Pastor Scott L. Harris
Grace Bible Church, NY
March 21, 2008 / Revised April 3, 2026
Good Friday Service
The One Who Died
Some years ago I had a conversation with a remarkable Jehovah’s Witness. She was actually able to give a very good answer to my question about how a person is saved from sin. She said it was through faith in redemptive death of Jesus. That was a better answer that I get from a lot of people professing to be evangelicals. However, it was also a tragic answer because the Jesus she believed died for her sins is not the same Jesus that Scripture describes as dying for the sin of man. I pointed out to her the many differences between the Jesus of the Jehovah Witnesses and the Jesus of the Bible which she tried to dismiss the differences as minor. But there is nothing minor about having the wrong Jesus; the wrong Holy Spirit, and therefore the wrong God. Placing your faith in the wrong person cannot save you. That is what prompted the apostle John to write his first epistle and why he wrote in 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Who exactly is the One that died on the cross at Calvary?
There is an old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. I am not sure if that is true, but familiarity can breed complacency. I think that is often the way it becomes for Christians over the years with many of our fundamental doctrines. We are so familiar with them that we take them for granted and therefore become complacent concerning them. Such is the case often even for the death of Jesus Christ.
We hear it so often that we don’t really think about it very deeply unless something shocks us back to reality. That is why sermons that describe Jesus’ suffering are very powerful and a common theme for a Good Friday service. I have preached those in the past, and I will preach them in the future. That was why the 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ,, by Mel Gibson received such acclaim even among evangelicals. It shocked people into an emotional response to Jesus’ death, and that was a good thing for many people. It caused some to reflect on Jesus’ great love that took Him to the cross as the payment for sin. Jesus suffered greatly through the entire ordeal. All of Jesus’ disciples forsook Him when He was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, save John who followed at a distance. He endured two illegal trials at the hands of the High Priest, His father-in-law and select members of the Sanhedrin which included false accusations, false testimony, and a false verdict – and in the midst of that Peter became bold enough to enter the court area, but then denied Jesus three times when challenged by the other people milling about including a servant girl.
The trial before Pilate, then Herod, then back to Pilate was a tragedy of its own as Jesus was unjustly tortured by flogging, a crown of thorns, being beaten and mocked. Pilate unjustly turned Jesus over to be crucified because he did not have enough back bone to stand firm on his own verdict that Jesus was innocent and instead yielded to the shouting mob. After more abuse, Jesus carried His own cross to Golgotha, collapsing along the way from exhaustion and loss of blood. He was cruelly staked to the cross instead of tied, then raised so that His very weight would make it difficult for Him to breathe. Crucifixion was designed to be a cruel and agonizing method of execution by slow suffocation. Jesus continued to be mocked by those that had gathered, by those passing by, and by one of the thieves being crucified next to him. The other thief finally recognized the reality of Jesus’ identity and asked to be remembered when Jesus came into His kingdom, to which Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
He was given wine mixed with gall to drink, but He refused it. His garments were divided among the soldiers. The sky turned dark, then came the awful moment when Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” as He bore the curse of man’s sin upon Himself. He was given a sponge soaked in sour wine, and after receiving it, He said, It is finished! And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. There was an earthquake and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The frightened centurion in seeing all that was happening said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
Not long after this the legs of the thieves were broken so that they would die quickly and their bodies carried away before Sabbath began. The soldiers found Jesus to already be dead, so the soldier pierced His side with his spear to make sure, and blood and water came out proving he was already dead. Joseph of Arimathea had gained permission to take away Jesus’ body, and with the help of Nicodemus he lay it in his own tomb.
