Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 19:30
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
30. received ] He had refused the stupefying draught (Mat 27:34; Mar 15:23), which would have clouded his faculties: He accepts what will revive them for the effort of a willing surrender of His life.
It is finished ] Just as the thirst was there before he expressed it, so the consciousness that His work was finished was there ( Joh 19:28) before He declared it. The Messiah’s work of redemption was accomplished; His Father’s commandment had been obeyed; types and prophecies had been fulfilled; His life had been lived, and His teaching completed; His last earthly tie had been severed ( Joh 19:26-27); and the end had come. The final ‘wages of sin’ alone remained to be paid.
he bowed his head ] Another detail peculiar to the Evangelist who witnessed it.
gave up the ghost ] The two apostles mark with special clearness that the Messiah’s death was entirely voluntary. S. Matthew says, ‘He let go His spirit’ (Mat 27:50); S. John, ‘He gave up His spirit.’ None of the four says ‘He died.’ The other two have ‘ He breathed out;’ and S. Luke shews clearly that the surrender of life was a willing one by giving the words of surrender ‘Father into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’ ‘No one taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself’ It was the one thing which Christ claimed to do ‘of Himself’ (Joh 10:18). Contrast Joh 5:30, Joh 7:28, Joh 8:28; Joh 8:42.
On ‘the seven words from the cross’ see on Luk 23:34; Mar 15:34; Mat 27:46. Between the two words recorded in these verses (28 30) there is again a contrast. ‘I thirst’ is an expression of suffering; the only one during the Passion. ‘It is finished’ is a cry of triumph; and the ‘therefore’ in Joh 19:30 shews how the expression of suffering led on to the cry of triumph. S. John omits the ‘loud voice’ which all the Synoptists give as immediately preceding Christ’s death. It proved that His end was voluntary and not the necessary result of exhaustion.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Joh 19:30
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar
Christ drinking the vinegar
He wished to die sober, so He refused the wine, intended to deaden pain; but the vinegar was an insult.
He took it, nevertheless. In some lives the saccharine seems to predominate. Life is sunshine on a bank of flowers. But in others there are not so many sugars as acids. A man who is always well cannot sympathize with the sick. But the fact that Christ took the vinegar makes Him able to sympathize with those whose cup is filled with the sharp acids of this life. There is the sourness of
I. BETRAYAL. Christ was hurt by the treachery of Judas. There was one friend on whom you put especial stress. After he turned upon you. You were stung, and the wound will never be healed. I commend you to the sympathy of a betrayed Christ, whose friend sold Him for less than twenty dollars.
II. PAIN. Some have not had a well day for years, but you never had worse pains than Christ. All the pains of all the ages were compressed into His sour cup; He can therefore feel for you.
III. POVERTY. Well, you are in glorious company. Christ owned not the house in which He stopped, the colt on which He rode, the boat in which He sailed. He had to perform a miracle to pay a tax.
IV. BEREAVEMENT. Jesus knows all about that. He had only a few friends, and when He lost one it brought tears to His eyes.
V. THE DEATH HOUR. Christ knows what it is to leave this beautiful world. He died physicianless and in agony. Application:
1. To all those to whom life has been an acerbity, I preach the omnipotent sympathy of Christ. Do not carry your ills alone. When you have any trouble, take it to Jesus, knowing that for our sakes He took the vinegar.
2. My utterance is almost choked at the thought that people refuse this Divine sympathy, and drink their own vinegar. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)
He said, It is finished
The sixth cry from the cross
I. THE SAVIOURS COURSE ON EARTH WAS FINISHED. His life
1. As the Incarnate Son of God.
2. Of poverty and toil.
3. Of weariness, hunger, and temptation.
4. Of holy obedience and usefulness.
5. Of grief and pain.
II. ALL THAT GOD IN HIS GRACE HAD MADE KNOWN BEFORE WAS FULFILLED.
1. The promises beginning with that at the Fall.
2. The covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Israel.
3. The prophecies.
4. The types.
III. THE WORK OF MANS REDEMPTION WAS COMPLETED.
1. Every obstacle was removed, symbolized by the rending of the veil.
2. The way of mercy was opened.
IV. THIS CRY COMPREHENDS THE FUTURE, AS WELL AS THE PAST. As the oak is contained in the acorn, as the fruit is wrapped up in the blossom, so the fruits of Christs redeeming work were contained in the death of the cross. (W. T. Bull, B. A.)
The sixth excellent saying of Christ upon the cross
1. It is but one word in the original; but in that one word is contained the sum of all joy, the very spirit of all Divine consolation. The ancient Greeks reckoned it their excellency to speak much in a little, to give a sea of matter in a drop of language. What they only sought is here found.
2. According to the principal scope of the place we observe that Jesus Christ hath perfected and completely finished the great work of redemption, committed to Him by God the Father. To this great truth the Apostle gives a full testimony (Heb 10:14). And to the same purpose Christ speaks (Joh 17:4).
I. WHAT WAS THE WORK WHICH CHRIST FINISHED BY HIS DEATH? The fulfilling the whole law of God in our room and for our redemption, as a Surety for us. The law is a glorious thing; the holiness of God is engraven upon every part of it. It cursed every one that continued not in all things contained therein (Gal 3:10). Two things, therefore, were required in him that should perfectly fulfil it, and both found only in our Surety.
1. A subjective perfection. Perfect working always follows a perfect being. That He might therefore finish this great work, lo! in what shining and perfect holiness was He produced! (Luk 1:35. Heb 7:26). So that the law could have no exception against His person.
2. An effective perfection, or a perfection of working and obeying. This Christ had (Mat 3:15). He did all that was required to be done, and suffered all that was requisite to be suffered. And this work, finished by our Lord Jesus Christ, was
(1) A necessary work.
(a) On the Fathers account. I do not mean that God was under any necessity, from His nature, of redeeming us this, or any other, way. But when God had once decreed to redeem sinners by Jesus Christ, then it became necessary that the counsel of God should be fulfilled (Act 4:28).
(b) With respect to Christ upon the account of that previous compact that was betwixt the Father and Him about it (Luk 22:22; Joh 9:3).
(c) Upon our account; for, had not Christ finished this work, sin had quickly finished all our lives, comforts, and hopes (Joh 3:14-15).
(2) Exceeding difficult. It cost many a cry and tear before Christ could say, It is finished. All the angels in heaven were not able, by their united strength, to lift that burden which Christ bore upon His shoulders–yea, and bore away. But how heavy this was may in part appear by the agony in the garden and the bitter cries upon the cross.
(3) Most precious. Justification, sanctification, adoption, &c., in this life flow from it, besides the happiness and glory of the life to come.
