The Greatest Evil, The Greatest Good
“They kept shouting, ‘Crucify, crucify him!’” – Luke 23:21
In the long course of human history, stretching from Eden to the present hour, no crime stands more heinous, no injustice more monstrous, nothing ever committed by human hands can compare to what was done on a Friday afternoon outside the walls of Jerusalem. On that day, the creature not only defied the Creator, but the creature sought to kill the Creator as Peter the Apostle says, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” (Acts 2:23)
Clay men, formed from the dust, raised their fists against the potter to overthrow him.
Those lawless men who delivered the Lord over to die did not truly understand what they were doing. Not the betrayer Judas in his betrayal for 30 pieces of silver, not Caiaphas, who tore his robes in mocking outrage, not Pilate, who washed his hands of the blood of Christ, not even the crowds who called "Crucify!" with the same mouths that had cried "Hosanna!" only days prior. None of them grasped the full weight of the transaction being made that afternoon. They were committing the greatest evil the world has ever seen or shall ever see: the murder of God's own Son. And yet, hung upon this day is the great and glorious mystery on which the universe itself turns.
God had planned it.
This is the humbling and gloriously impossible truth of the cross: that the greatest evil ever committed was, at the very same moment, accomplishing the greatest good ever possible. Behind the traitor Judas, and the coward Pilate, and the angry crowd, stands the eternal, unshakeable, sovereign purpose of the only Almighty God. Peter proclaimed it clearly: Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God." This was no accident; it was no tragedy God was forced to scramble to fix. It was the plan.
The prophet Isaiah saw it centuries before it came to pass. By the Spirit, who prophesied the sufferings of Christ, Isaiah speaks of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, "It was the will of the LORD to crush him." It was not the will of Rome, or the rulers of Israel, it wasn’t even the will of the crowd the crucifixion of Christ was the will of Yahweh. The Father does not turn his face away, God the Father pours out his wrath upon God the Son in the Son's willing obedience.
Why? Because our sin is no small thing. Sin is the creature's declaration of war against a holy God, and God will not turn a blind eye toward rebellion. The wages of sin is death, and someone had to die. Either we would bear the full and undiluted wrath of God, or someone must die in our place. And so, the Son of God enters into our place of wrath. He takes the cup of wrath stored up, where a drop would kill us all, and drinks it to its very dregs. Do not brush past this! Do not press on toward Sunday without the full taste of sacrifice! God the Son was nailed to that Roman instrument, and he died upon that rugged cross. Let it be real in your hearts and minds, let it be seared upon our very souls!
It is only those who looked upon the Son on his cross who can run to his empty tomb.
On the third day, the stone that held back the Son of God in his cold tomb was rolled away. Not to let Jesus out, but it was to let the world look in. The tomb is empty. Death, undefeated against every man, had finally met the one man it could not hold. Death reached for this Jesus of Nazareth, and found that it had no claim on Him! "It was not possible," Peter declares, "for him to be held by it."
It is as if Death itself thought, “This is no mere man, this is Jesus Christ the Righteous! This is the Second Adam, the answer to all the Law and the Prophets. This is the Son of God!” Christ paid for every sin and debt owed to God. And so, as Christ walks out of that garden-tomb on that Sunday, that first Lord’s Day, He did not walk out alone, but walked out as the First Born from the dead, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
The greatest evil in history, the crucifixion of the Son of God, became, by the sovereign wisdom and grace of our God, the greatest good the world will ever know. The grave is empty. Our sins are forgiven. Death is undone. A New Creation is promised. All because He is Risen.
He is Risen Indeed.
