It is Finished (John 19:17-30)

It is Finished.


John 19:17-30
17 And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, 18 where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center. 19 Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was:
20 Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
21 Therefore the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews,' but, 'He said, "I am the King of the Jews."'"
22 Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."
23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. 24 They said therefore among themselves, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be," that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says:
"They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots." Therefore the soldiers did these things.

25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" 27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" 29 Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

The last words of a dying man can carry great meaning. For instance Joan Crawford’s last words were, “Don't you dare ask God to help me,” She said that when her house keeper started to pray for her.
Charles Darwin’s last words were, “I am not the least afraid to die.” He probably should have been.
Queen Elizabeth the first said, “All my possessions for a moment of time.”
Benjamin Franklin said, “A dying man can do nothing easy.”
President Andrew Jackson said, “Oh, do not cry - be good children and we will all meet in heaven.”
John Newton the author of the hymn Amazing Grace, said, "I am still in the land of the dying; soon I shall be in the land of the living.”

Jesus said, “It is finished”. The last words of a dying man are often profound. The last words of Jesus are loaded with promise and meaning.

What was finished? His Life? Yes but so much more. What did Jesus mean when he said it is finished?

First of all He meant that all the types, promises and prophecies were now completely fulfilled in Him. The whole Old Testament from the first promise in Genesis three to the last prophecy in Malachi was fulfilled in Him. He fulfilled all the types, the sacrifices, the red Heifer, the Passover lamb, the turtle dove, the cities of Refuge, Rahab’s scarlet thread, He fulfilled every one of them. He fulfilled every prophecy from the seed of the woman bruising Satan’s head in Genesis, to Isaiah’s suffering servant to, Malachi 3:1 "Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming." NKJV

It is finished, all the promises find their yes in Him, All the prophecies find their fulfillment in him, and all the sacrifices, ceremonies, types and shadows of the whole Jewish religious life find their fulfillment in Jesus. It is finished. He fulfilled them all perfectly and completely.

Just think about the difficulty we would have if we tried in our human power and wisdom to fashion some one to fulfill all of scripture. This is what Spurgeon said. “First he would have to be a prophet like Moses, a champion like Joshua, a priest like Aaron, and Melchizedek. He must be Abraham, and Isaac, David and Solomon, Noah and Jonah, Judah and Joseph. Then on top of that He has to be the Lamb that was slain, and the scape goat that was not slain, he would have to be both the turtle dove and the priest who killed the bird, he must also be the altar, tabernacle, mercy-seat, and showbread. To confuse things even more, He must be the one that, "All men shall fall down before Him, but also the one who "is despised," He must begin by showing a man born of a virgin mother, He must be a man without spot or blemish, but one upon whom the Lord doth lay the iniquities of us all. He must be a glorious One, a Son of David, yet a root out of a dry ground. Now if the greatest intellects could set themselves to invent another key to the types and prophecies they could not do it. These wondrous mysteries are left unexplained till one comes forward and proclaims, "The Cross of Christ and the Son of God incarnate." Then the whole is clear, so that he who runs may read, and a child may understand.”(C. H. Spurgeon.)

It is finished. Not only were the sacrifices, festivals and ceremonies fulfilled in Christ, they were brought to an end. For thousands of years the work of the temple was a grizzly and bloody affair. A river of blood flowed almost nonstop from the altar. Millions of oxen, goats, lambs, doves had been killed and had their blood drained out on the altars as a covering for sin. But in Christ sin was more than covered, for those who put their faith in the atoning work of Christ their sins are taken away. The ceremonial law with all its diets, festivals, and sacrifices were finished. They were needed no more. They were fulfilled in Christ. Jesus says of them, "It is finished".

His perfect obedience was finished. The only lamb that was acceptable for sacrifice was one that was perfect, with out spot or blemish. The Passover Lamb was brought into the house a week before Passover and lived with the family so the family could closely observe and inspect the animal and make sure it was healthy and flawless. Jesus lived His life out in front of the people for every one to see, to inspect and to examine, and in His trial they found nothing but perfection. Perfect righteousness. Jesus did not come to do away with the law; he came to fulfill it, to keep it perfectly.

Last weekend I went to a conference in Minneapolis and one of the speakers was a pastor named Milton Vincent. I had never heard of Him before, hardly any of the people there knew anything about him. He preached one of the best sermons on Justification I have ever heard.

