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When we come back we’ll pick it up at John 19 verse 31.
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SILENCE
Okay we left off last week with verse 30 which says:
“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished:” and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”
Before we move on we have to discuss this passage as best as we can. Its not a short subject.
Last week we sang all the words Jesus uttered from the cross in order – seven statements.
We know that by taking the four Gospel accounts into consideration that the last thing Jesus said was not, “It is finished,” but instead:
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
He said this after saying the contents of verse 30 – “It is finished.”
Three of some of the most impactful, purposeful, meaningful and also misinterpreted three words of the Bible.
What did Jesus mean when He said:
“It is finished?”
First, let’s take note that after Jesus said these words He THEN said:
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
The fact that He said this is really interesting. First of all it intimates that He had completed what His Father had sent Him to do.
IOW, “it is now finished Father, and into your hands I commend my Spirit” – which is better understood as “I entrust or I commit my Spirit.”
Into His hands.
Note also that He said that He committed His Spirit into the hands of the Father. He gave His life as an offering to please the Father and save us and upon doing so He committed His Spirit back into the hands of God.
To me this suggests certainty that He had completed His mission up to that point and was not in the least insecure in His success.
Okay, but prior to committing His Spirit into the hands of the Father this is what we read (going back to verse 28 and reading through 30):
John 19:28 After this, Jesus knowing that “all things were now accomplished,” that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
29 Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.
30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
There is a Greek word – telos and it means PAID IN FULL.
Here in John 19:30, when Jesus says, “It is finished” the Greek word is “tetelestai” – which means “finished” or complete and comes from the root word PAID in FULL.
It has been said and repeated that Greek receipts have been found with the word Telos written at the bottom of them, meaning paid in full.
I have not located the source of this claim but apparently it’s true. In our day we still understand really well what it means to have paid a debt in full.
We also understand the concept of finishing something.
The question we need to ask ourselves and understand the best to our ability it what DID Jesus finish? What debt was paid in full?
We note that Jesus did not say, “I am finished” but said, “It is finished.”
What is the IT?
Now, within the scope of Christianity – and because of culture, the limits of language, and our tendency to summarize things down to their easiest common denominator, the line, “It is finished,” has been interpreted to mean everything from the most hyper-literal applications to the most perfunctory.
Let me explain:
A hyper-literalist view of Jesus words, “It is finished,” would suggest that “it” means EVERYTHING in heaven and on earth was completed on the cross.
I mean everything.
The trouble with the view is it ignores scripture and builds a case on a false premise by refusing to admit that a lot more was and continues to be done since the cross of our Lord.
I personally believe that many human beings have a natural desire to want to escape the reality of their lives and when they hear that EVERYTHING was finished on the cross it allows them to do this more effectively.
At the other end of the spectrum there are those who underestimate the value of what He finished here on the cross.
We might consider the LDS doctrine and practice here or any Christian denomination that focuses on works of the Law.
This underestimated view suggests that Jews paid for sin on the cross – period. Nothing more.
When this position is embraced the end result is bondage with people clamoring all over themselves to maintain their salvation through good works and labors which, in their minds, adds to the finished work Christ did by them doing their part.
For the hyper-literalist position that claims EVERYTHING was finished on the cross all we have to do is examine the biblical narrative (and the reality of our own Christian experience) to see that this is NOT the case.
For example, the biblical narrative does not stop after Jesus says:
“It is finished,” does it?
In fact, well before Jesus uttered these words He said:
“Other sheep I have which are not of this fold (meaning the Gentiles with the fold being the Jews) them I must also bring” which is something that would not happen (for years to come) through Peter then Paul.
We also know that after saying it is finished that
He died – moments later – that was not finished.
That He was buried (by others who loved Him and was part of the Gospel)
He Resurrected (the crowning event of all Christianity)
He ascended into heaven
He returned to bring final destruction on the Old Covenant, and has continued ever since to reign from on high over His church or body of believers at the right hand of the Father.
He was anything but finished there on the cross.
So just because “IT” was finished does not mean “He” was finished.
LISTEN CLOSELY –
As followers of the King, when we receive IT – what He did complete on the Cross – this does NOT mean WE are finished either.