II. HOW AND IN WHAT MANNER JESUS CHRIST FINISHED THIS GLORIOUS WORK.
1. Obediently (Php 2:8; Isa 50:5).
2. Freely (Joh 10:17-18; Psa 40:1-17.).
3. Diligently (Act 10:38; Joh 4:30-31).
4. Fully. Whatever the law demanded is perfectly paid; whatever a sinner needs is perfectly obtained.
III. WHAT EVIDENCE WE HAVE THAT CHRIST HATH SO FINISHED REDEMPTION-WORK.
1. The infinite efficacy of the blood and obedience of Christ.
2. The discharge God the Father gave Him when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand. If Christ, the sinners Surety, be, as such, discharged by God the Creditor, then the debt is fully paid Heb 10:12-14).
3. The blessed effects of it upon all that believe in Him. Their consciences are now rationally pacified, and their souls at death actually received into glory.
IV. INFERENCES. Hath Christ perfected all His work for us? Then
1. How sweet a relief is this to us that believe in Him, against all the defects and imperfections of all the works of God that are wrought by us.
2. How dangerous and dishonourable a thing is it to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ in point of justification before God.
3. There can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us Php 1:6; Heb 12:2).
4. How excellent and comfortable beyond all compare is the method and way of faith!
5. How necessary is a laborious life to all that call themselves Christians Php 2:12)! Imitate thy Pattern.
(1) Christ began early to work for God.
(2) As Christ began betime, so He followed His work close Joh 4:31-32; Mar 3:21).
(3) Christ often thought upon the shortness of His time, and wrought hard because He knew His working-time would be but little (Joh 9:4). (J. Flavel.)
Christs work completed on the cross
These words, whether we consider their import or the moment of their utterance, are memorable. No fiat of Godhead had ever equalled this. It comprised in it all others, whether past or future. The expression–
I. MARKS THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF PROPHETIC SCRIPTURE. Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished. The general series of prophecies to which the Evangelist refers, supply a body of evidence perfectly irresistible in favour of His Messiahship. Can it be doubtful whether the very expressions contained in Psa 69:1-36. relate to the phenomena of the Crucifixion? The particulars cannot apply to any other kind of death besides. But the impression is yet more full when we regard the whole complexion of prophetic testimony, marking their perfect agreement with the character and temper of the Sufferer. How truly does the drawing set forth the great living Original! What, then, is the inference, but that heavens hand guided the pencil, and mixed and applied the colours? Mere nature could not furnish such a combination; nor could the same class of circumstances ever again exactly meet. Nor does the bee, by the force of instinct, working out heavens art, or the bird building its nest, or any natural agent performing works beyond the power of reason and the art of man, show the all-presiding intellect and will of Providence more truly than did the agents, whether human or satanic, show the presence of the all-controlling mind in this instance. They did the will of God when doing their own.
II. RELATES TO THE ENTIRE COURSE OF HIS MEDIATORIAL SERVICE.
1. Admitting that our Lord came to fulfil these Scriptures, why do such Scriptures exist? Certain fore-announcements were not put into the record for their own sake, or merely in anticipation of certain events to meet in the history of one illustrious person. They might authenticate a character, but not let us into the reason and end of that character. When our Lord therefore cried, It is finished, He must have looked back on the entire career of His mediatorial service, comparing it with that programme which He brought with Him to earth.
2. What was the true character of our Lords obedience? His human and Divine natures make up but one Person, in all the acts of obedience He performed, beginning with His descent from heaven, and ending with His death upon the cross. The assumption of a lower nature might, and did, give a specific character to His obedience; but it was the presence of the higher nature that gave it majesty, merit, glory. Hence He came Divinely furnished for His great work. And what a career was that on which our Saviour upon the cross looked back, surveying the whole as with one glance; and, marking its faultless perfection as He had done the work of His hands on the sixth day of creation, could say, It is finished! No actions of creatures, no agencies even of God, as God alone, ever partook of the same characters as His.
3. There was sovereignty as well as submission. It was a voice as supremely royal, though uttered from the head crowned with thorns, and surmounted by a mocking title, as that heard in the Apocalypse from the throne of the Lamb, saying, It is done.
III. APPLIES TO THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE GREAT DESIGNS OF THIS DIVINE OBEDIENCE, IN THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD. It has especial respect to His preceding endeavours, whether in body or mind, whether in anticipation or in actual suffering. The great body of Scripture testimony gives marked pre-eminency to the sufferings of Christ. The first intimations of deliverance gave promise of a terrific, though decisive, struggle between the father of evil and his superhuman antagonist. The typical system, from that hour to the moment in which our Lord yielded up the ghost, prolonged the same strain of doctrine, exhibited the same sign. The whole history, from Moses to Christ, is one prolonged testimony, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. One mind is thus seen presiding over the religion of the world from the beginning. One grand principle is brought out and upheld, like its Author, without variableness or shadow of turning. The doctrine of sacrifice was the substance of faith, and the great channel of grace to the world. It was a type of the act of God, by which the covenant was finally to be ratified by the offering of Christ. Hence the atoning nature of the Messiahs sufferings was set forth by the prophets, especially by Isaiah and Daniel, provisionally at least, though not actually, agreeably to Johns exclamation, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. The hour, therefore, that had arrived, showing the Lord upon the cross, was consummatory of the mighty, all-restoring plan. In that most momentous hour, every perfection of the Divine nature was glorified in Him who ordained and in Him who offered the satisfaction of the cross for the sins of the world. No further act was needed, no repetition possible; the offer could never be supplemented.
IV. DENOTED THE FULFILMENT OF THE CONDITIONS OF HIS MEDIATORIAL EXALTATION. It was expressive of the termination of His descending course, the sepulchre being only an adjunct of His Cross Everything antecedent to this was preparatory only; this was consummating. From this hour all our Lords after glory sprang, as the harvest from the seed, to which He so beautifully likens it.
1. The first glory in order–the Resurrection–was a testimony to the truth of the text. Else how could He have destroyed death in His own Person, had not His work upon the cross been complete, had He not in that hour finished the transgression, the visible standing penalty of which was death? But the Resurrection was the proof of this fact, and that Satan had been dethroned, and the curse no longer dominant over the race.
2. His return to His own glory followed. He took possession of the throne of the universe, to display His victory, and to evince how every scheme of creature malice and opposition had not merely been frustrated, but made to advance His glory to its fulness. Then was man in Him crowned with glory and honour, and in Him advanced to personal fellowship and oneness with God.
3. But His supreme prerogative, as Mediator, was to send forth the Spirit. This was a glory far greater than the government of all things made; and as truly as the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world, so did the Son send the Spirit to illumine and sanctify the world; and hence, as Christ came not to do His own will, nor to glorify Himself, so neither did the Spirit come to do His own will, or to bear testimony to Himself.