This is one of the Illustrations he used. Most people are self righteous, they will often times admit that they have sinned but don’t feel that they have done any thing that God would be terribly upset about. But imagine this scenario. You stand before God the father, with your credentials, with your two percent righteousness. You’ve been fairly truthful, you’ve only told a couple hundred lies, mostly white lies. You’ve never committed adultery or fornication, but you have lusted in your heart a few times, and you’ve only view pornography a handful of times. You pray maybe six out of seven days and you read your bible about the same. It’s a busy world after all. You’ve only had a couple knock down drag out fights with your spouse, you’ve only lost your temper a few times with your kids. All in all an exemplary life, way above average, right.

So its judgment day, and you stand before God the father with your own righteousness. The problem though will be that for the last two thousand years God the father has been beholding the face of His Son and His perfect righteousness. The one who never sinned, the one that always loved the father with all his heart, mind and strength every minute of every day, the one who always obeyed His Father, the one who only did what He saw His Father doing and said only what His Father wanted Him to say. God the Father has been staring into the righteousness of His perfect son for two thousand years, and you think he is going to be impressed with your puny two percent righteousness?

No, No ,No, each one of us have committed tens and tens of thousands of sins, but Jesus, the Son of God did not commit even one. It is finished. He lived the perfect life in obedience to the father, the life we never could live. But now in faith he offers that life to us. The heart of justification is that when we are converted we receive the righteousness of faith, so that when we stand before God on that day, God the father will not be staring at us and our sins, he will be doing the same thing he’s been doing for two thousand years, he will be looking into the by the righteousness of His son.

His perfect obedience was finished. He was the perfect Passover lamb, without spot or blemish, an acceptable and pleasing sacrifice to the father. He being without sin became sin for our sakes. Only the perfect sacrifice for God and by God could be acceptable to pay the price of the sins of the world.

The payment he made to the justice of God concerning sin was finished. He had paid every penny of what divine justice demanded. The atonement and propitiation which were only a shadow of the real thing in the temple were now finished. Atonement and propitiation were made once for all and forever by Christ on the tree. It was finished. He had accomplished what he came to do.

The struggle against the powers of darkness was finished. The power of sin was finished. Rom 6:6-7 “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” NKJV Through the cross and the Gospel sin no longer reigns over us. When we meditate on the cross and Jesus, we realize that it was our sins that nailed him their. The things of earth will grow strangely dim. Let me change the word of that great hymn just a little bit. The sins of earth will grow strangely grim in the light of His glory and grace; the grace he put on display when He hung on the cross.

The power of Satan was finished. Jesus had faced Satan, and Satan threw everything in his arsenal at Him, and Jesus came out the victor.

The prophecy in Gen 3:15 says, “He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel." NKJV Jesus Christ died to defeat him who had the power of sin and death, Satan. Jesus bruised Satan’s head; the head represents power, authority and lordship. Christ is the head of the church. Satan had lordship over the earth, but in the cross he had been kicked in the head, and the very thing Satan meant for evil, God meant for good. Satan’s headship of the earth has been destroyed. Oh he’s still around, but he is a defeated foe, he is a wounded beast who can still be dangerous. But his power over this world is finished.

The power of death was finished. Oh we still die, but its power is gone, we no longer fear it. 1 Cor 15:55 "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. NKJV

2 Tim 1:10 “Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” NKJV

Heb 2:14-16 “He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” NKJV

Christmas Evans said, “Death had come against Him, with his fiery dart, which he struck right through the Savior, till the point fixed in the cross, and when he tried to pull it out again, he, left the sting behind. What could he do more?” What do we know about a bee that looses its stinger? For one, it’s not able to sting again, for another it crawls off to die. Jesus defeated death, it could not hold Him. The wages of sin is death, we have earned for ourselves death, even eternal death, but Jesus provided a way for those who believe.

Many people have a great fear of death. They fear what’s on the other side, but not Christians. We know what is on the other side. Jesus is on the other side, and when it is our time to go, we know that we will wake up in his presence.

Something else that was finished, the old Covenant. On the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus took the cup and said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” The Old Covenant in the Law, that was given to Israel, was finished. It was a quid-pro-quo covenant. The covenant was based on do. Do, do, do. God said if you do this, I will do that. God told Israel that if they were obedient to His commands that He would bless them as a nation. And as we read the Old Testament, we see that God was faithful to His covenant. But we see the flip side of that as well. When Israel was disobedient, which was most of the time, God brought trouble.

