence him to the punishment of that particular crime, which is crucifixion. Now, what was the purpose of all this, having this trial before Pilate? I mean, since, as we know from the scriptures, that Jesus came to die for our sins, why didn't he just die in his sleep, or die by an accident, or get cancer and die? Why have to go through this whole rigmarole of a trial, and a guilty verdict, and even crucifixion? Well, the reason is because Jesus did come to die for our sins. He came to take our place. So, therefore, he came to stand before a judge and be condemned instead of us. Because we're the ones who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We're the ones who stand guilty before God, the judge, and we're the ones who have been sentenced to die an eternal death. But Jesus has come to take our place and to suffer the wages of our sins instead of us. That's why 1 Peter 3, 18 says that Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. Or why Paul says in Romans 4, verse 25, that Jesus was delivered up because of our transgressions. or why Isaiah 53 says he was wounded for our transgressions. So what we have going on here in this trial is really the great transaction or the great exchange. Jesus is the innocent one who takes the place and takes our place and is condemned to die in our place. And we who deserve to die are set free. And so, in many ways, this is illustrated with Barabbas. He actually committed murder and does deserve to die, but he is set free, whereas Jesus, who is innocent, is condemned to die. The great exchange, then, Jesus, the innocent one, takes our place and dies, and we who are guilty are set free. And this is why Jesus could not just die an ordinary death, because he came to take our place. And this he does before the judge at that time, Pontius Pilate. But he was not standing ultimately before Pontius Pilate, because behind Pilate stood the father judging his son, condemning his son to death for us. That's why Isaiah 53 10 says, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief when you make his soul an offering for sin. And so the father's behind all of it through Pilate judging his son who has come to take our place. And so Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 5, for he, that is the father, made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. And so J.I. Packer rightly says that the miscarrying of human justice was actually the doing of divine justice. Pilate had no right to condemn Jesus, but through that miscarrying of justice, the father was doing divine justice. So here then we see some of the good that comes out of Good Friday. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. If we belong to Jesus, if we are united to him by faith, if we are a part of him, part of his body, the church, Or if we are in Christ, to use Paul's favorite description of a Christian, then he says we're no longer condemned for our sins. And that's because Jesus has already been condemned for us. He's already come to take our place and pay the wages for our sins. And so if we are in him, then we're no longer condemned because the payment, the penalty's already been paid by Jesus. That's why we sing in a hymn, bearing shame and scoffing rude. In my place condemned he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. So the first thing that we see is that Pilate condemned Jesus to death on Good Friday. The second thing we want to see that took place on Good Friday was that Jesus was indeed crucified. The sentence and the carrying out of the sentence happened on the very same day. Jesus didn't have to wait days or months or years to be put to death. He didn't have to languish in prison to be executed. No, he was nailed to the cross the very same day that Pilate pronounced the sentence. And it was no accident that Jesus was executed by crucifixion. Now in one sense, obviously he was crucified because that was the Roman punishment for treason and sedition. But God made sure that Jesus would be crucified because he was doing something and saying something through that method of death and execution. Just as he was judging Jesus through Pilate, so God was doing something and saying something through crucifixion. And to understand what's going on here, we need to go back to the Old Testament in Deuteronomy chapter 21, which teaches us that a hanged man on a tree is cursed by God. Now, in the ancient Near East, when criminals were executed, they were sometimes hanged on a tree after they were already dead. And the point of that practice, of course, was to deter others from committing capital crimes. It was to say, you see this fellow hanging on a tree, he's dead, hanging on a tree, you don't want to be like him, so don't even think about doing what he did. But this practice did not just deter people, it also showed the people of Israel that that criminal had been cursed by God. Moses says in verse 23, a hanged man is cursed by God. And the reason he is cursed is not because he's hanging on a tree or even because he's already dead. The reason he is cursed is because of the reason he died. He committed a capital crime and he was executed for it. And so to be cursed by God is to experience God's wrath that is his punishment for what you have done. and being hung publicly on a tree displays that curse or that punishment. It publicly shows that justice has been satisfied for what has been done, that the wages of the crime have been paid, and that that man has been cursed. He is paid for his sins. Now, Roman crucifixion is, of course, somewhat different from this ancient Near Eastern practice of hanging on a tree after you're dead because crucifixion combines both the method of execution and the hanging on a tree. The criminal dies on the tree and is publicly displayed at the very same time. Nevertheless, it still serves the same purpose. Condemned