V. IMPLIED THE PROVISIONAL COMPLETENESS OF HIS ATONING REIGN. He is emphatically the Lamb in the midst of the throne. All the doctrines, institutions, and powers of His religion flow from the sovereignty of His Cross. The only satisfying reasons for the abolition of Judaism arise hence–a fact which the rending of the veil at the moment of His death testified.The full reign of evangelical grace took date from the advent of the Spirit. Then was His truth perfectly revealed, the gifts received for man richly poured from heaven upon man, that the Lord God might dwell among them. His servants were empowered to give testimony for Him in all nations, to form the Church on His own model, to offer mercy to all men. It is as impossible there should be a fresh and more perfect administration, as that there should be a more perfect sacrifice for sin than the one He has offered. His salvation is immutably treasured up in His truth, and dispensed to faith in His Cross, which is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
VI. THIS ONE EVENT INCLUDED AND BETOKENED EVERY OTHER. It was our whole redemption, from which every event, whether past or future, stood in the relation of an effect to its cause. It sealed redemption to all who had previously lived and died in the faith of this great event. It placed in our Lords hands the keys of the unseen world. That hour, in its fullest sense, was entirely His own; thenceforth were all ministries His; adverse principalities and powers were spoiled; judgment was passed in heaven against the usurper; and our Lord was enthroned to carry out that judgment to its ultimate issue–expulsion and final punishment. (G. Steward.)
The end of Christs coming
What was finished? What are we to suppose that our blessed Lord meant when He spake that word? To finish, you know, is to bring to an end; and there are two ways in which things may be brought to an end or finished. A work is said to be finished when it is completed or brought to perfection. Thus in the Book of Exodus we read that all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation was finished; and again, in the First Book of Kings, that Solomon built the house of the Lord, and finished it; and again, in the Book of Ezra, that the elders of the Jews rebuilt the house of the Lord, and finished it. In these passages, you will easily see, finishing means completing; and in like manner the account of the Creation in the Book of Genesis is wound up with these words: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. On the other hand, a thing may come to an end by being destroyed; and then also it is sometimes said to be finished. When Daniel is interpreting the writing on the wall to King Belshazzar, he says that the interpretation of the first word, Mene, is God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. So, too, Gabriel tells Daniel that seventy weeks are determined upon the Jews, and upon the holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins. Again the word is often used to signify merely that something is brought to an end, without regard to the nature of that end. As we read in St. Matthew: When Jesus had finished all these sayings; When Jesus had finished all these parables. Thus St. Paul, in his Letter to Timothy, says, The time of my departure is at hand; I have finished my course. Now, in which of these senses are we to conceive that our Lord on the cross said, It is finished? What was finished at that moment? what was brought to an end, and to what manner of end? When we look at these words along with those which come immediately after them, the first sense in which we are led to understand the word finished is much like that which it bears in the passage just quoted from St. Paul. So, and more completely, was our Lords earthly course then finished-so entirely finished, that but a moment afterward He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. The end of life–of every life, whatever notion we may be wont to form of that which is to come after–is an awful moment. It is an awful moment even in the eyes of ignorant savages. The eye no longer sees; the limbs no longer move; the heart ceases to beat; all speech, thought, feeling, are extinguished at once; and from that moment the body, the only part of the man that we see or know any more of, begins to moulder and crumble into dust. Moreover, while we are torn away from everything that we have been accustomed to love and prize and seek, we go we know not whither. Faith alone, enlightened by revelation, enables us to feel an assurance that death is not annihilation, but a change from one state of being to another. What this new state of being, however, may be, with what facilities we may be gifted in it, what we may have to do in it, whom we shall find in it, we can frame no conception or imagination. Therefore a man must be very thoughtless and heartless who could hear any one say that his life was finished without being moved thereby to something of compassion for him who is departing, and with something of awe at witnessing this evidence and proof of the destiny which awaits himself and all mankind. But when we call to mind all that had gone before–when we think ourselves of all that Jesus had to endure, of the cruel indignities that were heaped upon His innocent head, we may understand the exclamation, It is finished, in a further sense, as declaring that now at length His sufferings were come to an end, that His soul was about to flee away and be at rest, and that He should no longer feel wounds from the smiting, or the still more painful scoffing of His persecutors. When we look at them in this light, the words It is finished acquire something of a consolatory character. Even after a long and grievous illness, we at times see persons looking forward almost wishfully to the moment that is to put an end to their pangs and release their souls from the house of torment. In a still higher degree was it a joyful moment to the martyrs, when they felt that their spirits were on the point of taking flight from their earthly tabernacles; and stories are told of those who, from the midst of the flames, cried to the bystanders to pile up more fire around them, and thus to hasten the moment when their torments would be finished. Such, or akin to these, would be the feelings with which we should hear the words It is finished from the lips of a common man in a like situation; and such would be the meaning we should attach to them. But, as uttered by our Saviour on the cross, those words have a far wider and deeper meaning. For as His life was totally unlike that of all other men, so was His death. He did not live for Himself, or to Himself, nor as one of many; nor did He die so. Therefore that which He declared to be finished, when He was about to give up the ghost, must have been the great work, to work which He came into the world, and which was wrought by Him and in Him for all mankind. It must have been the work which, when sacrifices and burnt-offerings, and all things else, were found unavailing to reconcile man to God, He said that He came to do, and that He was content to do it with His whole heart. Already, in our Lords divine prayer, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of our Gospel, He had said, when He besought His Father to glorify Him, I have glorified Thee on earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. He had then finished everything that He came to do. He had finished the doctrine which He came to teach, so far as for the present He purposed to make it known. He had finished and completed the example, which He came to set before men, of a life entirely at one with God, of a life spent throughout in doing the will of God, of a life in which no motion of any other will than the will of God was ever allowed to arise in the soul, of a life which had never been sullied or disturbed by a single sinful or selfish act or word or thought. All that He came to do by action had already been finished. But His greatest trial was still awaiting Him. His work was still incomplete. The hour of the power of darkness, as He Himself calls it (Luk 22:53), was still to come. His great work was to be completed and made perfect, as every truly great work must be, by suffering. All this, then–the whole work of the redemption of mankind, the whole work which from the beginning He had taken upon Himself–does our Lord in the text declare to be finished. Even as we read that, on the seventh day, when the heavens and the earth, and all their hosts, were finished, God rested from all the work that He had made, in like manner our Saviour on the cross, having brought down heaven in all its perfection to earth, and manifested the fulness of the Godhead in the form of a Man–having thus finished this His great work–was about to enter into His rest. As Gods work was the work ofcreating the world, and His rest was the rest of governing and guarding and upholding the world which He had created, so our Saviours work was that of renewing mans nature, and of laying the foundations of His Church–of laying down Himself, His own Incarnate Diety and Divine Humanity, to be its chief Cornerstone; and His rest was that of watching over and directing and strengthening and sanctifying His Church and all its members. The work which was then declared to be finished was the greatest work ever wrought upon earth–a work which none but God could work, which the wisdom of God came down from heaven and dwelt