The Passion of the Christ, portrayed all of this in gory detail, but since the movie did not emphasize that Jesus was suffering and dying as the payment for sin, it only caused others to consider what manner of man Jesus must have been. That is a good thing to consider, but if Jesus is left as just a good man that suffered, then the story is only a tragedy similar to the multiplied thousands upon thousands upon thousands that suffered at the cruel hands of Roman torture and the slow agonizing death of crucifixion. While Jesus’ suffering is important, suffering does not bring salvation. Jesus’ death is absolutely necessary for our salvation from sin, yet if Jesus is not who He claims to be, His death it cannot atone for our sins, and it is just a terrible tragedy. It does not even rise to the level of the many that have given their lives in order to save the physical life of someone else, since no one’s physical life was preserved by His death. The proper identity of Jesus is crucial to the application of what He did in redeeming sinners. There is no salvation from sin without believing in the correct Jesus. Who then was this Jesus that was crucified, and who does He continues to be in the present?
Liberal Theology
Various liberal theologians say Jesus was just a good teacher and his death was an example of love for others to follow. That is the story a lot of people have heard or will hear today in the worship services of the various churches that no longer believe the Bible is the word of God. However, if Jesus was only a good man, a good teacher, an example of love, then mankind has no hope because Jesus’ death was not the payment for sin. And from the purely logical standpoint, that would make Jesus one of the most tragic figures that ever existed, for he died a very cruel death and didn’t really accomplish anything by it. I have a hard time thinking that it is a good thing to inspire others to become martyrs and die prematurely when that does nothing for their own soul or the souls of others. In addition, if they believe that Jesus was such a good teacher, why don’t they believe what He said? Mostly because their religious leaders deny the Bible and so also deny what Jesus is recorded as saying.
However, the Bible makes it clear that Jesus was much more than a good teacher. Jesus said that He came to speak the things the Father had taught Him (John 8:28) and that He revealed the Father for He was in the Father and the Father was in Him (John 14:9-10). The many miracles Jesus did proved that He was no ordinary man. He healed the sick, made the lame to walk, gave sight to the blind and caused the dumb to speak (Matthew 15:31). The man born blind that Jesus healed understood that what Jesus did could not have been done except by God (John 9:32-33). Jesus also claimed that He was giving much more than an example when He told Martha that He was the resurrection and the life and that those that believed in Him would live even if they died (John 11:24-25). He then proved the claim by raising Lazarus from the dead though he had already been in the grave for four days and his body was decomposing (John 11:39-44). Jesus said He came to give His life as a ransom (Mark 10:45).
C.S. Lewis exposed he heart of the issue when he wrote, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic —on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg— or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
The liberals are wrong. They reject the Bible and therefore reject the Jesus of the Bible. Their Jesus is insufficient to save them from their sins. They will face God on their own merits and so will stand condemned by their own sin.
Denial of Deity
There are many cult groups that claim that Jesus was just a man. For some it is a simple denial of His deity while others add some sort of strange twist to it. For example the Mormons say that Jesus was a “glorified resurrected man” who was the son of Elohim and the brother of Lucifer.
Those groups that deny Jesus’ deity in anyway have a Jesus that is different from the Bible and one that cannot save them from their sins. There are a host of Scriptures that proclaim Jesus to be God. One of the names given to Him in Isaiah 9:6 is Mighty God. In John 20:28 Thomas called Jesus “My Lord and my God” and Jesus accepted the statement. Among the many statements in the epistles, 2 Peter 1:1 says, “Our God and savior, Jesus Christ.”
Jesus also has all the attributes of being God. He is the eternal Father (Isaiah 9:6) who is the Alpha & Omega (Revelation 1:8; 22:13) that will remain and not come to an end (Hebrews 1:11, 12). Jesus is omnipresent (Matthew 28:20), omniscient (John 4:29; John 21:17; Revelation 2:23), immutable (Hebrews 1:10-12; 13:8) and omnipotent having power over sickness & disease, nature, demons, sin and even death (Matthew 8 & 9).
Jesus also held all the offices of deity. He is the Creator (John 1:3 & 10) for all things were made by Him (Colossians 1:16), and Jesus is the preserver/ upholder of all things – in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17) (see also Hebrews 1:3).
