What's Good About Good Friday?

Jesus died. And that's good? When is death good?

The fact that it's called Good Friday bothered me until I learned what was so good about it. Without His death, Christ is not raised. If Christ is not raised, if He does not live, then we ourselves have no life, as our life is in Him.

50 Reasons Jesus Came To Die is an absolutely amazing e-book from John Piper available as a pdf. Download it here. Each chapter is one of the reasons, taken directly from Scripture. It's only 128 pages, but in the meantime:

1. To absorb the wrath of God
2. To please His heavenly Father
3. To learn obedience and be perfected
4. To achieve His own resurrection from the dead
5. The show the wealth of God's love and grace for sinners
6. To show His own love for us
7. To cancel the legal demands of the law against us
8. To become a ransom for many
9. For the forgiveness of our sins
10. To provide the basis for our justification
11. To complete the obedience that becomes our righteousness
12. To take away our condemnation
13. To abolish circumcision and all rituals as the basis of salvation
14. To bring us to faith and keep us faithful 
15. To make us holy, blameless, and perfect
16. To give us a clear conscience
17. To obtain for us all things that are good for us
18. To heal us from moral and physical sickness
19. To give eternal life to all who believe him
20. To deliver us from the present evil age
21. To reconcile us to God
22. To bring us to God
23. So that we might belong to Him
24. To give us confident access to the holiest place
25. To become for us the place where we meet God
26. To bring the Old Testament Priesthood to an end and become the eternal high priest
27. To become a sympathetic and helpful priest
28. To free us from the futility of our ancestry
29. To free us from the slavery of sin
30. That we might die to sin and live to righteousness
31. So that we would die to the law and bear fruit for God
32. To enable us to live for Christ and not ourselves
33. To make His cross the ground of all our boasting
34. To enable us to live by faith in Him
35. To give marriage its deepest meaning
36. To create a people passionate for good works
37. To call us to follow His example of lowliness and costly love
38. To create a band of crucified followers
39. To free us from bondage to the fear of death
40. So that we would be with Him immediately after death
41. To secure our resurrection from the dead
42. To disarm the rulers and authorities
43. To unleash the power of God in the Gospel
44. To destroy the hostility between races
45. To ransom people from every tribe and language and people and nation
46. To gather all His sheep from around the world
47. To rescue us from final judgment
48. To gain His joy and ours
49. So that He would be crowned with glory and honor
50. To show that the worst evil is meant by God for good

What a great list, for every day, but especially today. No wonder they call Him the Savior.