When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost (John 19:30).
Of the seven utterances of Jesus on the cross this, "It is finished," is so far as we can tell the next to the last. It came next after he said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," and it came right before he said, "Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit,”
We shall ask what Jesus meant when he uttered that little sentence, this English sentence expressed by a single word in the original, tetelestai.
Perhaps we can understand what Jesus meant best if we ask the question to whom was he addressing himself?
Was he speaking to the people who watched him at the foot of the cross? That does not appear to have been the case. Yes, he did speak one "word" to his mother and to John the beloved disciple, that she might be cared for till the day of her death. Outside of that he did not speak to the crowd below.
There were the leaders of the people mocking him: "He saved others; himself he cannot save." "If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him" (Matthew 27:42). "You are right," they said in effect. "It is finished. Your claim to be the son of God has shown itself to be folly. All your preaching about the kingdom you had come to establish was, as all can now see, an idle and wicked boast. Never will you deceive the people again. You are utterly defeated," But Jesus did not answer them.
Yet he did answer them. He answered them indirectly. When he said, "It is finished," he first of all addressed himself to his Father in heaven. Father, I have finished the task you gave me to do. “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:4-5). I have established thy kingdom among men.
In the second place, when Jesus uttered the words, "It is finished," he was addressing Satan. Satan had overheard Jesus’ high-priestly prayer. He heard the Savior say to the Father, "Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled" (John 17:12) .
"It is finished, Satan. You are defeated. I refused to receive the kingdom at your hand. Throughout my ministry I set my face steadfastly toward Jerusalem, toward this little hill of Golgotha. Now it is finished; try as you may, you will not prevail. Soon you will go out into the world seeking to deceive the nations. Soon you will be trying to arouse the spirit of the anti-Christ in the church only to be cast into outer darkness. It is finished, Satan. It is finished," The powers of hell will not prevail against the kingdom of heaven.
In the third place, when Jesus uttered these words, "It is finished," he as it were also addressed himself to those he had come to redeem. First, he addressed the eleven apostles. They too had overheard him speaking to his Father in his high-priestly prayer. "For I have given them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me" (John 17:8).
Now they will understand that it was through suffering for them, through bearing the wrath of God for them, in their place, through being forsaken of the Father for them, in their place, that he came to save his people from their sin. Soon they will understand that the resurrection would follow the crucifixion and that Pentecost would follow the resurrection for them. Then they who had fled his presence when he was apprehended in the garden would preach "through Jesus the resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4:2) .
Let us now amplify each of these three points as they involve one another.
I. Addressing the Father
Throughout his life Jesus was deeply conscious of his being one with the Father and of being sent on the great mission of the redemption of men to the glory of the Father. When he was only twelve years old it was the "Father's business" that loomed larger for him even than his love of his parents. When his mother and his brothers thought he was becoming mentally unbalanced by his preoccupation with the Father's business, he turning to the people answered: "Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matthew 12:49-50) .
When the Jews sought to slay him because, as they thought, he broke the law of the sabbath, he said, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work" (John 5:17).
Again: "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel" (John 5:19-20).
Only recently, on the Mount of Transfiguration, the heavens had opened and the voice of the Father was heard, even as it had been at his baptism, saying, "This is my beloved Son: hear him” (Mark 9:7) . Then in the garden he said to Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here and watch with me" (Matthew 26:38). But they fell asleep. They did not fathom the import of the hour; they loved him but they did not understand and they were weak. So, while sweating as it were drops of blood, he fled to his Father for refuge. "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matthew 26:39). "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done" (Matthew 26:42). All men have forsaken me but thou, Father, art still with me.
…one in purpose
In this, his greatest agony up to this time, Jesus rested assured that the Father and he were not only one in being, but one in purpose. He was doing the will of the Father and the Father smiled on him.
Even his first utterance on the cross was an appeal to the Father: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," Then with quietness of spirit he said to his mother, "Woman, behold they son,” and to John, "Behold thy mother," Turning to the repentant malefactor on his side he said, "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise,”
After that it seems suddenly a horror of darkness unspeakably greater even than that of Gethsemane, overwhelms him. As the darkness of the cave blots out the light of the sun, so the darkness of dereliction blots out the smile of the Father.