upon earth in the form of a man to work, a work in which all the generations of mankind are more or less interested, and through the power of which alone can any man escape death, can any inherit everlasting life. You may feel a trustful assurance that, as Christ at that hour finished His work for you, at the cost of such bitter suffering and humiliation, so He will assuredly be ready to finish His work in you, and to enable you to finish the work which He has set you to do. For although the great work which Christ came to work was finished once for all on this day, it was not finished as when we finish a work, and leave it to itself, and turn to something else. It was wrought, even as the work of the Creation was, in order that it might be the teeming parent of countless works of the same kind, the first in an endless chain that should girdle the earth and stretch through all ages. While in one sense it was an end, in another it was a beginning–an end of the warfare and struggle which had been desolating the earth hopelessly ever since the Fall, and a beginning of the peace in which the victory won on that day was to receive its everlasting consummation. He conquered sin and Satan for us, in order that He might conquer them in us, and that we might conquer them for Him, through His love constraining, and His strength enabling us. Yes, my brethren, every one who sets himself to fight against his enemies in the way in which Jesus fought against them–by patience, by meekness, by silent endurance, by humility, by faith, by holiness, by love–shall assuredly conquer them; and every one who seeks this armour earnestly and diligently from Him, from His example, from His word, from His Spirit, shall obtain it. We know that the work has been finished, and by whom. We know who is for us; who, then, can be against us? When thus considered, our Saviours word is a source of the greatest comfort and encouragement to the believer, who desires to die the death and to live the life of Christ, and to have Christ formed in his heart. But to him who chooses to abide in sin, and who refuses to accept the mercy and grace of Christs atoning sacrifice, this same word, if he would but attend to it, would bring a most awful warning. For it declares that everything which could be done for his redemption has been finished, that God has done His utmost, that His mercy is exhausted, that there is no second Saviour, no new way of salvation for him; and that, if he persists in slighting the proffered mercy, nothing can remain for him but to lie weltering and rotting in his sins, dashed to and fro by the restless waves of remorse and despair. It is finished. Was it the last expiring cry of Hope and of Peace, of Righteousness and of Truth? Did it declare that the strife of God with man; that His efforts to save man, to teach him, to guide him, to restore him, were come to an end; that He was now forsaking the world, and giving it over to the powers of Evil? Thoughts of this kind, we may suppose, must have rushed upon those who loved the Lord, who had lived under the shelter of His wings, and who had set all their hopes upon Him for themselves, for the restoration of Israel, and for the establishment of righteousness and truth, when they heard the awful word It is finished; more especially if they meditated on it in connection with that terrible exclamation just before–His cry to the God who had forsaken Him.
Looking at the immediate aspect of things, they could see nothing else than despair, the destruction of good, the triumph of evil. Yet how wide were these thoughts from the truth! how totally opposite to it! If they could have cast their eyes forward through forty hours, they would have seen that the hour of the power of darkness was also the hour when darkness was to be conquered for ever. Even in the darkest hour, the light is preparing to burst forth; nor, when it comes, can the darkness stand against it. The mourners shall be comforted. The hungry shall be filled. The meek shall inherit the earth. The dominion of the earth shall be with the kingdom of heaven, not with the kingdom of hell. On the other hand, the enemies, the murderers of Jesus, when they heard that same word, It is finished, would interpret it according to the lusts of their hearts. They would exult in the thought that their work was now accomplished, that they had gained a decisive victory over Him before whose word their unrighteous power had seemed to totter, and that they might hold their revels over His downfall. Their master, too–the prince of this world–did he not deem that his empire over the earth was now established for ever? Yet this also was a vain delusion, which in forty hours was scattered to the winds. For the Second Adam had not been overcome. On the contrary, He had overcome sin, wherefore death had no power over Him. It was sin that had been overcome–sin in all its forms, with all its snares and weapons; and before Him who overcomes sin, death brightens into eternal life. Such was the real state of things then; and such it will ever be. Evil may seem to be mighty for the moment; but it shall perish; for God is against it. In like manner we are led to conclude, from the prophetic accounts of the last times, that Evil will then abound and prevail and hold its revels over the earth, while Faith will be weak and rare. Evil will again think that the earth is its own, and that it has driven out Faith for ever. Yet again the hour shall come, when the whole race of man and all the creatures upon the earth will cry out with one universal, wailing cry, It is finished. That end, however, will only be the beginning. The power and the glory and the victory will again be with the Lord of Hosts; and that which shall arise out of the wreck of the world will not he the kingdom of hell, but the kingdom of heaven. (Archdn. Hare.)
Blessedness of completed work
1. There have been other great works to which the words of the text might be applied. A great man undertakes some cause. He begins with the world against him, and ends with the world on his side–he has lived to see the principle to which his soul was devoted safe and beyond dispute. The writing of a history; the discovery of a new scientific method; the reformation of a religion; the consolidation of an empire; the completion of a beneficent scheme of policy; the creation of a new school of philosophy–these things have been perfected by the almost superhuman power of asingle man. What singular thoughts must arise in the minds of such men at the close of life! and we should like to think of them as offering up their work to God, saying, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.
2. But these examples are above the level of ordinary humanity, Most of us would like to have done something before we grow old and die, but the thought may arise in our minds of the shortness and uncertainty of life. I would rather consider this subject from the point of view of the comparative certainty of human life. The probable duration of our lives may be easily calculated, and is the basis of various dealings between man and man. We have not so long to live at thirty as we have at twenty, or at sixty as we have at fifty. Time becomes more and more valuable to us, and we fear that the night may overtake us sooner than we supposed. And as a man gets on in life, the feeling that his time is short should quicken him in the service of God. Every one has felt the satisfaction of having done something. To have carried through some business which we were disposed to put off; to have paid a, debt; to have written a book; even to have answered a letter, will be a considerable pleasure to us. There is a peace of mind to a man when he is dying in knowing that he has set his life in order, and left none of the common duties of life unfulfilled. We like to have done something, not to be always about to do something. In order to a completed life
I. THE PLAN MUST BE ADAPTED TO OUR CHARACTERS AND CIRCUMSTANCES.
1. There is a sense in which people cannot go against their own natures; they must supplement rather than extirpate their original qualities. This is what we mean by a man feeling his own deficiencies. Until he knows himself as he is in his own weakness and in his strength, he will be always making mistakes. And, therefore, in fixing on a plan of life a man must consider his own character, and limit himself by that. There are some things which he can do easily, some which he can do with an effort, others which he flatters himself he can do, but which he cannot do at all. For example, he may fancy that he will be a great speaker when he has nothing to say, or a great poet when he has no sense either of language or of metre. The art is to start from what he is that he may become something more, to be equal to the present while attempting things beyond.
2. And he must not dissipate himself by trying to do too many things. One work, or one kind of work, is enough for the life of most men; he is not good for much who is good for every-thing–for everything but his own occupation. One man has no definite idea of what he is going to learn, or of what he knows. Another has at once presented to his mind an outline of what he means to learn; he divides the whole into parts; he makes every part throw light on every other; he examines himself to see whether he has his facts really under control; he has a hold of his subject, and is able to say of it that he knows and can use his knowledge.
