It Is Finished!

November 2010 – Grace & Truth Magazine

It Is Finished!

“It is finished!” was not just a casual remark by Jesus as He hung on the cross, or the Holy Spirit would not have recorded it in the Scriptures. It was loaded with meaning. It was not a moan of defeat, but a shout of victory. As the Son of God, Jesus was in complete control of all the events at His crucifixion. His life was not taken from Him; He laid it down by His own authority (Jn. 10:11,18) . So in John 19:30, we read that He purposefully bowed His head and gave up His spirit immediately after crying out, “It is finished!”

What Was Finished?
What had Jesus so deliberately and surely finished? The answer is found in what He prayed shortly before these words: “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (Jn. 17:4 NKJV). This doesn’t mean He had finished the work at that exact moment; He was actually looking ahead to the crucifixion, when it would be finished. But God viewed it as already finished because it was really as good as done, since nothing could thwart His sovereign plan. As it says in Hebrews 4:3, God’s work was actually “finished from the foundation of the world.”

What was this work that the Father gave the Son to do? First, there were His many good works purposed to show the world that He truly was the Son of God. In John 5:36, He said that the works bore witness of Him. And in John 10:37 He said, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” By showing the world that He was God, His work also proved the guiltiness of man in rejecting Him. “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin” (Jn. 15:24).

But for us the most important work that Jesus finished was the work of redemption. Christ came specifically to do God’s will (Heb. 10:9), and John 6:40 says, “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life.” This was the work that was specifically accomplished by His crucifixion, since it was His death for us sinners that makes this possible (Rom. 5:6).

Was It Hard?
This task troubled Christ’s soul, as seen in the garden of Gethsemane (Mt. 26:36-46), and also in John 12:27: “Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” The reason for this dread was that in His crucifixion Christ would actually have to “bear our sins in His own body” (1 Pet. 2:24). Paul writes that Jesus who “knew no sin (was made) to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21). This shows us what a serious work this was for our Lord, and yet “for the joy that was set before Him (He) endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Thus He completely finished the work of our salvation.

Who Was It For?
This completely finished aspect of the work is a truly amazing and very important fact. His blood cleanses us from all sin; there is no part of this work left for us to do. This is in sharp contrast to the Old Testament offerings. Hebrews 10:2 points out that if those sacrifices could have cleansed us from sin, they would have only had to be offered once. Instead, it goes on to say, that in them there was actually a continual reminder of sin. But, of Christ, it says in 10:12, “after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, He sat down at the right hand of God.” And 10:14 says that “by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”

To those who are trying to earn salvation by doing good works, Hebrews 10:14 should be taken as a severe warning, because by their actions they are rejecting the one and only true work that can save them, namely the offering of Christ on the cross. But to those of us who have been made sons of God through faith in Christ, that verse is a tremendous comfort. We freely admit that we still sin, although that tendency is counteracted by His sanctifying work in us. But we never have to worry about our standing before God, because, as that verse says, we are “perfected forever” by that one offering of Christ on the cross for us.

Is It For Me?
If Christ had not finished the work of salvation for us, we could not possibly have this kind of confident peace with God, because we would always have to wonder whether or not we would truly be faithful to the end. But when we receive Christ as the completely reliable “rock of our salvation” that He is (Ps. 95:1), we can truly say, “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him” (1 Jn. 3:2). The victory over sin and death has already been won by Jesus, as surely as He has been resurrected and glorified by God. That’s what “It is finished!” is all about.

by Ed Morris

Complete in Thee, no work of mine May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine; Thy blood has pardon bought for me ... And glorified, I too shall be.
Dear Savior, when before Thy bar All tribes and tongues assembled are, Among Thy chosen will I be, At Thy right hand, complete in Thee.
By Aaron Wolfe (1821-1902)