Devotional – Good Friday
Job once asked the question that echoes through every human heart:
“How then can man be justified with God?” — Job 25:4
It is the cry of humanity—how can sinful man ever stand right before a holy God?
Yet the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, asks what seems to be the opposite question:
How can God remain just—true to His own righteous character—and yet justify the ungodly? — Romans 3:26
Here lies the great dilemma of redemption.
God cannot simply overlook sin.
He cannot excuse it and still remain holy.
For God to declare a sinner righteous, that sinner must first be made righteous.
But how?
Paul gives us the answer:
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” — 2 Corinthians 5:21
This is the heart of Good Friday.
The prophet Isaiah saw it centuries before:
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…”
“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities…”
“And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” — Isaiah 53:4–6
Sin demands a payment.
“For the wages of sin is death.” — Romans 6:23
But who could pay such a price?
No man could—because all are sinners.
We are not merely sinners by choice; we are sinners by nature.
Job understood this deeply when he cried:
“Nor is there any mediator between us, who may lay his hand on us both.” — Job 9:33
A mediator was needed—someone who could stand between God and man.
And then we are taken to heaven in Revelation 5. The Apostle John weeps:
“No one was found worthy… to open the scroll.”
All of heaven pauses—until one speaks:
“Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah… has prevailed.”
And when John looks—
He does not see a lion.
He sees a Lamb as though it had been slain.
Jesus Christ.
The answer to Job’s question.
The solution to Paul’s dilemma.
The fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.
Between a holy God and sinful man lies an infinite gulf.
Only One could bridge it.
Jesus Christ—fully God and fully man—took upon Himself our nature, and in that body bore our sin. Because He is God, His sacrifice carries infinite worth. Because He is man, He could stand in our place.
A man may suffer under the wrath of God…
but he cannot suffer redemptively.
Finite man can only endure judgment—never satisfy it.
Yet when God the Son became man, He did what no one else could do:
He bore the full weight of God’s wrath against sin—
not over eternity…
but in a moment of time.
The infinite, eternal debt was paid in full.
This is the wonder of Good Friday:
God became man… to reveal Himself to man.
God became man… to redeem man.
And at the cross, justice and mercy met.
God remained just—
and became the justifier
of those who place their faith in Jesus Christ.