3. Then, again, there are mistakes that men make in a life of study as in other things. They go on reading and never writing, until their acquisitions have become altogether out of proportion to their power of using them, or their taste may be so fastidious, their love of minutiae so great that no considerable work could ever be executed on the scale or with the perfection which they proposed.
4. But few of us are students, and there are works of the most different kind which have to be performed often in silence by women as well as men, by the old as well as by the young. There is the care of the household or of the business. Besides the engagements of society and the blessings of family life, let us make some other interest, if we can, which may bind our days together with a golden thread, and survive the changes which the lapse of years is making. To such works we should give not only the chance thoughts, or moments, or feelings–we should look forward a little and scheme for the good of others, and not merely for own narrower selfish purposes. Then again there may be works of the most private sort–of duty and affection. It brings a man great peace at the last to have fulfilled all these trusts, not to have the words Too late ringing in his ears. There are many lifelong works of this kind among the poor. Many of us must have known of servants who have devoted themselves to the bringing up of a family. They, too, have finished the work which was given to them, and have gone home and taken their wages.
II. WE MUST THINK OF THIS WORK AS THE WORK OF GOD UPON EARTH, in which we are allowed to bear a part. It wonderfully clears a mans head and simplifies his life when he has learned to rest, not on himself, but on God. He is not divided between this world and another, or trying to make the best of both; he has one single question which he puts to himself, one aim which he is seeking to fulfil–the will of God. He does not care about the compliments of friends or the applause of the world. This is the ideal which the Apostle holds before us when he speaks of offering up his work to God, of presenting the body a living sacrifice, &c. Like Christ we have a work to do which we cannot transfer to Him, but in which the thought of Him, the great Example of mankind, may be always present with us. Conclusion: There must be some broken as well as perfect lives, which, owing to accident, or illness, or early death, could never be framed into any perfect whole. There have been men of genius cut off before their time–statesmen having the promise of a great future; and there is hardly any family in which the touching question is not sometimes asked, What would he or she have been if living now? Yes; we acknowledge that there are pieces of lives which have been begun in this world to be completed in another state of being. And some of them have been like fragments of ancient art, which we prize, not for their completeness, but for their quality, and because they serve to give us a type of something which we could hardly see anywhere upon earth. Such lives we must judge, not by what the persons said, or wrote, or did, but by what they were. God does not measure mens lives wholly by the amount of work which they are able to accomplish in them; He who gave the power of work may also withhold the power; and some of these broken lives may have a value in His sight which no bustle or activity or ordinary goodness can attain. There have been persons confined to a bed of sickness who yet may be said to have lived an almost perfect life. Such persons afford examples to us of a work which at any moment is acceptable to God. (Prof. Jowett.)
The one success in life
How seldom can one coming to die say of anything but life itself, that It is finished? Our projects overlap our days, and are either never accomplished, or left to others to complete. Most will then say with Job, My days are past, &c. But Jesus was accustomed to measure lifes meaning only by its results. My meat is to do the will of Him, &c. When, therefore, He cried, It is finished, it must have referred to the accomplishment of that for which His life was given Him. What was the deathless purpose which absorbed the life of Jesus?
I. TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING, AND TO REMOVE ITS OCCASION. it. He seemed to gather into His own sensitive heart all the pangs which He witnessed in others. Surely He hath borne our griefs, &c.
2. As a practical experience of those who accept the ministry of Christ and His cross, the evil of suffering is gone; it is transformed into an agency of blessing. In all these things we are more than conquerors.
II. TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF DEATH, AND TO REMOVE ITS OCCASION.
1. He wept over Lazarus. Why, when He knew that in a moment Lazarus was to be restored to life? Because Lazarus represented all the dead for whom resurrection was not a possibility until after His own death should allow him to enter and vanquish the power of death in its own realm.
2. Since then, believers in Jesus triumph over the grave, being able to say, This is life eternal.
III. TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM AND TO BREAK THE POWER OF SIN.
1. The occasion of both suffering and death. Jesus always associated sin with sorrow and death. When He healed, it was in connection with some revelation of Himself as the sin-bearer. Thy sins be forgiven thee was in His mind equivalent to Take up thy bed and walk. When He cried, It is finished, He esteemed sin as a broken hold upon mankind. When he shall make his soul an offering, &c.
2. Since then, believers can experience what they confess, Being justified by faith we have peace with God, &c. The life of Jesus only was a complete one, except as our lives are hid in His. (Homiletic Monthly.)
It is finished
What was finished? On the heaven side, no man can answer; on the earth side, we can perhaps reach some particulars.
I. THE PERSONAL SUFFERING OF JESUS. He was now dying. We cannot pretend to define the anguish of Christ, we must be content with noting three degrees in the apparent growth of His experience.
1. Jesus had a measure of inexplicable dread as He neared His death. He kept talking about an hour, and seemed filled with solicitude concerning it. This feeling reached its supreme height in Gethsemane.
2. Soon, however, He righted up into a fine sense of tranquility, and we hear Him saying that He was quite willing to drink the cup which His Father was giving Him; and from that time forward we hear no more of His shrinking away as if from pain.
3. And here, in this explosive utterance, He has touched the supreme degree of His satisfaction; and this cry is an outburst of self-congratulation that His terrible cup has been entirely drained. And so He sends out before an anxious universe this loud voice like a bulletin from a field of battle. He is all through the charge, right, safe, at rest.
II. THE EARTHLY ERRAND OF JESUS CHRIST.
1. He had met mans desperate need as a transgressor.
2. He had satisfied the laws demand in Gods government.
3. He had answered every scriptural type with an antitype.
4. He had fulfilled every ancient prophecy concerning Himself.
5. Thus, in one word, Christ exhaustively discharged that entire former dispensation in a new one.
III. HIS OFFICIAL CONFLICT WITH SATAN. For this purpose He had been manifested (1Jn 3:8).
1. He was the last Adam in order that He might take up the defeat in the Garden of Eden and reverse it into a victory (Rom 5:14).
2. This was the reason why He was made to endure the open attacks of the same adversary. He was led up into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. Jesus must submit Himself to a like condition of exposure, yet He must conquer in the fight (Heb 2:18).
8. He had been anticipating this renewed trial for a long time. Hence He kept giving those mysterious hints of a prince of this world.
4. At last, when He uttered this cry, He knew He had conquered His foe Col 2:15). When a shout of victory like this came forth from the cross, who shall attempt to picture the unutterable dismay it must have sent into the shadows of Hades?
IV. THE GOSPEL MESSAGE. One more word to His Father–just a decorous salutation at coming; then there remained only a human body on the tree.
1. For believers, then, here is ground for confidence unwavering Heb 10:12-14).
2. Per backsliders there is also a lesson here (Heb 11:4-6).
3. For all others, here is invitation free and full. Is anything more needed? All things are now ready. Why does any one wait? It is finished–what can be wished for more? (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
It is finished
I. THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE JEWISH RACE HAD GONE. The offer to them was completed. Their response to it was now final. There they were gathered, the two typical groups: those who had received Him for life, and those who had received Him for death. His blood was upon both; but upon the one to the cleansing of sin; upon the other to the making indelible its stain. His blood be on us and on our children.