Jesus has all the Prerogatives of Deity. He has the authority to forgive sins and made a point of that ability when dealing with the Pharisees and he healed the paralytic man (Matthew 9:2-7). The various judgements belongs to Jesus including the Sheep & Goat judgement of Matthew 25:31-32; the judgement of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim 4:1); and the judgement of the world (Acts 17:31). All authority has been given to Jesus (Matthew 28:18) so that all things will be in subjection under His feet (Ephesians 1:22). Jesus also has authority to raise people from the dead as the one who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25) and demonstrated in those that He raised from the dead: The widow’s son (Luke 7:12-16), Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:35-43), and Lazarus (John 11:38-44).
In Matthew 4:10 Jesus concurred with the command of Exodus 34:14 that only the Lord God is to be worshiped, yet He accepted the worship of others. He received worship from the Apostles (Matthew 14:33) and Mary (Matthew 28:9) and never rebuked them. Hebrews 1:6 tells us that all the angels of God worship Him. In addition, Jesus called people to worship Him and pray in His name (John 16:23f). In John 5:23 Jesus said that all are to honor the Son even as they honor the Father. In John 14:1 Jesus said, “Believe in God, believe also in me.” Philippians 2:10-11 declares that one day “Every knee bow will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Finally, Jesus made divine claims including having authority over laws and institutions of God (Matt 12:6); to be the object of saving faith (John 17:3); to meet in Himself all spiritual & eternal needs of humanity (John 7:37; 14:6); and to be equal with God (John 8:24,58; 10:30 [“one” is neuter]). He identified Himself with the Old Testament Yahweh using the name “I Am” for Himself (Exodus 3:14 cf John 8:58), and receiving the same glory (Isaiah 42:8 cf Revelation 5:12,13).
There are also groups such as the Jehovah Witnesses that do not give an outright denial of Jesus’ deity, but they make Him a lesser God. They mistranslate John 1:1 from “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” to “and the word was a god.” While they acknowledge certain aspects of Jesus’ deity, they deny that He was fully God. Though Isaiah 9:6 gives the Messiah the titles of “Mighty God” and “Eternal Father,” and though Jesus equated Himself with the Father many times, and though the apostles called Him God and even the “only God and Savior” (Jude 1:25), the Jehovah Witnesses are among those that deny that Jesus is fully God.
Let me quickly add that the Jehovah Witnesses also deny that the Holy Spirit is God and regulate Him to simply a force like electricity that emanates from God. That would be a surprise to the Apostle Peter who accused Ananias in Acts 5:3 of lying to the Holy Spirit and then added in the next verse, “You have not lied to men, but to God.” Peter equates the Holy Spirit with God. In addition you cannot lie to a force nor can you “grieve” a force as Paul warns in Ephesians 4:30.
Because they do not comprehend the triune nature of God as revealed in the Scriptures, they deny it and come up with their own perversion in which they still claim to be monotheistic, yet have at least two gods. One who is God Jehovah and one who is “a god” of some lesser degree. That is a denial of one of the fundamental characteristics of the God of the Bible as expressed in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
Why is it so important the Jesus is fully God? Aside from the Bible declaring that to be the truth there are also the theological implications. Everyone that has a human father has inherited a sin nature from him tracing all the way back to Adam (Romans 5:12). Only someone born of God and therefore not having a human father could escape that curse, and only God could live a sinless life, which Jesus Christ did (Hebrews 4:15). Only God could pay the price of sin because any human that did so would only being paying the price of his own sin, and even if someone did manage to live a sinless life and gave their life as a substitute, its value would only be for one other person. While there were offerings made on behalf of all the people for national sins such as on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), sin offerings were to be offered on a reoccurring basis by individuals for their own sin (Leviticus 4). Only the value of an infinite being could cover the sin price of all people. Jesus made one sacrifice for sin for all time (Hebrews 10:12). Only God could conquer sin and death and raise Himself from the dead, which Jesus did (John 10:18).
Those who have a Jesus that is not fully God do not have the Jesus of the Bible. They have a different Jesus who is not the Savior that can release them from their bondage to sin and grant them eternal life.
Denial of Jesus’ Humanity
There are others that deny Jesus’ humanity because they do not want to deny His deity and they refuse to believe that Jesus is both divine and human. But Jesus is both.
