During our Good Friday service, we looked at Col 1:15-23, verses which stress the supremacy of Christ and all He has done for us. Through Christ’s death on the cross, we have reconciliation with God: ‘For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.’ (Col 1:19-20, see also 2 Cor 5:19) We also have peace with God (Rom 5:12). Death was the penalty God prescribed for sin: ‘the wages of sin is death.’ (Rom 6:23) But through Christ’s death, that penalty has been paid and so we gain access to the free gift of God: ‘eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Rom 6:23)
Paul gives us more reasons for rejoicing, for he goes on to say that Christ’s ultimate purpose is ‘to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.’ (Col 1:22) God doesn’t just allow us to come crawling into His presence as a disgraced person, head hanging down in shame. He clothes us with the very righteousness of Christ and gives us the same holiness as the sinless One. He’s working in us to make us holy, without blemish, free from accusation. We don’t have to come into His presence wearing moth-eaten cloaks but instead are given robes of righteousness and garments of salvation to wear (Is 61:10). God intends for us to be holy and blameless (Eph 1:4), presented as a ‘radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.’ (Eph 5:26-27) This may seem impossible to us now to believe, but because Jesus was the sinless Lamb of God, because He was ‘a lamb without blemish or defect’ (1 Pet 1:19), He has the power to remove all blemishes and stains from us. We can look better than any blemish-free skin!
Good Friday reminds us that Jesus has finished the work God gave Him to do and because of this, all we have to do is ‘continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.’ (Col 1:23) All we have to do is come to God and accept that Jesus has done everything that was required to reconcile us to God, to give us peace with God, to break the chains of the enemy, to cleanse us and make us holy and blameless. We accept the hope held out in the gospel and we take that hope into ourselves and live by that bond of trust. We are so grateful to Jesus for all He has done for us at Calvary; we look ahead to Easter Sunday knowing that the fact that Jesus is no longer in the Tomb is the reason for the hope we have, because it’s proof that His sacrifice was acceptable once and for all to God. We are blessed people because we have a God who loved us enough to die for us. We are blessed because nothing now can separate us from that love.