(This Good Friday post from Dutch Sheets on GiveHim15, April 15, 2022.)
Passion Week – It Is Finished
“Good Friday, called this because of an ancient usage of “good” as a synonym for holy. (In the same way as the Holy Bible was called the “Good Book.”) Holy Friday, indeed.
After Gethsemane, there is far too much that occurred over the next 15 hours or so to include it all in this post. This is especially so if we tried to point out the Old Testament scriptures fulfilled and what each event meant regarding our redemption.
From Gethsemane, Messiah was led to a mock trial, after which He was beaten mercilessly with a cat-o-nine-tails. This procedure was so brutal that some recipients didn’t survive it. The leather cords, tipped with sharp metal, tore at the flesh of the victim ripping off pieces of flesh. They not only lacerated the back, but wrapped around to the front of the victim’s body, including the face. It is hard to describe this lashing without being too graphic for most readers. Suffice it to say that when finished, the victim was often unrecognizable.
The soldiers also beat Christ with their fists and spat on His face. To mock Him as “the King of the Jews,” a crown made of thorns was placed on His head and pressed into His skin, causing great pain and more loss of blood. When the ordeal was finished, Messiah was so mangled and covered with spittle and blood that He truly was unrecognizable. “Many people were shocked [astonished; appalled] when they saw him. His appearance was so damaged [disfigured; marred] He did not look like a man; His form was so changed they could barely tell He was human.” (Isaiah 52:14; The Expanded Bible) The added punishments and torture, much more than the average victim of crucifixion was afflicted with, can only be explained as the fury of hell, trying to snuff out the life of the Son of God.
Yeshua received this for you and me. Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24 tell us it was through this beating that we can be healed. Place your faith in this today. Receive healing by placing your faith in His substitutionary sacrifice.
Christ was then led to His crucifixion. There are several prophetic references or pictures in the Old Testament pointing to the Cross. One passage that is extremely important is Deuteronomy 21: 22-23, which references one who experiences death by hanging on a tree as being cursed. It is certainly clear that this verse refers to Jesus hanging on the “tree,” taking our curse. Galatians 3:13 makes this clear: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’”
Yeshua’s crucifixion took place at Golgotha, “the place of the skull.” God, centuries before, had ordained that this would be the place and carved a picture of death onto the side of the hill. Also, this had been the location of Isaac’s interrupted sacrifice (Genesis 22), which pictured the Cross. Like Isaac, we went free and God Himself provided the sacrifice. “Then Abraham looked up [lifted his eyes] and saw a male sheep [ram] caught in a bush by its horns. So Abraham went and took the sheep, offering it as a whole burnt offering to God, and his son was saved [in the place of his son]. So Abraham named that place The Lord Provides [or Sees; Hebrew: Yahweh Yireh]. Even today people say, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided [or seen]’” (Genesis 22:13-14; The Expanded Bible). In this chosen place, pictured hundreds of years earlier, God provided the sacrifice for our sins.
Jesus carried His own Cross to Golgotha, or, at least He was able to carry it part of the way. It was actually the crossbeam that He carried. When He arrived at the place of crucifixion He was first tied and nailed with spikes to this crosspiece. After a victim was tied and nailed to this portion, it was lifted and placed onto the top of the upright section, whereupon it would slide down and slam into place. This is often when dislocations would occur in the crucified person, as the crosspiece slammed down. And indeed we know this occurred in Christ; it was prophesied of Him in Psalm 22:14. The sliding down of this crosspiece is why the spikes were placed at the bottom of the hands where they joined the wrist; this would sustain more weight. It’s also why the victim was tied to the crossbeam. If they were not secured in this way, they would often be torn loose.
Yeshua hung on the Cross for six hours in this emaciated state. While there, He spoke seven times. Time does not permit me to comment on each of them, but they are all significant. Halfway through the ordeal, at noon, the sun disappeared and the sky grew dark (Luke 23:44-45). This was a fulfillment of Amos 8: 9-10: “‘It will come about in that day,’ declares the Lord God, ‘That I will make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight. Then I will turn your festivals into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring sackcloth on everyone’s loins, And baldness on every head. And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, And the end of it will be like a bitter day.’”
Surely this is a prophetic picture of the Light of the World being snuffed out for us. It is also a picture of what He is entering into – the darkness of sin and death, when our sins were placed upon Him. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
After three more hours of suffering, it was enough. Christ made His final two statements. The first, “It is finished,” I have written of before in the GH15 posts. This was not a statement referencing His death. It was a loud declaration by Christ at the end of this ordeal, quoting from Psalm 22:31. It was one word in Greek and also in Hebrew, and was a declaration that He had paid the debt in full and was bringing forth the new creation!
Yeshua then released His spirit to the Father. Death did not take Him, He yielded up His spirit (Luke 23:46). It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The priests in the Temple were beginning their customary duties when, at the very moment Jesus made this last statement, the veil in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). The purpose of this veil was to separate everyone from the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God on earth. With this symbolic act, God was showing us that the separation of sin was gone, and we could now enter His presence once again!
Why don’t you enter in and spend some time with Him today? He would like that.
Pray with me:
Thank You, Father, for the Cross. Thank You for sending Christ. Thank You for placing our sins upon Him in order to bring us back into Your family. Thank You for the stripes, the wounds, the crown of thorns, and the bearing of our shame.
And thank You, Jesus, for Your heart of humility and love. You are Son of Man, Son of God. And through our identification with You, You have made us sons and daughters of the Most High, also. We thank You for this. Now, by faith, we appropriate all of the cleansing power of Your shed blood, and the healing virtue that flows from every wound You suffered. By Your stripes we are healed!
And as we prayed yesterday, we do again today. For the glory of Your name and the pleasure of Your heart, send revival to the earth. Save a billion or more people in this great revival. Your Father promised You the nations of the earth as Your inheritance – reap them now.”