Today we celebrate, “Good Friday”. In light of the resurrection, we reflect on the day our Lord, Christ Jesus gave Himself up to die on the Cross, bearing the full weight of the wrath of God to be the propitiation for our sins. (Though of course Christ didn’t really die on a Friday since 3 days had to pass ’till the Resurrection.)
Including today’s Daily Devotion, I add a blessed hymn first shared to me by a dear sister.
“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”—Galatians 6:14
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.[Added by the compilers of Hymns Ancient and Modern]
To Christ, who won for sinners grace
By bitter grief and anguish sore,
Be praise from all the ransomed race
Forever and forevermore.Words: Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707. Charles Wesley reportedly said he would give up all his other hymns to have written this one.
Music: Hamburg, Lowell Mason, 1824; first appeared in The Boston Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music, third edition, 1825.
A celtic-flavoured version of this blessed hymn: [link]
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Let us do well and invest this day in prayer and meditation on the Word of God and fellowship among saints, and together let us survey that wondrous Cross, the heights and depths of the infinite price of what was paid that vile, wretched, hell-deserving sinners such as we are may be Redeemed.
The Lord, Christ Jesus did not try to save His sheep on His work on the Cross. What was said of Jesus by the angel to Mary? “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).” He infallibly saves. He perfectly saves. The Lord, Christ Jesus is a perfect Savior.
Let us remember that we “were ransomed not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:18-19).” As was said, “Salvation is free, yes. But it was not free for nothing.” And “when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God . . . For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:12-14).”
What’s the proper response then? Brokenness. A weeping of the heart and soul before the throne of great grace. A life of continued brokenness, repentance and godliness that testifies a life not under the dominion of sin, but one under mighty sovereign grace, clothed and being continually conformed to the image of Christ.
Fall flat on your face and worship.
“He answered him to never a word.” — Matthew 27:14
He had never been slow of speech when he could bless the sons of men, but he would not say a single word for himself. “Never man spake like this man,” and never man was silent like him.
Was this singular silence the index of his perfect self- sacrifice?
Did it show that he would not utter a word to stay the slaughter of his sacred person, which he had dedicated as an offering for us? Had he so entirely surrendered himself that he would not interfere in his own behalf, even in the minutest degree, but be bound and slain an unstruggling, uncomplaining victim?
Was this silence a type of the defencelessness of sin?
Nothing can be said in palliation or excuse of human guilt; and, therefore, he who bore its whole weight stood speechless before his judge.
Is not patient silence the best reply to a gainsaying world? Calm endurance answers some questions infinitely more conclusively than the loftiest eloquence. The best apologists for Christianity in the early days were its martyrs. The anvil breaks a host of hammers by quietly bearing their blows.
Did not the silent Lamb of God furnish us with a grand example of wisdom? Where every word was occasion for new blasphemy, it was the line of duty to afford no fuel for the flame of sin. The ambiguous and the false, the unworthy and mean, will ere long overthrow and confute themselves, and therefore the true can afford to be quiet, and finds silence to be its wisdom.
Evidently our Lord, by his silence, furnished a remarkable fulfilment of prophecy. A long defence of himself would have been contrary to Isaiah’s prediction. “He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”
By his quiet he conclusively proved himself to be the true Lamb of God.
As such we salute him this morning.
Be with us, Jesus, and in the silence of our heart, let us hear the voice of thy love.
—C.H.Spurgeon.i
Footnotes
- (2006). Morning and evening : Daily readings (Complete and unabridged; New modern edition.) (April 2 AM). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. [↩]
