It is finished!

Greg Laurie  expounds on John 19:30, “When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and released his spirit.”

Says Laurie, “The cross was the goal of Jesus from the very beginning.” How right that was. It took the disciples by surprise. Jesus had tried to tell them but they held to their own preconceived ideas about the Kingdom of God. The kingdom belonged to Israel and not to the rest of humanity. Peter even rebuked Jesus for suggesting that he should be killed, which earned an even more severe reply to Peter (Matthew 16:21-25). Before the arrest and crucifixion was over His disciples “All forsook Him and fled” (Mark 14:50)

Even the Apostle Peter needed further divine instruction over broadening his view of the church and its mission (Acts 10 and 11).

Their theology had let them down. They just hadn’t listened to what Jesus had been teaching them in his three and half years of ministry. When he met two of them on the road to Emmaus  after his resurrection, unrecognised by them they told their fellow traveller that they “thought He was the one to redeem Israel.” Even before his ascension they asked Jesus, “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

As the hymn writer put it, he was ‘born that man no more may die’. He stepped in to rescue where Adam had had failed (Romans 5:12-21; cf. 1 Cor 15:21-24).

Says Laurie, “The incarnation was for our atonement. He was born to die so that we might live. And when He had accomplished the purpose He had come to fulfill, He summed it up with a single word: “finished.”

It is finished. Mission accomplished. It is done. It is made an end of.”

“So what was finished? Finished and completed were the horrendous sufferings of Christ. Never again would He experience pain at the hand of wicked men. Never again would He have to bear the sins of the world. Never again would He, even for a moment, be forsaken of God. That was completed. That was taken care of.

”Also finished was Satan’s stronghold on humanity. Jesus came to deal a decisive blow against the devil and his demons at the cross of Calvary. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.” This means that you no longer have to be under the power of sin. Because of Jesus’ accomplishment at the cross, finished was the stronghold of Satan on humanity.

”And lastly, finished was our salvation. It is completed. It is done. All of our sins were transferred to Jesus when He hung on the cross. His righteousness was transferred to our account.”

I would add, that salvation – full and free, has to be accepted individually. We can’t borrow from anyone else’s faith in Christ, we must have our own faith and trust in Jesus as Saviour and Lord. We have nothing to offer of our own, it is all what He has to offer us.

So, says Laurie, “Jesus cried out the words, “It is finished!” It was God’s deliberate and well-thought-out plan. It is finished—so rejoice!”