(beat)
We still have to commit ourselves into the hands of God, we still have to willingly choose to give up the ghost, we still have to submit to being buried with Christ, and to rise to new life every day, and to ultimately ascend to God with our lives rather than to descend back into our flesh.
All “by grace through faith to love by suffering as Christ,” proving we are anything but finished.
This being said we are in no way adding to the finished works of Christ or earning or keeping ourselves right with God by our labors.
Because of His finished work we are set free from bondage.
We are given new life which allows us to operate by the Spirit.
We are forgiven, emancipated from the burden of guilt.
Because of what He finished.
Maybe we could liken Jesus finished work to an antidote to a terminal disease we all carry by virtue of being human in this sinful realm.
He finished the construction of this antidote on the cross.
His resurrection replicated it in enough quantities for every human being who has or will ever live,
And the falling of the Holy Spirit was God’s means to distribute it to those who wanted seek it.
But again, just because we as Christians have personally received the antidote to sin does not mean we are finished – in fact it really means we have only just begun.
Contextually speaking both extreme approaches to the line, “It is finished,” – the “hyper-literal” and the “uber under-estimated” – are described as heinous in scripture – heinous enough that in both cases they are described as having the ability to render our “said faith” meaningless before God.
Again, hyper-literalism lends to fruitlessness and the under-estimation of Jesus words it leads to legalisms and a return to the law.
Both are anathema to the Christian walk.
So how are we to understand Jesus finished work on the cross and its application to us in our lives.
The Greek tells us that the phrase, “It is finished,” originates from the single Greek word tetelestai.
It this passage it arrives in what is known grammatically as:
“The perfect passive indicative.”
I am not good at grammar and failed miserably at Greek in school but did learn what “perfect passive indicative” means:
Perfect tense–
indicates that the progress of an action has been completed and the result of that action is ongoing and of full effect.
If we said we finished the foundation of a building it would be in the perfect tense – it is complete and will continue to be complete out into the future.
So whatever Jesus finished on the cross was completed there and will carry on out forever into the future perfectly – since what He completed was spiritual and not material, like a concrete foundation.
The Passive voice suggests that the subject of the sentence is being acted upon – meaning IT was acted upon and NOT what did the acting.
This is important because it tells us who is in charge – Jesus finished IT did not finish Him.
Finally, the indicative mood is speaking to the writer (John the Beloved) and is a statement of fact from his perspective.
So from this line, “It is finished,” we can say that is was done once and forever, it was finished by Jesus and Jesus alone and John testifies that this is so.
But again what was IT that Jesus finished here on the cross?
I want to point out that when Jesus was praying with the eleven in John 17 He said at verse 4:
“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work (teleoo) which thou gavest me to do.”
In light of this I think it is safe to say that throughout His life He was finishing or completing things the Father gave Him to do each step of the way.
When He became incarnate that was a finished act – He didn’t have to do it over and over again and He would never have to do it again.
In the intercessory prayer He was simply saying that He had finished that work – to call, teach and train the disciples about His person and coming death – and through words and miracles.
Now, on the cross He had come to another phase in completing what God had given Him to do.
This finishing would relate to anything and everything related to Him becoming mortal or taking on human form.
He would never be mortal again. So before taking His last breath of earthly air, after sipping the vinegar, He says (in effect) I have finished all the specific series of assignments as a Mortal Messiah.
They are done.
It is finished.
We get insights to what He finished by looking to scripture. We’ll hit on the highlights admitting there are probably more we’ve overlooked than included.
We’ve mentioned His birth and mortal existence.
Galatians 4:4 says:
“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”
So when Jesus the Son of God entered mortality He was made of a woman, full of all human propensities for sin.
We know that He was tempted in all things (but did not sin).
So when He said, “IT is finished,” I believe He was saying that His mortal life that God sent Him into was done. We can say this because He then gave up His mortal life, “made of a woman.”
Here we see the completion of John 3:16 which says:
God so loved the world He gave (through the birth of a woman) His only begotten Son.
That mortal life was about to end, complete, or finish.
We note that Galatians also said that “He was made of a woman, made under the law.”
So in addition to entering sin-seeking flesh Jesus was also made under the law – a law which none before (and none after) could or would keep.
But He kept it – all.
In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Did He fulfill the Law And the Prophets? Of course. All the Law demanded and all that the prophets foretold of Him.