Jesus calls Himself a man (John 8:40) and designates Himself as the “Son of Man” (Mark 10:45). Jesus has a human lineage through Mary (Luke 1:42,43; 2:7; 3:23-38) and Paul says directly that Jesus was “born of a descendant of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). Jesus had a body of human flesh. He is the Word that became flesh (John 1:14) that gave His physical body as a sacrifice (Hebrews 10:1-10). Jesus’ body had physical limitations. He grew from birth through childhood (Luke 2:5,7,40,42,52 ). He became hungry (Matthew 4:2), thirsty (John 19:28) and tired (John 4:6). He died and His blood flowed out when He was pierced with the spear (John 19:30,32-34). The attributes of humanity existed in Jesus from birth, throughout His life and though death. There is no Scriptural support for the ideas proclaimed by some cults that Jesus was alternately human and then divine at different points during His life.
Why is it so important that Jesus was human?
First, paying penalty for sin involved suffering of body and soul such as only man is capable of bearing. Jesus’ soul was troubled (John 12:27), He suffered physically, mentally and emotionally as foretold by all the prophets (Acts 3:18)
Second, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 2:14), and that blood had to be human for animal sacrifices were insufficient (Hebrews 10:4). The shedding of Jesus’ blood as the sacrifice for sin was sufficient to redeem (Hebrews 9:12; Romans 6:10).
Third, Jesus had to take on flesh and blood in order to die and then be resurrected which would render powerless the devil’s power of death (Hebrews 2:14).
Fourth, Jesus to have human nature in order to be our High priest (Hebrews 2:17,18), and He continues to be human in order to remain as our High Priest (Hebrews 7:24)
Fifth, Jesus had to be human in order to be a real example for His followers in how to live life in faith. If Jesus were only God, then it would be futile for humans to follow His example for flesh and blood cannot live in the manner of God. However, Jesus as a man set the example of how to live a life of faith in complete trust and submission to God. Hebrews 12:1-4 calls the believer to “. . . lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” In Matthew 4 the devil seeks to tempt Jesus as a human. God cannot be enticed by food, beauty or pride because He does not get hungry, He is the origin of all beauty, and all things are created by and for He is the self-sufficient, omniscient, omnipotent Creator of all things. Jesus’s example in conquering the devil’s efforts to tempt Him is a genuine example for us to follow in conquering enticements to sin in the same way of knowing God’s word and applying it to daily life.
Those denying Jesus’ humanity have a different Jesus from the one described in the Bible. Their Jesus that cannot save them from sin, be their high priest, or be a true example of a life of faith.
Conclusion
While Jesus’ suffering and death are certainly central aspects of the story of His crucifixion, the crucial issue is the identity of the One who died. If Jesus was only a man, his crucifixion is just a horrible tragedy. If Jesus is only God, His crucifixion cannot be a blood sacrifice for sin, and He could not have died and been resurrected.
Jesus is fully God and fully man. He came to be the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies concerning a redeemer that would reconcile mankind to God. He lived a sinless life and then willing yielded His life as the sin sacrifice. The torture of His suffering and cruelty of His death were expressions of sin against the Holy One. He bore it all on our behalf.
Though Jesus’ death is the demonstration of God’s incredible love toward us – for He died while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), it was not done as an example for us to follow. He went through it to accomplish the will of the Father in atoning for sin and calling a people to Himself. That is why Hebrews 12:2 says that it was “for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus accomplished His work.
Are you one of His people? The sacrifice has been made. The price has been paid, but has it been applied to your life? The gospel is simple enough. God made man, but man is rebellious and sins against God bringing upon himself God’s condemnation for the wages of sin is death. Jesus Christ died as the substitute payment that atones for sin. Those who turn from their sin and self-righteousness to cast themselves by faith upon the person and work of Jesus Christ receive His promise of forgiveness of sin and eternal life.
We invite all who have this hope to join us in communion this evening as proclaim His death until He comes. If you do not have this hope – the assurance that you belong to Christ and if you died today your soul would be welcomed into His presence – then pass the elements along. Then talk to any of our church leaders about how you can have that hope. Don’t leave tonight without being right with God.