A strong moment of substitutionary preaching — and the sermon’s main weakness: the cross is framed too much around our worth, and not enough around God’s holiness, righteousness, judgement, and the Son’s obedience to the Father.
Working on a series such as The New Birth in Exile can easily be misunderstood. If little is said about a weak sermon and much is said about a strong sermon, it may appear that partiality is being shown. But the opposite may be true. A weak sermon may give little to work with, while a strong sermon invites sustained theological reflection.
Such is the case with this Good Friday sermon preached by Rev Stephen McDonald at Benalla Presbyterian Church. Strong sermons stimulate devotion, meditation, and deeper inquiry into God himself. This sermon does just that. It presses the listener to ask not merely what the cross means for us, but what God himself purposed at Calvary.
The sermon on Matthew 27:27–54 is reverent, accessible, and built around a memorable refrain: “Jesus didn’t save himself to save us.” That phrase captures a vital truth. Jesus did not come down from the cross because his remaining there was necessary for the salvation of sinners.
The sermon also rightly distinguishes Christ’s death from every merely human act of sacrifice: even the noblest human rescue can only delay death, not save us “from the death that we will all face and the judgment that comes after
It also rightly identifies Jesus as the one who stands under God’s judgement for us, “the atoning sacrifice for
Yet in this New Birth in Exile series the sermon’s central weakness becomes apparent. It does not reckon deeply enough with the theological disaster of Good Friday. It presents the crucifixion mainly as the place where Jesus refuses to save himself in order to save us. That is true, but it is not enough. Good Friday is not merely a personal rescue story, a moving display of sacrificial love, or an occasion to ask, “What will we do with Jesus?” It is the public exposure of the world, the judgement of the old creation, the vindication of divine righteousness, and the centre of God’s plan to bring about new creation through the death and resurrection of his Son.
Good Friday spells trouble for the world. At the cross, the world is not merely invited to consider Jesus; it is judged by what it does to Jesus. Rulers, soldiers, religious leaders, passers-by, and condemned criminals unite in mockery, violence, rejection, and unbelief. The sermon sees this when it summarises the world’s verdict as: “Not our King. Not our God, not worth living for, not worth dying for.” But that insight needed more theological force. The sermon identifies the world’s verdict on Jesus, and it does speak of divine judgement falling on Christ for us. But it does not sufficiently draw the theological conclusion that the cross is also God’s verdict on the world. Instead, it reframes Jesus’ response chiefly as a declaration that sinners are worth dying for, which weakens the judgement, propitiatory, and new-creation force of Good Friday.
The sermon’s question, “What will we do with Jesus?”, is not necessarily wrong. The crucified and risen Christ does summon every hearer to repentance, faith, worship, and obedience. But as the controlling application of Good Friday, the question is too narrow. It leaves the emphasis too much on the human responder rather than on God’s decisive action in history.
Good Friday is first about what God has done in Jesus Christ. The crucifixion is the place where sin is judged, wrath is borne, righteousness is vindicated, the curse is exhausted, the powers are exposed, the Serpent’s head is crushed and covenant promises are fulfilled. The question is therefore not merely, “What will we do with Jesus?” It is, more fundamentally, “What has God done in the crucified Christ, and where does that leave the world — and us — before him?”
The cross is not a tragedy God later turns into a useful religious symbol. It is the appointed centre of redemptive history. The Lamb was not improvised at Calvary. The crucifixion stands at the heart of the eternal counsel of God, the fulfilment of the Scriptures, the accomplishment of redemption, and the turning point between old creation and new creation. That larger horizon is mostly missing from the sermon. It rightly says Jesus died to save sinners; it does not sufficiently say that in Jesus’ death God brings the old world under judgement and opens the way to new creation.
The sermon handles the mockery scenes with real insight. It notes the irony that the soldiers, bystanders, leaders, and criminals mock Jesus for the very things that are true of him: he is King, Son of God, Saviour, and temple. It also rightly notes that Jesus is “numbered with the transgressors.”