Listen – by living the Law perfectly He became the representative (LISTEN) of the Law now fulfilled!
Let me repeat that:
By fulfilling the Law and the Prophets – all that was commanded and prophesied before of Him – He, JESUS – became the complete representation of “the Law fulfilled.”
Listen closely to Colossians 2:14 where Paul, speaking of the Law (and how it made all men sinful by its very existence), says of Jesus sacrifice:
“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us (That’s the Law written in stone), which was contrary to us (We could not keep it because of our sinful ways), and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;”
Now wait a second. Paul says that the handwritten ordinances were nailed to His cross. But let me ask a question – What was actually nailed to the cross of Christ? He was!
Just Him.
Paul says that the written ordinances of the Law (which work against us because as sinful people we can’t keep them) Jesus took and had them nailed it to His cross.
This is another way of saying that when He was nailed to the cross the net effect was the Law and all of Its demands were crucified and therefore PUT TO DEATH.
He fullfilled the Law completely – then took Himself and allowed Himself – the fulfillment of the Law – to be crucified.
This is why we as Christians are so, so, so against legalism and the return to any form of the Law because to return to the Law to establish our righteousness is to disannul the finished work of Christ.
It really is anti-Christ to tell you the truth and it is why I have such an ardent resistance to all forms of it entirely.
Listen to what Romans 10:4 says
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
Christ. . . .
The end of the law.
FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
To everyone who believes.
Another way to say this is faith in Christ is what makes people righteous – not the Law or keeping of the Law in any fashion.
Stay with me.
The way our flesh tells us to live, the way our FLESH tells us we can please God, the way humans think God will love us and we will stay out of trouble in His eyes is by obeying rules – laws.
But He sent His Son to obey for us because we could not obey it – and are doomed anytime and every time we try.
Now, here is the tricky part. We are certainly dead to the Law written in stone.
There is no outward command that was demanded since Christ fulfilled them completely.
But here’s the other part of the story. Did Jesus command those who followed Him to keep any commandments?
He did. Two, in fact – if you have been here long enough you ought to know these commandments right – to believe and to love.
Again, 1st John 3:22-23 summarizes the Christian commandments for us, saying:
“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”
Okay. You ready? Where were these two commandments ALL Christians are given to follow and live best exemplified in the Bible?
On the cross. Where Jesus, trusting in His Father, endured the cross showing the ultimate love for Him and for us.
So on the one hand, where Jesus said,
“It is finished,” referring to the Law written in stone, He also finished establishing the New Commandment written in the human heart “to believe and to love as He did.”
He finished (as in put away) the Law written in stone AND finished (as in fully established or created) the Law of Faith and Love written on the human heart.
RADICAL.
RADICAL.
RADICAL.
We also know that Jesus, in and through His labors, sought to glorify God. Speaking of Jesus Paul wrote in Philippians 2:
“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Jesus came to glorify His Father through His life, death, and resurrection – this was accomplished when He gave up the ghost.
What else was finished on the cross? His living witness of the truth.
We just read in John 18 the dialogue Jesus had with Pilate. Remember?
“Then Pilate said to him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice'”
At this setting He gave Pilate two responses to the question, “Are you a King?” Jesus said
For this purpose I was born (to be a King) and for this purpose I came into the world (to bear witness of the truth.)
So here on the cross, when He said, It is finished – guess what? He died the true King of the World AND He died having finished bearing witness of the truth.
Two more factors finished or completed on the cross – His Kingship and His witness of the Truth.
John 12:46-48 gives us more that He finished on the cross.
It says:
“I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”
Did He save the world? The very reason He said He came into it?
I think so.
The word used for world here in John 12 is kosmos meaning the whole world. He came into it to save it – that’s what He said.
Now that He was leaving it He was either victorious and His work at coming into the world to save it was finished . . . or it wasn’t.
I realize very well how many different views come out of this but this is how I see it.
On the show last week we had a discussion with Christian apologist Matt Slick of CARM and as a Calvinist Matt’s position is that Jesus could NOT have paid for the sins of the whole world because if He did then the whole world would ultimately be reconciled to God through Christ’s shed blood.
All I could say to this was “amen.”
