In the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus, we see that God the Father in His infinite wisdom determined to have the eternal Logos take on human flesh. In this, the universal Word became a particular Word, without ceasing to be the everlasting and infinite expression of the Father’s wisdom. This, of course, was all done under the shadow of the Spirit of God, who broods over all God’s works, from the least to the greatest.
But then Jesus, dying as He did as a particular man, on a particular cross, offers universal salvation. This is how God works. This is His glory—it is one of His many signatures. That which is universal indwells the particular, and that which is particular has universal import.
This is why the death of Jesus has such significance, and why this day is so important. God has appointed His preachers, and has sent them out to declare this message until the end of the world. They are to go out, as did the apostle Paul, resolving to know nothing except Christ and Him crucified. In doing this, we are not preaching an historical event merely, just another tragic detail in the long story of bloodshed in and around Jerusalem. In preaching the death of Jesus, we are preaching the death of Everyman, or, to use the Hebrew word for it, the death of Adam.
In the garden, God had promised our first father that the day he ate of the tree in the midst of the garden, that day he would surely die. This happened covenantally and spiritually when Adam took the first bite—his relationship of love and life with God died. The covenant of life that he had with his God was broken. Communion was severed, and that separation was a profound death. As a result of his rebellion, physical death entered the world also, although Adam and his wife did not die on that day. But physical death finally caught up with them, and they returned to the ground, dust to dust. Since that day, we, their sons and daughters, have all done the same.
But there is another layer of meaning here, one that the gospel reveals as a hopeful one. As a result of eating the fruit, Everyman lost his walk with God. Everyman came under bondage to physical death, a corruption of the glorious translation that would have awaited him had he remained faithful. And so Everyman lost it all; Adam lost everything. But in the immediate aftermath of that rebellion, God promised us another Everyman. The depths of grace can never be fathomed. Because the first Adam crushed the grapes, the last Adam drank the cup, all of it to the dregs. Because the first Adam pulled the penalty of death down upon our heads, the last Adam stepped in to allow that death to fall on Him. Because the first Adam disobeyed at a tree, the last Adam obeyed on a tree. The first Adam incurred death, and the last Adam tasted it.
I said a few moments ago that this particular death that Jesus died was a universal death, and that this is how our Father loves to work. And that is why this death stands out in all human history. No other death haunts us as this one does. No other death draws us as this one does, as Jesus declared that it would. He promised us that when He was lifted up He would draw all men to Himself. So no other death wounds as this one does, and no other death heals as this one does. No other death compels.
And it compels because it is not the death of just another man, but because it is the death of Adam, the death of Everyman. This means that if the Spirit of God broods over the face of my waters, there will be a new creation. If God grants me the eyes to see it this way, to see it as it truly is, it is my death. In unbelief, the death of Jesus appears to be just another death of just another man. But in faith, it is the death of all that is wrong, and particularly it is the death of all that is wrong with me.
The apostle Paul put it this way:
This is why it is a death that haunts us. We know that if we look to Him, we will be transformed. And the difficulty is that we do not want to be transformed. I said a moment ago that unbelief sees the death of Jesus as just another death of just another man. It would be more accurate to say that unbelief would very much like to see it this way, but the compelling nature of what God has done here makes all such efforts unsuccessful. The crucified one cannot be dismissed, and His agony as Everyman cannot be patronized.
In the wilderness, when Moses set up the bronze serpent, that glorious type of the coming Savior, every Israelite who was bitten by a serpent was invited to look at the bronze serpent for immediate healing. This was a great incentive to look—look and you will live. Who, poisoned by a serpent, would not look?
But the cross of Jesus Christ, pictured wonderfully in this way, still transcends the type. There is a greater glory here, and it explains our mysterious reluctance as sinners to look at the cross, straight on. Everyone who looked to the bronze serpent in the wilderness was healed. Look, and you will live. The message of the cross is ultimately the same, of course, but there is something else in between. Come to Christ, and look directly to Him. Look at the torn flesh. Look at the places where parts of His beard were plucked out. Look at the crown of thorns jammed down onto His head. Look at the nails, and the spear wound. Look at all this, and you will die. I am crucified with Christ, St. Paul said.
Certainly, we are promised that we will be raised to life again, but that is something we have to take on faith. The death is something we know, and shy away from. The life is promised, but there does not appear to be any visible means of support. How can a man die, and come back to life again? And, St. Paul answers, I now live. The life I live in the body I live by faith. Just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
The unbelieving heart does not ask certain things from God because it knows that God is unlikely to say yes. Whether we are seeking riches, fame, glory, success, adoration of multitudes—we know instinctively that God would take a dim view of our motives. But the unbelieving heart knows that every request to die in Christ is always honored. Here, at the cross, we don’t shrink back because we are afraid that God will say no. We shrink back because we know, past all doubt and all disputing, that He will most certainly say yes. And that is unsettling.
This is Holy Friday, and we are marking the death of Jesus. This is the grim chapter of our Christian year. This is the chapter in which He suffers and dies, and in which His body is laid in the cold tomb. But even though we are reading this chapter now, it is a book we have read before, and we know how it ends. Christ is alive forevermore, and this includes today, on this day of solemn and joyful remembrance. But if we know how it ends, why do we always reread this chapter? And why does it affect us this way, even knowing the end of the story? Remember that Scripture tells us that the agony of Jesus is compelling, fascinating, and horrible. It compelling to faith in one way, and to unbelief in another. It is compelling for those who have never heard these words before, and it is compelling for us, who have heard them a thousand times. This chapter always gets us.
So we remember in this way because God tells us to—we are always to declare the death of Jesus to all men. But the second reason is important to us as well. The death of Jesus Christ is our security and our glory. Because sinners like to evade the death of Jesus, as much as they ever can, it is important for us, even though we are numbered among His saints, to regularly check our hearts. This liturgical remembrance is a salve and a safeguard. We need to ensure that the life we now live in Christ is anchored, as it was for the apostle Paul, in the death of Jesus.
Our Father and God, Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, we lift our hearts to You on this day of dark remembrance. We pray for a right understanding of all these things, knowing that if You do not give it, we cannot have it. We pray that Your Holy Spirit would guide, keep and protect us in this. We pray that the darkness of Christ’s death would be our only light. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who lives and reigns forever, amen.