What is Good Friday?
Everyone acknowledges the truth that if we commit a crime, there is a punishment for it. In a country with a good justice system, there is only one way to be saved from that punishment - the sovereign of that country can grant us a pardon and relieve us from the punishment. The plan that God, the supreme authority of all creation, has devised to pardon and save mankind from His punishment is what the Word of God calls the "gospel" or "good news". The day on which the most crucial work of God in achieving this plan of salvation occurred is commemorated as Good Friday.
First, what is man's crime against God? God created man to live in a personal love relationship with Him. However, starting with the first man, we lost that personal relationship through our disobedience. The entire human race has thus gone after mere religious customs and rituals that involve no personal relationship with God. Thus, our sin is that we do not treasure the Person of God and, rather, walk in our own desires and disobedience. No one loves God with their whole heart. We may be interested in the benefits that we can get from God through religion, but we do not want God, the Person. For our despising and belittling of God as a person, the perfectly just God has decided to one day judge all mankind with His wrath. But the loving and merciful God has also planned a way for us to receive salvation from this punishment.
What was that plan of salvation? The plan was that God Himself would incarnate to become a perfect man and as a substitute for mankind suffer the wrath of God, which man could never remove with his good deeds. All who believe that through this sacrificial vicarious offering, the Saviour would gift them complete salvation will be forgiven freely, be exempted from all God's punishment, and have their lost personal relationship with God restored. Thus, God became a man for us, and the name of this human being is Jesus. When Jesus, the holy one who had no sin, was crucified like a criminal, people did not realise that God was accomplishing His work of saving us by pouring out His wrath against us on the Saviour who came as our substitute.
This, then, is the good news that Good Friday proclaims — God Himself has fulfilled everything necessary for our salvation. If Jesus Himself has offered a perfect sacrifice through the Cross, which fully obtains salvation from God's wrath and thereby earns God's forgiveness for us, then we are no longer under any obligation to earn our salvation through our own efforts. Instead, God freely offers salvation to all who believe in Jesus without any dependence on their works. Therefore, dear friend, receive this free salvation to live a blessed life of tasting the goodness of knowing the Person of God. Believe that we can receive this salvation in Jesus only, who alone was sacrificed on the cross for us.
"Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" Ephesians 5:2.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" John 3:16.