He knew that in the counsels of eternity he had made covenant with the Father and the Spirit to the effect that for the saving of his people he must be forsaken of God.
He knew that Moses and the prophets had spoken of this hour. He knew that he was to be the suffering servant of Jehovah: "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:4-6) .
Jesus knew that the ceremony of the great day of atonement, when the high priest laid the sin of all the people upon a he-goat, to be led into the desert never to return, prefigured what now he must do for sinners who deserved to be sent away from him forever.
Jesus not only knew all that during his life but went toward its realization quite of his own will. No doubt he was tempted not to walk this way. As the time drew near he spoke much to his disciples of his suffering that he must accomplish at Jerusalem and as he did so his disciples sometimes saw amazement on his face, such amazement as had never been seen on the face of any other man condemned to die by crucifixion. He alone, though sinless himself, knew the depth of the heinousness of the sin of man, for he alone knew the holiness of the Father, being one with the Father.
But, Father, is there not some other way? No, he tells himself. The only other way would be the way of Satan, the way that Satan had suggested in the wilderness, the way of receiving without being forsaken of God for his people. If he followed that other way then the voice of the seraphim that Isaiah had heard—“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3)—would fall silent. If he followed that other way, the powers of hell would enslave all mankind to everlasting doom, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. "Get thee behind me, Satan," was his answer whenever that other way presented itself as a temptation to his mind. "Not my will, but thine be done”—those are the last words we hear from Jesus' lips on this subject.
He must go this way; he will go this way; it is the only way, not only by the will of the Father but by his own will as well.
But now, as of a sudden, the reality of it all overwhelms him. All the billows of God's wrath now overwhelm him. He descends into hell. What else is hell than to be forsaken of God? Other men enter upon hell as sinners; they know they deserve to be forsaken of God. They have an evil conscience, and at last they affirm the holiness of God. In hell they hate the holy God more than ever for his very holiness and justice and love. But Jesus had no evil conscience. How then could the Father send him into hell?
Spontaneously he grasps for the words he himself by his Spirit inspired the psalmist to write: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1) . Have I not kept every jot and every tittle of the law? And does not he who keeps the whole law, by loving God above all and his fellow-man as himself, deserve eternal life in thy presence? And now you are casting me into eternal death!
… forsaken for his own
Get thee behind me, Satan! I am not forsaken of my Father for myself; I am forsaken of the Father for the sake of those who deserve to be forsaken. I am forsaken of my Father for them whom the Father himself has given me.
But then the full reality of God's forsaking him was upon him. The curse of God comes down upon him from the offended love of the Father. So he cries out, "My God, my God," not "My Father, my Father"; he no longer sees the smiling face of the Father. "My God, why, why hast thou forsaken me,”
Why? Because only thus could he save his people from their sins and only by doing this could he "glorify" the Father on earth. The holy God required this way.
And now, all this agony is over. It is finished. No other human being, clutched in the agonies of death and then suddenly and unexpectedly delivered from death, ever spoke words with such depth of meaning before. Father, I have kept my covenant with thee. Now, Father, “the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee, since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John 17:1-3) .
II. Addressing Satan
Did you think, Satan, that you were really victorious when, at the beginning of history, Adam and Eve fell for your temptation? You should have known better when you overheard the promise given to Adam and Eve: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15).
Well, I am the seed of the woman. Through all your maneuverings you have only bruised my heel. Through your servants, the leaders of the Jews, you “succeeded" to have me crucified. But this very success of yours spells your utter and final defeat.
God's righteous love has now prevailed on earth. You are the great deceiver of men but you have, in the last analysis, only deceived yourself.
Did you think you were successful when you instilled hatred into Cain’s heart so that he slew his brother Abel? You were not. Cain, not Abel, failed and you failed with Cain. I have just now taken vengeance on you for the blood of Abel.
