This sermon was extremely difficult for me to listen to for this Series. Not chiefly because its central claims were false, but because the sermon rarely developed the meaning of John 19:17–42.
The preacher, Rev. K. Hui Lim (Hugh) at Rye-Sorrento Presbyterian Church, follows the narrative’s broad sequence: crucifixion, death, and burial, but repeats or paraphrases details from the passage rather than explaining why John records them and how they disclose the saving work of Christ.
The result is a substantially faithful but theologically compressed Good Friday sermon.
The first section devotes considerable time to reconstructed details of Roman crucifixion: the crossbeam, nails, bodily position, and the mechanics of death by suffocation. While the cruelty of crucifixion should not be minimized, this material occupies the sermon from 03:05 to 06:26 without opening the distinctive theological significance of Christ’s cross.
John does not merely report that Jesus suffered an unusually painful execution. He presents the crucified Jesus as the King, the fulfillment of Scripture, the obedient Son, and the Lamb whose death accomplishes redemption.
Some examples of missing exposition include the observation of the fulfillment of Psalm 22 in the soldiers’ division of Christ’s garments. Yet the sermon does not substantially unfold John’s wider purpose: God’s sovereign word stands fulfilled even while rulers and soldiers act in unbelief. Likewise, the discussion of Joseph, Nicodemus, spices, weights, servants, and royal burial customs is lengthy, but the theological purpose of Christ’s burial receives comparatively little attention. The preacher describes the text; he seldom expounds its redemptive meaning.
>The sermon’s strongest theological moments come in its account of Christ’s death. It states that Jesus “took upon all the sin of the world,” “paid for the penalty of sin,” and “fulfilled all of God’s righteousness”. It also identifies the darkness as an expression of God’s wrath and judgment against sin. These are important and biblical affirmations. Christ did not die merely as a victim of injustice or as an example of courage. He gave Himself for sinners, bearing the curse and judgment that sin deserves.
>Yet the sermon does not adequately explain substitution and satisfaction. It says that Christ bore sin and paid sin’s penalty, but does not show that He stood in the place of His people, satisfied the righteous judgment of God, and secured their reconciliation with Him. Nor does it explain that sinners are justified, declared righteous before God, not through their own works, repentance, or religious feeling, but through Christ’s obedience and death received by faith alone.
>The language of the Father “turning away” and the Son being “separated from the Father” seeks to communicate the awful spiritual suffering of Christ. That concern is right. Nevertheless, it needs greater precision. The Son truly bore the judicial forsakenness and curse due to sin, but the eternal communion and unity of the Triune God were not broken. The cross reveals judgment within the saving purpose of the Triune God, not division within God’s eternal being.
The conclusion rightly declares that Christ died for sinners and that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ at 23:06–23:26. But the sermon does not explain how that peace becomes the possession of particular sinners. There is no clear call to repentance and faith, no definition of faith as receiving and resting upon Christ, and no sustained application to the conscience of either the unbeliever or the believer.
Its principal need is not a different gospel but a more explicit gospel logic. The sermon should move from God’s holiness and human guilt, to Christ’s substitutionary death and finished work, and then to the free summons to come to Christ in repentance and faith. Only then does Good Friday become more than a solemn recollection of suffering. It becomes the proclamation that the crucified Christ has accomplished salvation and that all who rest in Him have peace with God. No mention or necessity to be born again arises in this sermon.