II. PILATES OPPORTUNITY WAS OVER. When he had written that title and had had it placed upon the cross, saying, What I have written, I have written, his position was finally taken.
III. THE MERELY HUMAN RELATIONS OF JESUS WERE FINALLY ADJUSTED (Joh 19:26-27). And the final adjustment of His relations with us, and so of our social relations with each other, is at the cross. To Mary He says, Another shall fill My place. Fill thou to the one I choose, as far as possible, the relation thou hast occupied to Me. To John He says, Be such a son as I have been. Should we not see a consecration of all these ties of earth if we could come often beneath the cross and listen to the Saviours last bequest? He has entrusted us to each other as with His dying breath, as with the seal of His blood.
IV. ALL THE PROPHECIES POINTING TO THE CROSS WERE NOW ACCOMPLISHED. The scrupulousness with which prophecies concerning our Saviour were accomplished is most notable in the two periods of His infancy and His sacrifice. Two references only to prophecy occur in the other three gospels. In Mark (15:28) the language of Isaiah (53:12) is recalled. In Matthew (27:35) is a reference to the Psalm (22:18). John makes four definite citations (chap. 19:24, 28, 36, 37).
V. THE MEDIATION OF CHRIST WAS COMPLETED. He had come to mediate between God and men. For this He was both God and Man. What was between them He must take away. He must bring them together, or they were to remain separated forever. This He did perfectly, and what He did has only to be received in penitence and trust, and salvation is assured. Conclusion: Perhaps the noblest building in the world is the Cathedral of Cologne. It was designed on the most magnificent scale, so costly and vast that after the lapse of five centuries it was still unfinished. At last it was resolved to make a great effort to complete it. It was resumed as a national work. The most competent architects were obtained, the most skilled workmen in great numbers were employed, and, at last, the crowning stone was laid in the presence of a vast assemblage gathered from all Europe, and from America, with the most august ceremonies. A shout broke from that vast concourse, as the surmounting cross was secured in its lofty place, whose burden was, It is finished. I stood before that pile, that crowning triumph of architecture, with emotions of awe and wonder. I thought of the centuries of the building, in which generations of builders had toiled and passed and left it incomplete. I saw the cross everywhere wrought into the walls and ornaments, and lying outspread in the majestic outline of stone, upon that ancient square, where once had stood a heathen temple. How grand a response, I thought, to the cross of my Redeemer. It seemed some worthy rejoinder to the cry of Calvary. But there is a response grander far than the cathedral builders have given Him, the response of the lowliest sinner, coming to the Cross for pardon, opening his heart for the finished work to be wrought within him. It requires no costly offering for this, no pile of masonry, no generations of builders, and centuries, to make it complete. Now, without the delay of a minute, it may be made complete in you, because Jesus finished the great provision. It is complete. He who receives it at once is completely saved. (Monday Club Sermons.)
It is finished
I. IT, not this and that: all that lays the foundation of a new, eternal world of God.
II. It Is, not is being (Heb 10:14).
III. FINISHED.
1. As a spiritual act.
2. As a mortal suffering.
3. As a triumph of Christ.
4. As the salvation of God. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
It is finished
Let us consider
I. THE PERSON OF THE DYING SUFFERER.
1. He was God.
2. He was Man.
3. He was a Person in whom the Divine and human natures were united.
4. He was the Surety of sinners.
II. THE MEANING OF HIS LAST WORD.
1. The predictions of ancient prophets concerning the work and sufferings of the Messiah were now accomplished.
2. The purposes and designs of the ceremonial law were answered.
3. The righteousness of the law was fulfilled.
4. The great end of legal sacrifices was completed.
5. The whole of the work which the Father had given Him to do was finished.
III. THE MANNER IN WHICH THESE WORDS WERE UTTERED. Matthew and Mark inform us, that He cried with a loud voice; and the same is recorded by Luke, who also adds that He said, Father, into Thy hands I commit My Spirit; but John mentions a word unnoticed by the other evangelists It is finished! The manner of the Saviour uttering this exclamation did not so much consist in the sound of the voice or the strength of the expression, as in the important signification it conveyed.
1. It was a declaration of an important truth.
2. It was the signal of victory.
3. It was not the cry of the languishing or the wounded, or the dying man, but the triumphant shout of an Almighty Conqueror, He spoiled principalities and powers on the cross. (W. Thorpe.)
It is finished
I. Let us hear the text and UNDERSTAND IT. The Saviour meant
1. That all the types, promises, and prophecies were now fully accomplished in Him. The whole Book, from the first to the last, was finished in Him. There is not a single jewel of promise, from the first emerald which fell on the threshold of Eden, to that last sapphire-stone of Malachi, which was not set in the breast-plate of the true High Priest. Nay, there is not a type, from the red heifer down to the turtle-dove, from the hyssop up to Solomons temple, which was not fulfilled in Him; not a prophecy, whether spoken on Chebars banks or on the shores of Jordan; not a dream of wise men, whether they had received it in Babylon, or in Judaea, which was not now fully wrought out in Christ. And what a wonderful thing it is, that a mass of promises, apparently so heterogenous, should all be accomplished in one person! Take away Christ from it and the Old Testament becomes an insoluble problem.
2. All the typical sacrifices of the old Jewish law, were now abolished as well as explained. Imagine for a minute the saints in heaven looking down on what was done on earth. From the times of Noah, they see altars smoking, recognitions of the fact that man is guilty, and the spirits before the throne say, Lord, when will sacrifices finish?–when will blood no more be shed? The offerings soon increase. Aaron and the Levites every morning and evening offer a lamb, while great sacrifices are offered on special occasions. And all the while the saints are crying, O Lord, how long?–when shall the sacrifice cease? David offers hecatombs, and Solomon and Hezekiah and the spirits of the just say, Will it never be complete? But lo, He comes who is to close the line of priests! Not now with linen ephod, &c., but His cross His altar, His body and His soul the victim, and cries, It is finished!–that for which ye looted so long is fully achieved and perfected for ever.
3. His perfect obedience was finished. It was necessary, in order that man might be saved, that the law of God should be kept, for no man can see Gods face except he be perfect in righteousness. Christ undertook to keep Gods law for His people; to obey its every mandate, and preserve its every statute intact. It needed nothing to complete the perfect virtue of life but the entire obedience of death. Our perfect Substitute put the last stroke upon His work by dying. Christ the Creator, who finished creation, has perfected redemption. God can ask no more. The law has received all it claims.
4. The satisfaction which He rendered to the justice of God was finished. The debt was now, to the last farthing, all discharged. The atonement and propitiation were made once for all, and for ever, by the one offering made in Jesus body on the tree.
5. Victory over the powers of darkness.
(1) Sin nailed Him to the cross; but in that deed Christ nailed sin also to the tree.
