It is Finished: Jesus Christ’s Death and Burial for Blasphemers, Persecutors, and Insolent Opponents

I delivered the Good Friday message at Immanuel Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Friday, April 19, 2025. The text, which draws on 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and John 19, is below.

The sky went dark, and the temple veil tore. It was noon on a Friday in a backwater of the Roman Empire, and three people were dying agonizing deaths of crucifixion, a method of execution designed to torture, degrade, and humiliate. But as you know, one of those three people was not like the other, for he was Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph, the Christ, the Son of God.

And he was forsaken by those closest to him. A sign hung above him that read “The King of the Jews.” He was mocked, jeered at, and spit upon by those he came to save. The same people who, a few days before, had waved palm branches and shouted “hosanna!” as he rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, had only earlier today called on Pontius Pilate to crucify him. And yet he had prayed for those who had driven the nails into his hands and feet and cast lots for his clothing: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

The darkness lasted for about three hours before Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34-38) Then, “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30).

Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, was dead. God was dead. And for what? Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:15: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” And why do we need to be saved? Just a few verses earlier, in 1 Timothy 1:12-14, Paul writes, “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” (1 Timothy 1:12-13a).

What does it mean to be a sinner? To be a sinner is not to have slipped up and made a mistake. It’s not getting thinking the speed limit is 45 and getting pulled over because it’s only 35 and you didn’t see the sign. We are, like Paul, blasphemers, persecutors, and insolent opponents. As John Piper explains in his book Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, the severity of the offense rises with the dignity of the offended. A good and holy God who is wholly good, ultimately and infinitely righteous, just, kind, and merciful beyond our capacity to understand, articulate, or conceive, the creator of the universe, the author of life who created us in his image because it pleased him to do so–is the victim of our sin of heinous insults and rebellion.

If God is good and God is just, wrath is the only proper and right response to our sin. A holy, righteous, and just God cannot have fellowship with blasphemers who proclaim with their words and their deeds the lie that God is not holy. A holy, righteous, and just God cannot have fellowship with persecutors, those who accuse him and persecute his people. A holy, righteous, and just God cannot have fellowship with insolent opponents–with those, in short, who want nothing to do with him except to blaspheme, persecute, and oppose and who want to set themselves above God by making themselves arbiter of right and wrong, of the good, the true, and the beautiful. 

A holy, righteous, and just God cannot and will not have fellowship with blasphemers, persecutors, and insolent opponents. Isn’t that harsh? No. Someone who hands you a brownie knowingly baked with rotten ingredients and expects you to thank them for it is demented, but that’s what we do when we expect to come to God on our terms and not his. His refusal to have fellowship with sin is just and right, and it is blasphemy, persecution, and insolent opposition to protest.

But God came to save us. Not only are his righteousness, holiness, and justice infinite. His goodness, love, kindness, and mercy are infinite, too. But how does God satisfy his righteous and rightful wrath while also expressing and fulfilling his goodness, love, kindness, and mercy? Enter Jesus, who “came into the world to save sinners” by taking upon his perfect, spotless, and holy self the wrath that our sin has earned. Can we satisfy the wrath of God? No, we can’t. Sin chooses and deserves eternal separation from him, and there is wrath he could pour out on us that is more than we deserve. The only one who can bear the infinite wrath of a holy God is God himself–and he chose to do so in a way that shows us just how depraved and wicked we are. He put on flesh. He came to live among us and did so perfectly. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. He announced a new kingdom. We killed him for it. We received his message not with humility and joy and thankfulness but with blasphemy, persecution, and insolent opposition.

This, of course, came as no surprise to him. It was part of him satisfying God’s infinite wrath by showing us his infinite love. Jesus no doubt spent a lot of time meditating on Isaiah 53:4-6:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”

Back in 1 Timothy 13b, right after explaining that he was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, Paul continues: “But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” 

In 1 Timothy 1:16, Paul continues, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” we were blasphemers, persecutors, and insolent opponents–but Jesus Christ is God’s infinite love satisfying infinite wrath so that we are not condemned but can “believe in him for eternal life.” 

But on Good Friday, we remember Christ’s death and burial. What good to us is a dead and buried God? Not much, but we wouldn’t be here if we knew that death and burial were the end of the story. As the great preacher S.M. Lockridge has said, “it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Reflect and meditate on the weight of our sin taken off our shoulders with Jesus Christ’s perfect patience shown to us: blasphemers, persecutors, and insolent opponents, but with a way to fellowship with God through Christ’s perfect sacrifice. Praise him with Paul in 1 Timothy 12:17: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”