04/03/2026
The Great Exchange
Good Friday
April 3, 2026
Today is Good Friday, referred to as “good” because of the historic death of Christ. It's not the end of the story (Sunday's coming), but it is where the work of Christ in His earthly ministry was accomplished. At the heart of all this is the infinite and perfect holiness of God Himself. The seraphim in Isaiah 6 sing a song “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory,” and they sing it every second of every day. In Rev. 4 the four creatures sing a similar song: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”
If we don't believe that God is a God of wrath and justice as well as a God of mercy and love, or if we don't believe that His perfect character and His holiness means that sin must always be punished, then we won't believe in the substitutionary and vicarious nature of Christ’s death on the Cross. God cannot betray His own character, His holiness or His justice.
Ps. 89:14: "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; Lovingkindness and truth go before You.”
The Bible makes it clear that the unforgiven sinner is under God’s curse and John. 3:36 states that ‘whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for the wrath of God remains on him...”
Rom. 2 says that for those who persist in sin and are unrepentant, they are storing up wrath against themselves for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
For God to be just, every sin must be paid for. Either men will pay for their sins in hell or a qualified substitute must pay that penalty on their behalf. This concept is found all through the Bible: The ram that God provided as a substitute for Isaac in Gen. 22, the lamb slain at Passover, where the blood representing the life of the animal became the substitute for the death of the first-born.
In the Lev. 16, the Old Covenant “Day of Atonement” is where the high priest would lay his hands on the second goat and confess the sins of the people. Then that goat would be lead into the wilderness (outside the camp, or in Jesus' case, outside Jerusalem) to symbolize the removal of the sins of the people. This was the primary work that Jesus came to accomplish.
John 12:27 "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour.”
In Eph. 2:3 we read “we were by nature the children of wrath” and under God’s curse. In Gal. 3:13 we read that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” This means that when Christ was made a curse for us, He was the object of divine wrath. So, on the cross Jesus Christ bore the full penalty of sin—the full sanction of the law of God—which was precisely what we had coming! You deserve—I deserve—the mocking, the scorning, the flogging, the crown of thorns, the nails—the wrath of a holy God manifested against sin and wickedness. Our punishment was transferred to him. Jesus Christ came to be our substitute.
As 2 Cor. 5:17 says: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." There's what Martin Luther calls the great exchange—listen to the words of one of his prayers: "You have taken upon yourself what is mine and have given me what is yours. You have taken upon yourself what you were not and have given to me what I was not.”
If you have been united to Christ by faith you have “peace with God” (Rom. 5:1), and praise Him for it!
However, if you remain unrepentant, refusing to believe, you are still “in your sins” and outside of the mercies of God. Since you're still reading, I urge you: Leave your petty god of self and your idolatries, turn from sin, and follow the King. There is yet still time.