criminals nailed to a wooden cross were, for all intents and purposes, hanged on a tree and therefore seen to be cursed by God, just like it was in Deuteronomy 21. And that, of course, is exactly what is happening on the cross of Christ. God is pouring out his wrath upon Jesus, punishing him for our sins which we have committed against God's holy law. He's being cursed. He's suffering the punishment. This is why Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The innocent one is being forsaken. He's suffering the wrath that's due for rebellion against God. and he's suffering because he's bearing the punishment for our sins. And so Paul says in Galatians, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, and he quotes Deuteronomy 21, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. And Peter says in his first epistle, Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. And so that is what God is doing and saying to us by and through Jesus's crucifixion. And none of that would be clear or obvious if Jesus had died in his sleep or if he had died in an accident. But when we see Jesus, the innocent one condemned hanging on a cross, it becomes evident to us what God is in fact doing. That he is forsaking his son. He is punishing him, cursing him. And he's doing that for us. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. So here again we see some of the good that comes out of Good Friday. Jesus became a curse for us so that we aren't cursed for what we have done. Johnny Hart is the author of the comic strip, BC. And he once captured this truth in one of his cartoons. And in one episode of BC, a fellow is sitting on a hill, and he says to his friend, I hate the term Good Friday. And so his friend asks, well, why? And so the fellow says, my lord was hanged on a tree that day. And so his friend responds to him, if you were going to be hanged on that day, and he volunteered to take your place, how would you feel? to which he says, good. And so the friend says, have a nice day. See, the good that comes out of Good Friday is that Jesus became a curse for us so that we won't be cursed for our sins. Now, the third thing we want to look at that happened on Good Friday is that Jesus died on the cross and was buried. Now, since Jesus was cursed and suffered hell while he was alive on the cross, why does he still die? I mean, why couldn't the Father just end it there, send legions of angels to Jesus to rescue him? Why did he still have to die on the cross? Well, he had to die a physical death because death in all of its forms is part of the punishment or wages of sin. And so justice demanded that salvation, so justice demanded, and therefore salvation required, that our Savior die a physical human death. And that's why Jesus didn't just suffer hell on the cross, he actually and truly died. His body went limp, his soul departed from his body, and he entered into the realm of the dead. otherwise known as Hades. Now, because Jesus' death, actual human death, is so important and so necessary, all the Gospels emphasize this very point. And they highlight the fact that he truly and really died. That's why they record for us that Jesus gave up his spirit. It's why they tell us that Jesus' legs were not broken, because he was already dead. and how soldiers came to inspect the three people on the cross, and they looked at Jesus, and they determined and inspected to see if he was dead, and they realized he had already died, so they didn't need to break his legs. He's then pierced with a spear to make certain that he is in fact dead. And of course, this is no little poke to see if he'll flinch if you poke him with a spear to see if he's alive. No, they thrust him through with the spear so the blood pours out. And another important point to emphasize and to show that Jesus really died is that he was buried. The Gospels tell us that Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man and a member of the Sanhedrin, went to Pilate and received permission to get Jesus' body so that he could give him a proper burial, which is exactly what Joseph does. And when you think about it, here you have Joseph, who is a disciple of Jesus, along with other disciples of Jesus, they come and take Jesus' body and they bury it. Now they loved him. And if there was any hope that he was still alive, they would not have buried him. But they do because he was truly and really dead. And so if you were there when Jesus was crucified, You would have seen his head droop. You would have seen the color vanish from his face as his heart stopped beating. You would have seen him die. And you would have seen Joseph and others carry away a lifeless body, embalm it, and place it in a tomb. So then we see from all of this then that Jesus took our place and he has paid in full the penalty of our sins by dying in every way. And so he has atoned for our sins, and justice therefore has been satisfied. Which is why, of course, he rises from the dead on the third day. He has paid the wages in full of sin, and so he has conquered death. because death happens because of sin. You get rid of sin, then you overcome death, which is why death couldn't hold Jesus. It could no longer keep him, which is why then he says in Revelation 1, verse 17, fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades. So now having conquered sin and therefore death, he has control over death and the realm of the dead, and the realm of the dead or Hades, which is why then to all who come to him, he's able to give life to them so that they too are rescued from death and Hades. So there is truly a lot of good that comes out of what happened on Good Friday. And there's one more thing that we want to look at, in particular, of the good that comes from that, and it's this, and how Christ's death, for us, then transforms our own death. And it transforms