But the sermon does not press the disaster. Good Friday is not merely sad. It is catastrophic. The world takes the Lord of glory and crucifies him. Religious authority, imperial power, popular opinion, and criminal rebellion converge against the Son of God. This is not simply an example of human cruelty. It is the apocalypse of human sin. The cross reveals what the world is: blind to God’s glory, hostile to God’s King, contemptuous of divine weakness, confident in its own judgement, enslaved to violence, and unable to recognise the Son when he comes in mercy.
Good Friday means the world has failed its great test. When God came to his own, his own did not receive him. When the true King stood before the world, the world enthroned him on a cross. When the Light shone in the darkness, the darkness hated the Light. The old world cannot be repaired by moral improvement, religious sentiment, or human progress. A world that crucifies Christ is not merely confused. It is condemned.
If we asked Rev MacDonald if he believed this summary, I have every confidence he would say “Yes”. But, this is where the sermon’s repeated language that sinners are “worth dying for” weakens the point. The phrase is pastorally understandable, but theologically inadequate. Good Friday is not first a declaration of human worth; it is a declaration of human ruin and divine mercy. The wonder of the cross is not that sinners were worthy of Christ’s death, but that God would save the unworthy through the obedience and blood of his Son. A stronger emphasis would say: sin was so dreadful, divine righteousness so uncompromising, and God’s mercy so astonishing, that nothing less than the death of the incarnate Son could save us.
The refrain “Jesus didn’t save himself to save us” is rhetorically strong, but it requires theological definition. Saved from what?
The sermon mentions judgement, death, shame, condemnation, punishment, and wrath. It says Jesus “gets what we deserve,” “pays what we owe,” and bears the verdict that should have fallen on us. These statements are true and important, but they are not sufficiently opened up. A Good Friday sermon must make plain that sinners need to be saved from the wrath of God, the guilt of sin, the curse of the law, alienation from God, bondage to sin, death as penal judgement, and eternal condemnation in the lake of fire.
The congregation needed to be brought face to face with the holy God. True, the sermon assumes God’s holiness in its account of judgement, but it does not preach God’s holiness as the controlling theological reality behind judgement, atonement, and salvation. Nor does it sufficiently connect that holiness to humanity’s creation in the image of God. We are not judged merely because we have broken arbitrary rules, but because as image-bearers we have profaned the glory we were made to reflect. We were created to mirror God’s holiness in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness; instead, we have used our image-bearing capacities in rebellion against him. Good Friday is therefore necessary because the holy God cannot deny himself, cannot overlook sin, and cannot restore fallen image-bearers except through the obedience, blood, and righteousness of the incarnate Son.
The deepest theological deficiency is the lack of a full account of atonement. The sermon contains substitutionary language and refers to Jesus as the atoning sacrifice, but again, it does not sufficiently set the crucifixion within the framework of propitiation, satisfaction, sacrifice, curse-bearing, and the vindication of God’s righteousness.
Good Friday is not only where Jesus shows love. Even the deeply personal language of Galatians 2:20 — “the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me” — must be understood within the Son’s prior and ultimate obedience to the Father. Christ loved his people by giving himself for them, but he did so as the obedient Son who came to do the Father’s will, glorify the Father’s name, fulfil the covenant purpose of redemption, and secure the Father’s gift to him. His love for sinners is real and personal, but it is ordered within his greater filial love for the Father and his zeal for the Father’s glory. Romans 3 should have supplied the theological backbone: God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood to demonstrate his righteousness, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. That category would have transformed the sermon. It would have made clear that Good Friday is not merely the proof of Jesus’ love for us, but the public vindication of God’s righteousness in the salvation of sinners.
The sermon rightly calls Jesus “the obedient Son of God” and says he is put “in the place of a rebel like you and me.” But this is not developed.
The crucifixion is the culmination of Christ’s whole obedience. Christ saves not merely by suffering, but by suffering as the obedient Son. His passive obedience — his suffering, shame, curse-bearing, forsakenness, and death — cannot be separated from his active obedience: his lifelong, perfect, voluntary fulfilment of the Father’s will.
This matters because we do not merely need pardon. We need righteousness. We do not only need our sins cancelled; we need a positive standing before God. Christ obeyed where Adam failed, where Israel failed, and where we continually fail. His death is acceptable because he is the spotless Lamb. His sacrifice avails because he is the righteous Son. His blood answers guilt because his life fulfilled all righteousness. The believer stands before God not merely forgiven, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Many of the sermons in The New Birth in Exile series have pressed the need to "trust in him", as this sermon does. It says that Jesus’ death secures resurrection life for all who trust in him and that those who trust him will never be condemned by God. Again, this is true. But trust is left too loosely defined.
