Thursday, May 2, 2013

"It Is Finished"

On January 11, 1861, the Alabama Secession Convention passed a resolution designating an official flag.  Designed by several women in Montgomery, the flag was two-sided.  On one side was the “Goddess of Liberty” holding an unsheathed sword and above her the words, “Independent Now and Forever.”  On the reverse side was the embroidered picture of a cotton plant in full bloom with a rattlesnake coiled at its base.  Below the cotton plant and the snake were the Latin words, “Noli Me Tongere,” translation:  “Touch Me Not.”  The flag was sent to the governor’s office on February 10, 1861, but due to severe weather damage was never flown after its first day.

Thirty-four years later the Alabama State legislature adopted a new state flag that remains to this day.  In fact they memorialized the design this way: “The flag of the State of Alabama shall be a crimson cross of St. Andrews on a field of white.  The bars shall be not less than six inches broad, and must extend diagonally across the flag from side to side.”  So think of it.  In 1895 the State of Alabama changed its flag.  In Alabama the cross supplanted the serpent!  The disciple John would have appreciated that.

Of all the Gospel writers, John is the one who gives us the sixth word of Jesus from the cross.  Without the Gospel of John we would never have known this incomparable declaration of victory from the cross of Jesus.

Last week we took much care to see how the fourth word, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” spells the defeat of sin, death, and Satan; but the sixth word is clear confirmation.  And what’s particularly wonderful is that John was there to hear it.  For remember the words that immediately preceded “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” were, “Woman, behold your son…”

As Arthur W. Pink says, “’It is finished,’ was not the despairing cry of a helpless martyr.  It was not an expression of satisfaction that the termination of His sufferings was now reached.  It was not the last gasp of a worn-out life; no, rather it was the declaration on the part of the Divine Redeemer that all for which He came from heaven to earth to do, was now done; that all that was needed to reveal the full character of God had now been accomplished; that all that was required by the law before sinners could be saved had now been performed: that the full price of our redemption was now paid.”

Moreover, the word Jesus utters here is the necessary declaration that the great purpose of God in human history is now accomplished.  What the first Adam was unable to do, the last Adam has done.  Taking on human flesh God the Son, the Light of the World, defeated the scheme of the former bearer of light, and ransomed a people God had made lower than the angels to sit with Him in heavenly places.

Think of it.  When the Son of God announces, “It is finished,” He not only insures that the creatures of dust will sit with Him in the heavenly places, but will be His bride, and judge the angels, including the fallen ones!  If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, this one word from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ is worth a trillion words.  There is no greater evidence of Christ’s cosmic victory than His sixth word from the cross.

Read what Charles Spurgeon says of it:
 
“Children of God, ye who by faith received Christ as your all in all tell it every day of your lives that it is finished.  Go and tell it to those who are torturing themselves thinking through obedience and mortification to offer satisfaction.  Yonder heathen is about to throw himself down upon the spikes.  Stay poor man where for wouldst thou bleed, for it is finished.  Yonder faker is holding his hand erect until the nails grow through the flesh, torturing himself with fasting and self-denials.  Cease, cease poor wretch from all these pains for it is finished.  In all parts of the earth there are those who think that misery of the body and the soul may be atonement for sin.  Rush to them, stave them in their madness and say to them, ‘Wherefore do ye this?  It is finished.  All the pains that God asks, Christ has suffered.  All the satisfactions by way of agony in the flesh that the law demanded Christ has already endured.  It is finished.’ And when you have done this go next to the benighted votaries of Rome when you see the priests, with their backs to the people, offering every day the pretended sacrifice of the Mass, lifting up the host on high a sacrifice they say, a unbloodly sacrifice, for the quick and the dead.  Cry, ‘Cease false priests!  Cease!  For it is finished.  Cease false worshippers; cease to bow for it is finished.  God neither asks nor accepts any other sacrifice than that which Christ offered once for all upon the Cross.’” 

In preparation for Sunday’s message and communion you may wish to consider the following questions:

  1. What linkage can you find between Jesus’ statements in Matthew 27:46 and John 19:30?
  2. The words, “It is finished,” are one word in Greek:  Tetelestai.  This word comes from the Greek root teleo.  What does teleo mean?  Can you think of any English words that incorporate it?
  3. How is Jesus’ declaration in John 19:30 greater than Caesar’s declaration when he returned from Rome after his defeat of King Pontus?
  4. The word “anguish” comes from the Latin word which means “to be compressed.”  How is the cross a compression for Jesus?
  5. In John 19:28 it says that Jesus said “I thirst” to fulfill Scripture.  How is tetelestai a fulfillment of Scripture?
  6. John says in verse 30(a) “When Jesus had received sour wine He said, ‘It is finished.’  How is the life of Jesus a perfect illustration of receiving sour wine from the world?
  7. How does the word tetelestai offer us a complete picture of God’s redemption?
  8. How does His word tetelestai fulfill His words to His disciples in John 12:31?
  9. What is the geographic center of the city of London?
  10. What effect does this declaration have on your discipleship?

See you Sunday, as we gather at His table!