Village Schools of the Bible

IT IS FINISHED!
John 19:30
by Max Frazier, Jr.

When my brother and I were in the upper elementary school years, we began a mowing service within our neighborhood. One of our largest clients was a retirement center located near our home. That mowing job took us two days or about twelve hours apiece. We got paid $12 for the job, about fifty cents per hour. I remember how tired we would be when we got home. We would collapse into a chair and exclaim, "It is finished!"

But, were we really finished? Absolutely not! It would be there waiting to be done all over again the following week, and the week after that, and so on. The task was not really finished. We had only completed a part of the assignment.

How different it was for Jesus to say, "It is finished," as He hung there upon that cross. Truly the task for which He had come into the world was finished. The task was completed to its fullness. In that phrase, "It is finished," we have the cry of a victor, not that of a victim. John would later write, The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work (First John 3:8). Yes, man is born to live, but Jesus Christ was born to die!

It was not, as the Jews supposed, that Christ was finished, but that the work He came to do was finished. The will of God had been perfectly done. Man's redemption was now completed. Salvation could now be offered to all.

What Was Finished at the Cross?

JESUS' SUFFERING WAS FINISHED.

We read from Psalm 22 these words: "But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing "(verses 6-8, 11-18).

Jesus was spit upon
Jesus had His beard pulled from His face
Jesus had a crown of thorns placed upon His head
Jesus was mocked and ridiculed by the crowd
Jesus was flogged with a Roman scourge
Jesus was nailed to a cross.

In his book, entitled, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh MacDowell describes the scene of a Roman scourging with these graphic words: "The adjudged criminal was usually first forcefully stripped of his clothes, and then tied to a post or pillar in the tribunal. Then the awful and cruel scourging was administered by the lictors or scourgers. Although the Hebrews limited by their law the number of strokes in a scourging to forty; the Romans set no such limitation; and the victim was at the mercy of his scourgers."

Paul Winter, writing in the April 9, 1971, issue of Christianity Today, described the terrible cruelty of the cross with these words: "It represented the acme of the torturer's art: atrocious physical suffering, length of torment, ignominy, the effect of the crowd gathered to witness the long agony of the crucified. We cannot even say the crucified person writhed in agony, for it was impossible for him to move. Stripped of his clothing, unable to even brush away the flies which fell upon his wounded flesh, already lacerated by the preliminary scourging, exposed to the insults and curses of people who can always find some sickening pleasure in the sight of the tortures of others. The cross represented miserable humanity reduced to the last degree of impotence, suffering and degradation."

All the physical pain man could inflict was now over. Isaiah had related that He was so marred and disfigured that He no longer looked like a human being. And He did all that for you and for me.

The story is told that during the 17th Century, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, sentenced a soldier to be shot for his crimes. The execution was to take place at the ringing of the evening curfew bell. However, the bell did not sound. The soldier's fianc`e had climbed into the belfry and clung to the great clapper of the bell to prevent it from striking. When she was summoned by Cromwell to account for her actions, she wept as she showed him her bruised and bleeding hands. Cromwell's heart was touched and he said, "Your lover shall live because of your sacrifice. Curfew shall not ring tonight."

THE WILL OF THE FATHER WAS NOW FINISHED.

Remember the prayer of Jesus in the Garden that evening prior to the crucifixion. There He said, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:42). Jesus had cried out to the Father to open another way for men to be saved. The Father's response was that there was no other way. This had been the purpose and plan of God to have the Lord Jesus put to death for the sins of the world. God's plan, laid from the foundation of the world, was now completed. It was finished. I am reminded of those words from the prophet Isaiah: "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrow, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted" We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand (Isaiah 53:4,6,10).

THE PROPHECIES WERE NOW FINISHED.

We read in Hebrews 9 this account: When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God (verses 11-14).

Because of Christ's death, we no longer need to come to God through animal sacrifices. We now have direct access to God through Jesus Christ. When Jesus died, the veil of the Temple was torn in two, signifying the abolition of that which kept us from God. The purpose of the brazen altar was abolished (see Exodus 27:1-8). There at the brazen altar an Old Testament believer would transfer his sins to that of the animal to be sacrificed. I laid my sins on Jesus! He was my sacrifice! I can shout with John the Baptist, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).

Martha Snell Nicholson wrote the following to help us to identify with this vicarious sacrifice of Jesus:

All that is His is imputed to me;
Lovely and fair is my Lord!
And He gives me the robe of His own righteousness
To cover my sins, says His Word.
All that I am was imputed to Him;
Black were my shame and my guilt
Which were laid upon Him on Calvary's cross!
But precious His blood that was spilt.
Was ever a bargain so wondrous as this?
Matchless His love and His grace!
My guilt for His glory, my pain for His peace,
My night for the light of His face!

MAN'S REDEMPTION WAS NOW FINISHED.

Again, let us listen to the writer to the Hebrews: It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:23-28).

There is nothing now left for man to do but to enter into the results of Christ's finished work. But we try to add to the cross, don't we? Somehow we convince ourselves that the cross is not enough.

It is the cross + good works
It is the cross + going to church
It is the cross + giving money to the church
It is the cross + living a good life
It is the cross + reading the Bible and praying every day
It is the cross + helping someone who is in need

Friends, there is only one way to redemption. It is through the cross - period! Jesus told His disciples, I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep (John 10:1-2). Jesus went on to say that He was the door of the sheep (see verse 7). Peter later affirmed that fact with this statement: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

Those thoughts caused Charles Spurgeon to write: Can you think what must have been the greatness of the atonement which was the substitution for all this agony which God would have cast upon us, if he had not poured it upon Christ? And can you grasp the thought of the greatness of your Savior's meditation when he paid your debt, and paid it all at once; so that there now remaineth not one farthing of debt owing from Christ's people to their God, except a debt of love. Christ did pay it all, so that man is set free from all punishment, through what Jesus hath done.

Another "It Is Finished" - Revelation 16:17

This is the "It Is Finished" of judgment. This word signifies the final blow against the forces of evil, both of man and Satan. Men who would not have the Savior's "It is finished" on the cross, must now have the awful "It is finished" from God as their judge. There is nothing a person can do to escape the judgment of God if he refuses the Christ of Calvary.

Friends, each one of us must stand and hear the words, "It is finished." Some of you have already chosen to stand at the foot of the cross and have heard the Savior exclaim to you that the judgment for your sins is finished, that the price for your redemption is paid in full. Some of you, however, know of loved ones and friends who have decided to stand before the wrath of an angry God and hear the words of His judgment - "It is finished" - and then to be lost forever and cast into the lake of fire. We all the know that the choice is ours. How precious are those words - "It is finished" - echoed from the lips of a sacrificed Jesus upon a cross. How awful those same words from an angered Jesus upon a judgment bar.

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