(2) Next came Satan. Not long was the struggle; He who is the Son of God as well as the Son of Mary, having despoiled him of his armour, having quenched his fiery darts, and broken his head, He cried, It is finished.
(3) Death had come against Him, as Christmas Evans puts it, with his fiery dart, which he struck right through the Saviour, 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?
II. Let us hear and WONDER. Let us perceive what mighty things were secured by these words.
1. Thus He ratified the covenant. That covenant was signed and sealed before, but when the blood of Christ sprinkled it it could never be reversed, nor could one of its stipulations fail.
2. His Father was honoured, and Divine justice fully was displayed. He would, as a God of love, and now He could as a God of justice, bless poor sinners.
3. He Himself was glorified. He had honour as God, but as man He was despised and rejected; now as God and Man Christ was made to sit down for ever on His Fathers throne, crowned with honour and majesty.
4. The words had effect on heaven. Before, the saints had been saved, as it were, on credit. But Christ said, It is finished, and oath, and covenant, and blood set fast the dwelling-place of the redeemed, made their mansions safely and eternally their own, and bade their feet stand immoveably upon the rock.
5. The words took effect on hell. Lost souls mourned that day, for if Christ Himself, the Substitute, could not be permitted to go free till He had finished all His punishment, then they can never be free.
III. Let us hear and PUBLISH IT.
1. TO those who are torturing themselves, thinking through mortification to offer satisfaction. Yonder Hindoo is about to throw himself down upon the spikes. Stay, poor man I wherefore wouldst thou bleed, for It is finished!
2. To the benighted votaries of Rome, when ye see the priests, offering every day the pretended sacrifice of the mass. Cease, false priest, false worshipper, for It is finished!
3. To the foolish who call themselves Protestants, but who think by their gifts, prayers, vows, church-goings, &c., to make themselves fit for God; and say to them, Stop! Why improve on what is finished?
4. To all poor despairing souls. Ye find them on their knees, crying, O God, what can I do to make recompense for my offences? Tell them, It is finished; the recompense is made already.
5. To professed Christians in doubts and fears. We have thousands that really are converted, who do not know that It is finished. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
It is finished
1. As the evangel of Christ.
2. As the confession of the Church.
3. As the jubilation of the believing heart.
4. As an excitation to every work of faith.
5. As a prophecy of the last day. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
It is finished
The words of dying men, says the great dramatist, enforce attention. How much more the words of the dying God-Man. Note
I. THE LIGHT CAST BY THIS UTTERANCE ON CHRISTS WORK ITSELF. It exhibits to us
1. A great work. It is not of any ordinary or trifling act that we use this stately phrase; it belongs to what we regard as an achievement to get off our hands. And never was it more worthily applied than to the work of redemption. What is great, if that is not? The Hebrew equivalent of this expression, and which concludes Psa 22:1-31. (from which probably our Lord took it), is the same as we have in Gen 2:3. That voice from the cross marked the termination of a work far greater in its nature and issues than the work of Creation. It made known the manifold wisdom of God in a way which no creative acts could do. It unfolded the very heart of God, and revealed Him to be Love as well as Light.
2. A difficult work. A work may be great and yet not difficult–the Creation, e.g.
He spake and it was done. But who can imagine the feeling of infinite relief represented by It is finished. Christs human nature quailed before it. Father, if it be possible, &c. But now that the last drop has passed His lips; now that the justice of God is satisfied, He gives vent to the relief felt in these words.
3. A definite work. He knew when it was done. It had a beginning, certain well-marked stages, and an unmistakeable termination. He often spoke of it as something prescribed. The work Thou gavest Me to do. The same is implied in His Messiahship. Ambassadors have always definite instructions. This view is needed in these days of theological vagueness when Divine mercy is panegyrized, but no positive statements forthcoming as to how a sinner is to be accepted of God. We are twitted with our theology being hard and dry, but when solid footing is wanted these qualities are preferable to quicksands and quagmires. The Saviours work was definite in its nature, objects, and results.
4. A perfect work. A definite goal was reached, and all up to that point was perfect, and could never again be reopened or improved. And the Scripture leaves us in no ignorance of what was perfected–the Atonement Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14).
II. THE RESPECTS IN WHICH CHRISTS WORK WAS THEN FINISHED.
1. That it was finished in every view of it was manifestly not the case; for it is still in progress, and will not be absolutely finished till the days of the voice of the seventh angel (Rev 10:7).
2. As a whole it was finished as a battle is finished. After the conflict at Gravelotte had raged for twelve hours, Moltke rode up to the King of Prussia and quietly said, The battle is finished. He meant that the key of the position was wrested from the enemy, and that it was only a matter of time for his dispositions to close the struggle. So here the contest was raging fiercer than ever, and still rages: but Christ won the key of the position, and virtually secured everything.
3. In certain details it was absolutely finished. The typical system was abolished, animal sacrifices had accomplished their mission, and prophecy was fulfilled.
III. SOME OF THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS WHICH THE FINISHING OF CHRISTS WORK SHOULD HAVE UPON US.
1. It ought to annihilate all disposition to self-righteousness. The natural man has no pleasure in contemplating Christs work as finished. He must first be made to feel himself a helpless, worthless, perishing sinner, and then a work requiring no contributions of his will exactly suit his case.
2. We should see in it a ground of immediate peace and joy–as it was to the early disciples (Act 2:46-47; Act 8:39; Act 16:34). Jesus has done all that you need for your acceptance: nothing remains for you but to accept it, and take the comfort of it.
3. We see the pledge that Christs work will be complete in all His people. Conclusion: This pillar of light has a frowning aspect for unbelievers. Christs enemies were terribly frightened when He said, It is finished. The earth quaked, &c., and the onlookers Smote upon their breasts and fled, fancying that all was finished. They were mistaken, of course, but a day is coming when it will be no mistake. It will then be finished for the ungodly; finished with prayer, mercy, pleasures of sin, everything except the wrath of God, and that will be for ever. (James Moir, M. A.)
It is finished
I. IN WHAT SENSE.
1. Prophecy was fulfilled.
2. The substance of the types was accomplished.
3. All was finished that was necessary to make Him a fit pattern for us.
4. All was done which God required as an expiation of sin.
II. THE EVIDENCES.
1. The dignity of the Person finishing.
2. The greatness of the work.
3. Gods approbation of Him and it.
III. THE COMFORT.
1. It answers the grand scruple which is at the bottom of all our Mic 6:6-7).
2. God can now require no satisfaction from us (Isa 53:5).
3. It affords the strongest motive to duty and gives to duty its sweetest pleasure.
4. It encourages us to look for great things from God in this life and the next. (T. Manton, D. D.)
It is finished
I. A PROPHETIC WORD–all Scripture fulfilled.
II. A HIGH PRIESTLY WORD–the expiatory sacrifice completed.
III. A KINGLY WORD–the kingdom of heaven founded. (J. P.Lange, D. D.)
It is finished
The significance of these words as regards
I. CHRIST PERSONALLY. They indicated
1. That His passion was accomplished.
2. That the Fathers will had been perfected in the Son.
II. THE POWERS OF DARKNESS. They indicated that Christs absolute sovereignty was established over Satan, death, and hell.