Did you think you were successful when you wiped out the line of separation between the descendants' of Seth and the descendants of Cain? Did you rub your hands in glee when you heard God say of man that "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5) and "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth… for it repenteth me that I have made him" (verse 7) ? Did you laugh at Noah when he alone preached righteousness among men? Well, it was I who witnessed through Noah; it was I who prophesied judgment upon unrighteous men. It is I who this day am sending you to the bottomless pit for all your unrighteous instigation of men to rebellion against me.
Did you think that you had succeeded when Abraham, the father of the faithful, failed to trust the promises of God and took the fulfillment of them into his own hands? Through me shall the nations of the world be blessed.
When I began my ministry, you must remember well, we had a person to person confrontation in the wilderness. You sought to persuade me to wipe out the line of distinction between my kingdom and your kingdom with your "pious" appeal to Scripture.
However, I quoted Scripture, too. I proved to you that it is not merely a matter of the words of Scripture but of their sense. I have this day established before your eyes the true sense of Scripture in its bearing upon what I came to do. I have established the kingdom of truth and of righteousness against your kingdom of the lie and of unrighteousness. I have this day exposed you for the arch-liar that you are. For three years you have watched me. Never could you convict me of sin. I came to die for the sins of my people. You must now understand to your destruction.
Did you think you were successful when you instigated Pilate to say, "What is truth?" You now know, as never before, that I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that neither you nor any of your followers can speak a final word against the truth.
…the one defeated
What an unspeakably horrible existence you will have after this. It will be impossible henceforth, Satan, to deceive yourself the way you have done till now. You now know you are defeated. You now know that all the powers of hell, of which you are commander in chief, cannot prevail against the kingdom of heaven which I have established. You know all this now, Satan, and therefore from now on you will always tremble.
Your fury against my people will increase. It will be a desperate fury. You will inspire the dragon to pour forth a flood of water in order to destroy the child of the woman (Revelation 12). But I shall have the earth open up a cavern to swallow up the water. My people will always be safe. My martyrs will be without fear even as they are burned at the stake. When you see them at the stake you will tremble all the more. Your minions may "stone them to death and have them sawn asunder"; you may have them wander about in sheepskins and goatskins (Hebrews 11:37). But you will never, no never, succeed in bringing them down to destruction with yourself.
When you heard me say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," this was in order that those whom the Father has given me might never more be forsaken of him. Get thee behind me, Satan; beware thou touch not those for whom I died. Not they but thou and thy followers are forever forsaken of God.
III. Addressing his people
First, listen to what he says to his disciples.
You, my friends, now at last understand that I and the Father are one. You at last know who I am and what I came to do. For three years you followed me. You loved me, but you did not love me truly for what I am. You heard me preach and teach about the kingdom of heaven but you did not clearly see that my kingdom could not be established except I bear your sin and the iniquity of all my people.
You heard my disputes with the scribes and Pharisees, calling them blind guides of the blind, and you were astounded at the vehemence of my address. You thought I was too harsh with them. You did not understand that it was Satan who, through them, was out to deceive you and the people that they should not believe in me as the promised Messiah.
When just the other day we celebrated the passover, you did not realize that you would be called upon to remember me as the one to whom all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain did point and found their end.
But now you understand. Soon the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of comfort, whom the Father will send in my name, will qualify you to become my witnesses. Soon you will speak before kings and governors, who have the power and desire to destroy you, and you will not be afraid. Peter, you went forth alone to weep bitterly over your denial of me. All your boast of love and faithfulness to me forsook you when I was being led toward death by crucifixion. You cursed and swore that you had never known me. For a moment Satan seemed then to have entered into you as he had entered into the heart of Judas. But Peter, I prayed for you that you might not fall into Satan's hand. And Peter, remember how I looked upon you as I passed by you on the way to Pilate's judgment seat? Then you understood that I loved you and forgave you. But Peter, what good would my prayer for you and my looking at you have been if it had not been for the fact that now, by my being forsaken of God for you, you are forgiven for your sin of denying me? And now you know. Now you will be my witness.