In Good Friday preaching, trust must be tied to Christ’s complete work as it highlights where we continually fail. It must ask what a sinner will rely upon before the judgement throne of God. Every person will be trusting in something on that Day: sincerity, sorrow, morality, religious knowledge, church attendance, family background, ministry usefulness, or vague belief in God. But the question is whether any of these can withstand the wrath of God against sin. Only Christ has stood under that judgement and endured it. Only Christ’s righteousness avails. Only Christ’s blood answers guilt. Only Christ’s obedience covers disobedience.
To trust in Jesus is to abandon every hope that your own life could ever answer for you before God. It is to confess that Scripture’s testimony concerning your failure is true: we have failed from the womb. Yet from the womb, Christ reveals himself as the obedient incarnate Son. Where we are conceived in sin, he is conceived by the Holy Spirit. Where we come forth fallen in Adam, he comes as the holy child, the last Adam, and the obedient Son. Where our whole life fails to answer God’s holiness, his whole life fulfils all righteousness. That would have made the call to faith concrete, urgent, forensic, and searching.
The sermon is warm and pastorally clear, but it is not searching enough. It does not sufficiently probe the conscience, expose false refuges, distinguish admiration for Jesus from saving faith in Jesus, confront the nominal Christian who knows the story but remains unmoved, or ask whether the congregation is implicated in the mockery of Christ.
The sermon does say that guilty people may come to Jesus, ashamed people may find acceptance in Jesus, and those who trust him need not fear death. That is pastorally good. But Good Friday requires more than comfort. It requires arrest. The cross exposes us before it consoles us. The preacher could have pressed the congregation with sharper questions: Are you merely moved by the cross, or have you fled to the crucified Christ? Are you trusting Christ’s righteousness, or your own decency? Do you want Jesus as Saviour from judgement, but not as Lord over your life? Do you stand with the mockers by demanding that Jesus prove himself on your terms? What refuge will you have when the judgement throne is set?
Such searching application is especially necessary because Good Friday reveals the world’s condition. If the world crucified the Lord of glory, then natural man does not need mild improvement. He needs resurrection life.
The sermon’s final weakness is that it does not press the necessity of the new birth. This matters especially because we know Good Friday from the vantage point of Easter.
Good Friday shows the disaster. The crucifixion exposes the old creation as guilty, condemned, and death-bound. The resurrection declares the beginning of new creation in the risen Christ. Therefore, the proper application is not merely, “What will you do with Jesus?” but, “You must be born again.”
This sermon is orthodox in outline, reverent in tone, and clear in its basic proclamation that Jesus remained on the cross to save sinners. It rightly identifies substitution, judgement, shame, and death as central to the crucifixion. But as a Good Friday sermon, it does not adequately reckon with the disaster of the cross.
Good Friday is not first a declaration that sinners were worth dying for. Good Friday reveals not merely that the world is wicked, but that sin as such is intolerable before the holy God. Even one transgression by an image-bearer requires judgement, righteousness, and satisfaction. Therefore, nothing less than the full obedience, blood, and curse-bearing death of the incarnate Son could save. The crucifixion is the centre of God’s plan for creation: sin condemned, wrath propitiated, the powers exposed, divine righteousness vindicated, and new creation secured through the death and resurrection of Christ.
The sermon’s refrain could therefore be deepened: Jesus did not save himself, because sinners could not save themselves. He remained on the cross because God’s righteousness had to be vindicated, sin had to be publicly judged, wrath had to be borne, the curse had to be exhausted, and righteousness had to be fulfilled. Good Friday spells disaster for the old world and every false refuge within it. Easter announces the new creation in the risen Christ. Therefore sinners must be born again, renounce every confidence but Christ, and rest wholly in Christ’s righteousness and His blood as the crucified and risen Lord.
A full copy of the sermon is available at The Reformed Pastor's YouTube channel.
More articles in The New Birth in Exile series.