And I am of the opinion that His shed blood is so powerful, and His life so righteous, and His love so effecacious that He has accomplished what He set out to do – and will not fail.
Of course His victory is manifested in results great and small – like a farmer harvesting plants – but that’s another story.
Finishing this work of saving the world leaves us having to ask:
Did He, in this finished work of saving the world beat Satan? In other words when He said,
“It is finished” was he speaking of the war over sin and death or is this still on going?
(beat)
It’s done.
Jesus finished it – all – and Satan was conquered at the cross.
In other words, in this situation, when Jesus said: “It is finished,” we might be able to switch “it” for “Satan” and say,
“Satan is finished.”
Hebrews 2 says
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”
That word destroy doesn’t mean to wipe out entirely – but to put under subjection – which is why Satan continues to tempt and try human kind.
At the cross Satan certainly had the power to bruise Jesus heel – and He did – but Jesus, saying it is finished, won the power to then and there CRUSH his head. Which He did.
It was here that His redemptive work brought all that was lost in Eden back in full, and Christ had the victory.
He is not waiting to be victorious – He was victorious – and Satan and His power over death was overcome.
Back in Colossians 2:14 we read that his work had the effect of . . .
“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross”
the following verse reads:
“And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
This triumphing was done at the cross then evidenced at the resurrection, ascension, and His return to destroy the Old Covenant physically and completely at 70 AD.
And then of course, amidst all of these things mentioned that He completed or initiated at the cross (along with many others I have not covered) Jesus came to made propitiation for all sin against God, finishing this work once and for all.
Romans 5:6-11 says:
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation”
1st Peter 3:18 says:
“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”
Hebrews 9:26 “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
Hebrews 9:12 “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”
1st Peter 1:18 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:”
This is the finished work most of us point to when we think of Jesus words here in John 19.
And it is one of the most difficult concepts for most people to understand today.
Let’s conclude today by touching on this finished work.
We have an apparent conflict in scripture that at first seems very contradictory. It’s the paradoxical conflict that seems to suggest the point that FIRST
“Jesus paid it all,” that His finished work to pay for sin is done.
Do you agree?
But then at the same time as we read through the New Testament scripture Peter, Paul, and James continue to talk on and on and on about sin existing in the lives of people – believers included!
Which is it? Is sin still thriving in us OR did Jesus pay it all?
If He paid it ALL how can sin still exist and if it doesn’t what is it that scripture is talking about when it talks about sin?
Go back with me to the cross. We know from scripture that having fulfilled the law and the prophets that when Jesus was nailed to the cross the law was nailed there too – killing it.
The law – written in stone, demanded of men, imposed on us by others – ought to be absolutely absent from our lives.
Why? Because the presence of the Law is equal to the knowledge of SIN.
Did you hear me?
The presence of the law – which was nailed to the cross – is the knowledge of sin.
Paul says in Romans 3:20
“Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Since the Law was nailed to the cross and by it is the law that we all have a knowledge of sin the key to understanding our standing before God as believers is to see ourselves as not being under the law at all.
Not bearing any of its burdens.
Not allowing men or religion or others to come between us and God and make demands of conformity or allegiance or adherance – to any external rite, ritual, ordinance, order, rule or observation.
Because if we allow this back in our heart we will soon find ourselves sinners – guilty of NOT complying and rebellion OR guilty of being proud FOR complying and judging others for not!
THEREFORE, if you find yourself a sinner in your heart and mind you must be looking at elements of the Law to convict you and the first thing you have to realize as a believer is that you must “remove the Law to be free from sin.”
Listen to Galatians 2:19-21
“For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”
Paul teaches the principle through an illustration in Romans 7 beginning at verse 1 saying:
Romans 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
This singular understanding is so frightening, so liberal, so incomprehensible to others that it is often lost, forgotten or replaced with some, more and many laws to assuage the fear – which will ONLY produce more failure, more bondage and more fear.
Well if we are dead to the Law what are we alive to as Christians?
To Him. To Jesus – who, having overcome the law, was nailed to the cross through His obedience, His faith, and His love for God and Man.
And so then looking to Jesus we have a new Law – His law, His New Commandment which He gave – to love.
More on this next week.
John 19.30 Part II
MILK
May 24th 2015
Questions, comments