Now, Peter, you understand as you never understood before, that soon you will yourself be arraigned by the rulers and elders,' by Annas the high priest and by Caiaphas, for preaching “through Jesus the resurrection of the dead" (Acts 4:2) and for healing a lame man in my name. But then, Peter, you will be “filled with the Holy Ghost" as I was filled with the Holy Ghost when I told the Pharisees they were of their father the devil, and you will fear no man, not even those who will be out to destroy you so as to erase my name from the minds of men.
I can already hear you say, "Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:10-12) .
Now, Peter, you know that Satan will continue in his desperation to wipe out the memory of my name from the earth. Now you know, Peter, and now all eleven of you, my disciples, will know how to meet and to defeat Satan's efforts to separate you from me. When Satan comes as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, you will fearlessly defy him, knowing that his followers can at most kill the body but never the soul.
When Satan comes as an angel of light, quoting Scripture and professing belief in my name, talking sweetly of love, even of love for me, you will expose his wiles so that he may not lead my people away with him to eternal death.
You will henceforth feed my sheep. I am, you know, the bread of life. I am the water of life. For me you will cry out to the people, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
And what I say to you, Peter, I say to all of you, my disciples.
In his desperation, knowing that his time is short, Satan will seek to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect of God by means of supposedly neutral science and philosophy. I will send my servant Paul to challenge the wisdom of the world. "Where are the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Corinthians 1:20-21).
Will the wise men of the world ask, with Pilate, what is truth? Will they say that all is relative, that no one knows the truth? Paul will answer them, that they are face to face with truth, as clearly and as directly as was Pilate when I stood before him in the judgment hall. "For of him, and through him, and to him are all things." All doubt in your mind with respect to me and my work is now at an end. With Paul you all will say, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish" (2 Corinthians 2:14-15) .
…of the Old Testament
But now let me speak a word of comfort to the saints of the Old Testament.
Enoch: You walked with God, while others about you did not, and God took you unto him. You will now walk with me forever, for I am God.
Noah: You witnessed alone of the coming judgment upon all those who had broken the covenant of God with them. You built the ark to the saving of your house. Well, it was I who was witnessing through you! and you were witnessing through me. Men ridiculed you and laughed you to scorn. In mocking you they mocked me; but those who mock me will soon call upon the mountains and hills to cover them from the wrath of the Lamb.
Abraham: You are called the father of the faithful. With you God made the covenant of grace. To you and to your seed were the promises made. And I am that seed. With Paul you now may say, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cured is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13) . You looked for a city that hath foundations. I have established those foundations just now.
Now I have finished being and bearing that curse. The wrath of the covenant has been removed; the promise of the covenant fulfilled. It is finished, Abraham; it is finished for you and for all those who have like faith with you.
Moses: You are called the mediator of the Old Covenant. You were faithful in all your house. You led God's covenant people toward but not into the promised land, and "the promised land" you so greatly desired to enter was, after all, only of this sin-cursed earth. But I have borne even the punishment for your unfaithfulness; now you will enter the promised land, the new heaven and the new earth on which righteousness will dwell.
Job: Satan tempted you sorely. He tempted me much more sorely than he tempted you. You overcame his temptation because I overcame his temptation, and went to the cross to become a curse for you. Now it is finished. Your last end will truly be better than the first. Now you yourself understand your own words: "I know that my redeemer liveth." It is finished.
David: You were called a man after God's heart; your heart was true with your covenant God. Now I have cleansed and washed away the sins you so greatly bewailed, making you whiter than snow through my blood. I became a curse for you, but now the curse is lifted. It is finished.
Elijah: Only recently we met on the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses was with you there. Both of you urged me not to come into glory just yet, as by my holiness I deserved to do, but to walk the way of sorrows to the cross. Did both of you sense something of the fact that unless I became a curse for you for your breaking the law, that Moses, as the giver of the law, and you, as the great defender of the law, could not remain in glory? Well, I have borne for you your breaking of the law, your offense of God the giver of the law, and I have kept every iota of the law. I have truly loved God above all else and my neighbor as myself. I went the way to the cross. I did so as to become a curse for you. You shall be with me in glory forever.