our own death in at least three ways. The first way is this, is that now that when we die, we will not be alone, but rather Christ will be with us to comfort us and guide us through that whole experience of death. Jesus has tasted death for us in all of its fullness. He knows what death is like from a human point of view, not just because he studied it in a textbook or something like that, but he knows it experientially because he himself died. And so he's more than able to help you and to comfort you and to guide you through your own death when you come to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And of course, nobody wants to die. There's a reason why we are afraid to die. It is an ugly, harsh, cruel reality. With good reason, it's called our enemy. Nevertheless, when we do walk through that dark portal, as it were, we know that our Lord is going to be with us, and so we don't have to fear. And that as we do walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we can say with David, I will fear no evil because your rod and your staff, they comfort us. Having the rod and the staff is simply meaning that our shepherd, our Lord Jesus is present with us. And so we don't have to fear because he will take care of us through it. He will guide us through it. He knows exactly what he's doing. He's already been there before. And he will lead us to where we need to go. This is why the Puritan John Flavel once said this. If this be so, that is, if Jesus has been buried, if this be so, that Jesus is laying in the grave before you, let me say then to you, as the Lord spoke to Jacob, fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will go down with you, and I will also surely bring thee up again. So here, fear not, believer, to go down to the grave, For God will be with you there and will surely bring you up thence. Well, the second way in which Christ's death then transforms our own death is that our death will put to death everything bad in our life. Our death will put to death everything bad in our life. In Sunday school, we talked about how as Christians, we do need to endure various hardships. And death, our own death, will put to death all of those hardships. We do live in the present evil age, and so to one degree or another, our life will be marked by some kind of misery, suffering, and eventually death. But you see, because of Christ's death and rescuing us from it, our death then brings an end to all the misery that we have experienced forever and ever. So Thomas Watson says, death is the funeral of all of our sorrows. Death is the funeral of all of our sorrows. But it also kills sin once and for all. It doesn't just put to death the misery, but also our own struggle with sin. And as Christians, we all understand that, because once we came to Christ, we began that battle with sin. We struggle against it. We hate it, because now we love God, and yet we still continue to fall into it. Paul describes the struggle like this in Galatians 5, how the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit against the flesh, because they're opposed to each other. So there's this war within, if you will. One pastor on Twitter described it this way, how sin has tireless legs, and it never gets tired of chasing you. And sin will keep chasing us until the day we die, because our fight against sin will be lifelong. And so the battle will never stop. But it will stop when we die. Then we will no longer have to struggle, because then we will be made perfect. and loving God with all of our heart and loving our neighbor will be the most natural and easy thing to do in the world. And so when you become weary with your struggle against sin, remember that a day will come when you will find rest for your weary soul and how death itself will put your sin to death once and for all. So when you think about it, God's going to turn the tables and use the wages of sin to destroy sin in your life. So because of Christ's death for us, our own death becomes the means by which God puts to death everything bad in our life. Well then thirdly and briefly, the final way in which Our death is transformed by Christ's death. At least, the final way in which we will talk about this morning is that our death is a doorway to paradise. Our death now becomes a doorway to where Christ is. As you know, Paul says, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and that to depart, that is to die, is to go and to be with Christ. So that means when we do die, we do not go to a place where the unrighteous are. We don't go to a prison, if you will, to await the final judgment. No, when we die now, we immediately are translated to where Jesus is, which is heaven. In the twinkling of an eye, we are where Christ is. all because of what Jesus has done for us. Because he has paid the wages of our sins. Because we're no longer condemned, we can go immediately to where Christ is. And so, again, to quote a Puritan, Thomas Brooks says that our last day in this life is our coronation day and our marriage day. Because, he says, it is the day we exchange earth for heaven, a wilderness for a Canaan, and Egypt for the land of Goshen, and a dunghill for a palace. It is the day, he says, we enter into Abraham's bosom, into paradise, into the new Jerusalem, into the joy of our Lord, into the place where the saints are made perfect. Well, a lot of evil did take place on Good Friday, but God took that evil and used it for good, for our good. But you see, you will only experience that good that came and comes out of Good Friday if you trust in Jesus and follow him. So if you haven't already done that, or if you have drifted away from Jesus, I urge you to turn to him and to cling to him by faith so that you might join all of God's people in experiencing the good that came from Good Friday and experience it both now and forevermore.