That was the Old Covenant. America doesn’t have that Covenant with God. Now this country was founded on Godly principles that came out of the reformation and from the scriptures, and these principles have served us well. The principle of property rights, the principles of justice, the principle of the three branches of government that spreads the power around so no one man can become a dictator. They understood the depravity of man and the danger of that.

The error of the health, wealth, and prosperity preachers is that they think the old covenant is still in place. Most of what they use to support their views are old covenant promises. It is finished; we are not under the old covenant, not as a nation, not as a church, not as individuals. The whole second half of Hebrews is about the New Covenant and why it is better.

Heb 7:22 Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. NKJV

Heb 8:6-12 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.”

The fault with the old covenant was not in the covenant, it was with the people. The covenant was perfect, the people were not.

“10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." NKJV

It is not based on my righteousness. Today we are under a new covenant, the covenant of faith. The basis of this covenant is not on what I do. The basis of this covenant is on what God has done through Jesus and His death on the cross.

There is an interesting verse in the little letter written by Jude, the half brother of Jesus. He said, Jude 9 “Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" NKJV Why would Satan dispute for the body of Moses?

Many today look at the Old Testament and see an angry vengeful God. I think the spiritual realm saw things differently. They saw a longsuffering God who was inconsistent in His justice. What would Satan’s argument have been. “God, Moses is mine, he is a sinner just like all the others, on top of everything else he did, he is a murderer, how dare you love him and take him to glory with you. God you are a fraud, you. You said justice was the foundation of your throne, you are a liar. Give Moses to me, he’s mine.”

The taunt from Satan for thousands of years accused God of being unjust, because He chose to save some. Jesus said, it is finished. “NO more, Satan, no more of your accusations. You want to see justice, look at the cross.

It is finished. The age old question, can God be both loving and just at the same time. The question was settled once and for all in heaven and in hell. It is finished. Peter said that Jesus went and preached the Gospel to the dead. The Gospel was proclaimed in heaven and all the Old Testament saints rejoiced and gave glory to God.

But the Gospel was also preached to the lost. No longer could they accuse God of being unjust by saving some, and not them. Maybe they had hung on to some hope, in universalism, that if God saved some, to be just He would have to save all. When Jesus asked if this cup could pass from Him, he wasn’t primarily talking about what man was going to do, He was talking about what God the Father was going to do. But when the lost saw what God the Father did to His son, and that Jesus bore the full brunt of God’s wrath, they knew there was no hope for them.

What do the words “It is finished” mean for us? Over the course of this next week in some parts of the world, there will be people who will have themselves wiped and even hung on the cross in the hopes of gaining favor with God. This self flagellation they do, thinking this will appease God’s anger towards there sins. It is finished, God’s anger towards sin has been appeased by Christ, all we can do is appropriate what Christ has already done by faith.

All the false religions in the world, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormons, Hindu, Buddhists, Muslim, it’s all about doing. Christianity is “It is Finished, It is done. Even the Roman Catholic Mass, It is a continual sacrifice for sins. Romans 6:10 says, “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all.”

Christian, are you resting in the promises of God through Christ. Or are you striving in the flesh to make yourself pleasing to God? Do you think that by attending church, that by giving your offerings, that by praying, and by reading the Bible that you some how make yourself more acceptable to God. No! It is finished. We need to rest In His promises, we need to go to the cross and see that it is finished.

Christian, do not despair at your sins. Are you concerned that you’re not as righteous as you should be. Do you beat yourself up because you don’t pray enough, that you don’t read your Bible enough, that you don’t share your faith enough. Let me put your mind at rest, you don’t. You don’t pray enough, you aren’t righteous enough, but that’s the point of the Gospel. You don’t, but Jesus did. That’s why Jesus lived the perfect life, why He lived it out in front of man and God. He lived it out, because we couldn’t and now through faith He gives His life to us, and this becomes our motivation for being. We no longer obey out of fear; instead we obey out of love.

Let us enter this holy week then in the knowledge that it is finished, we are acceptable to God through the Gospel. We no longer strive; instead we rest in His promises that are sure.

Amen