Simeon: The ravages of age were upon you when in the temple you held me, a babe, in your arms. But before Abraham was I am. Your patient waiting for this day will be rewarded with life everlasting in my presence. I became a curse for you.
Anna: You were old and shriveled up in body when, never departing from the temple; you blessed the day of my coming. Now you may bless the day of my going. In a moment I shall commend my spirit to the Father; in doing so I shall commend yours to him, too.
…of the new church today
What then did Jesus say to us when he uttered that little sentence? He will say to us what he said to all of these: I became a curse for you that may be accepted of God, but only if you like all of these put your trust in me.
He said everything to us that he said to Peter and the apostles. Not that we are apostles. But like them, we as individuals, we as a congregation, we as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and as other orthodox churches, have been given the true understanding of the nature of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we must, as fearlessly and boldly and with as much reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit as Peter had before the leaders of the Jews, witness to that only name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
There is no true wisdom or righteousness or love among men unless it come from him who so loved his own that he was willing to be forsaken of God for them.
The Roman Catholic Church would make men believe that the work of Christ was not finished when he spoke those words on the cross.
The Confession of 1967 of the United Presbyterian Church is built on the idea that such a thing as a finished salvation for men could not be accomplished on the cross by Jesus as a man.
Romanism gives its members no escape from the burden of a guilty conscience. The Confession of 1967 virtually denies that Jesus could finish redemption for any man. Like the Pharisees of old, the Roman Catholic Church and the Confession of 1967 do not point the people of God to the cross to the crucified one for escape from the wrath to come.
Even my Arminian fundamentalist friends do despite to the finished work of Christ, when they make its consummation to depend upon the final acceptance or rejection of it by the will of man independently of God.
May each of us be able to say to ourselves, "It is finished for me." Jesus my Savior bore the penalty due to me for my sin, for my transgression, for my iniquity. Christ Jesus has sent his Spirit to testify with my spirit that now I am a child of God, a fellow-heir with Christ of eternal life.
Satan will still try to sift us as wheat as he sought to sift Peter. He would have you imagine that, granted you are not all you ought to be, granted you are addicted to drink, to drugs, to sex, you are still able to escape from it all into a better life, a life of which God will approve. If this is your feeling, then you are like one adrift in a leaky rowboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. You may have some back numbers of the Reader's Digest with you and as the typhoon hovers over you, you may read Norman Vincent Peale’s "Eight Ways to a Better Life." If you follow Mr. Peale's advice you will say eight times to yourself that you are not a sinner and God will not punish you.
Do not let Satan deceive you. Do not deceive yourself. Look at Jesus as he hung on the cross. Say to him as did the malefactor, "Lord, remember me when thou art come into thy kingdom," and you will be saved. Say to him, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I deserve to be cast forever out of thy presence; but Jesus, by thy Spirit enable me to say, Thou, Lord, wast made a curse for me. Now I am redeemed from the curse of the law. Now I am thine and thou art mine.
Those of us who know that Jesus did speak those words for us are not heroes. But we daily pray that we may be able to cast our cares and burdens on the Lord. We have a place of refuge in the greatest storms of life. We know that he who finished our salvation for us on the cross on that little hill of Golgotha is finishing it within us by his Spirit who testifies with our spirit that with body and soul, for time and eternity, we belong not to ourselves but to our faithful Savior and that without the will of our heavenly Father not a hair shall fall from our heads. He who hung upon the cross and said, "It is finished," for us is now seated at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us on the basis of his finished work on the cross.
Not only has he saved me from the wrath to come, but he has merited eternal’ life for me. He has closed the gates of hell against me and opened the gates of paradise for me. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The strength of sin is the law; but thanks be unto God who always gives us the victory through him who said, "It is finished,” on the cross for me.
Can you say those words with Paul? Then and then only will you see the Savior in paradise. Then and then only will you have joy in believing and in making known his name among men.