III. MANKIND. They indicated that the debt of sin was cancelled and mans atonement made. Conclusion: The saying teaches us
1. To realize in the apparent failure of His mission the true dignity of Christ.
2. The necessity of individual co-operation with Divine grace.
3. To offer ourselves to God in living consecration.
4. To be faithful unto death. (Thirty Thousand Thoughts.)
It is finished
It is interesting to see the first outlines and drawings, the rough sketches which some of the great painters have left of their great pictures; but what are these compared with the completed masterpieces when the shade and colour have been put in and the final touch has been added! It is interesting to see the block of rough marble that has received the first strokes of the chisel, but how is this surpassed when the statue is finished and appears to breathe with life! And the pleasure of the beholder is eclipsed by that of the artist. When Palissy, after years of toil and experiment, amidst privation and reproach, at last mastered the secret, and found that his jars came out of the fire covered with the beautiful white enamel, what an intense relief he must have felt when he discovered the long-lost art! When one has undergone a painful operation and it proves successful, with what intense relief does the sufferer whisper, Thank God! it is over now. So in this word on the cross there seems to breathe an intense relief and joy that the work which the Father had given Him was finished. (W. T. Bull, M. A.)
Finished
means more than ended. Five times in the course of the evangelic record Christ is said to have used the word now in question. In four instances out of the five our translators have rendered it accomplished. We must certainly take it as conveying the idea, not simply of ending, but of ending to perfection. Some interpreters understand Christ to speak only of His life. It would, however, be little for any one of us to say in the last hour, Life is ended–the question will be, Is it finished? When a certain graceful queen of fashion was dying, she said, Oh, my God, it is over! I have come to the end of it–the end–the end! To have only one life–and to have done with it–and to lie here! To have lived and loved, and triumphed, and to know that it is over! One may defy everything else, but not this! While the listener to these words sat, not once moving her eyes from the face of her who was speaking, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, that face changed into a mere mask of stone on the pillow, gazing at her with fixed stare. Oh the difference between one who could only say, I have ended my course, and one who could say, I have finished it (2Ti 4:7-8). When a poet, long the pride of Germany, was writing his last work, death stopped him in the midst of it, and the unfinished manuscript was placed upon the coffin as it was carried to the grave; touching type of what might be done at every funeral! Our lives on earth are broken fragments of existence, crowded with the beginnings of things. Unfinished pictures in the studio, unfinished plans on the anvil of thought, unfinished papers on the desk, unfinished houses in the street, unfinished settlements of affairs; and the beginners of these taken away, all remind us of the difference between us and our Master. His purposes are never broken off. In creation, though various checks, blights, and frosts are permitted, as far as His creative processes are concerned, you find that even in the smallest thing nothing is left unfinished; you meet with no unfinished insect, no unfinished flower, no unfinished medallions of creation. All His work is perfect; and everything, from the shell on the shore to the star in the sky, is what He meant it to be. No one can say of Jesus Christ, in any department of His operations, that He only half does, or only almost does. What He does, He finishes. No one shall point to the cross and say of the Man, Christ Jesus, This Man began to build, and was not able to finish. What He did then, He did thoroughly; and it was with truth most exact and absolute that He said, It is finished! (C. Stanford, D. D.)
Christ proclaiming His finished work
Looking at it
I. IN CONNECTION WITH HIMSELF, we may notice
1. The wonderful composure it indicates. Dying men have often spoken composedly, but this has generally been when they have had no intense bodily suffering to distract them, and all quiet within their souls. But Jesus is dying in a storm. His bodily frame is sinking with agony, and as for His soul, none but Himself can form an idea of the waves and the billows that are going over it. Yet where are His thoughts? He is described in the verses preceding as calmly reviewing the predictions concerning Him, and finding one of them yet unfulfilled, providing for the fulfilment of it. What an honour is here put on Holy Scripture! And this mental composure appears yet more wonderful, when we contrast it with the agitation He manifested only a few hours before in the apprehension of His sufferings in Gethsemane. One of the most wonderful things attending His sufferings, is the amazing power of suffering He discovered under them. And where did this power come from? From His Father. And for what end? To enable Him to bear the weight of misery now laid on Him; but also that His Father might show forth in Him the boundless power of His strengthening grace. And this strength has never been withdrawn from Him. He calls it His grace, and He delights in sending it forth to the weak and suffering. He who bore with calmness the misery of the cross could bear up a whole miserable world would that world but cast itself on Him.
2. The language is that of joy also. Here is
(1) Great suffering over. The strength given to our Lord on the cross did not render Him insensible of the burden He bore there. This is not the nature of Divine grace. It enables the soul to endure suffering, but it adds to, rather than diminishes, its sensibility under it. His joy is like that you may have witnessed when the long tried Christian has been told on the bed of sickness that the hour of His release is come.
(2) A great evil removed. Our Lords sufferings were to expiate once for ever the transgressions of His people. When, therefore, Jesus sees this accomplished by Himself; we cannot wonder that even in a dying moment joy springs up in Him that must have utterance. It is like the joy a father feels who, after years of toil, has just paid down the sire that is to ransom his captive children; or like the joy of another father who has plunged into a raging sea to save his child.
(3) A great work accomplished. Our Lord had not only to expiate sin for His people, He had to work out for them a complete righteousness in which they are to appear at the last before the bar of God.
3. But here is triumph also. Picture to yourselves a general maintaining an important post. He cannot move to drive away his foe, but there he is obliged to remain and sustain all his reiterated attacks. And these are renewed so often and so fiercely, that they become at last exceedingly trying to him. I can never be beaten, he says. My troops will never yield. But oh, that the hour were come, when I might put forth my strength, and by one blow crush that enemy. The hour does come, he strikes the blow; and as he sees his astonished foes fleeing before him, with what a mixture of joy and triumph can we imagine him shouting, It is over; I have finished it! There is a picture of Jesus as He is described in this text.
II. AS ADDRESSING HIS FATHER IN IT. In this light the exclamation before us takes the character of a faithful servants language, claiming from a faithful master his well-earned recompense. The blessed Jesus is often spoken of in Scripture as His Fathers servant. He seemed to take pleasure in speaking so of Himself. Now, then, when the appointed work is done, the final victory won, all the glorious purposes for which He left the heavens performed, we see Him looking up to His Father with an appeal to His Fathers faithfulness and munificence. His resurrection, heavenly exaltation and joy, the diffusion and triumphs of His gospel, the salvation of His Church, the establishment of His kingdom, all enter His thoughts, and in one word He reminds His Father that they must be His, for He has paid the price of them. I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me.
III. But there is a third party concerned in this text–OURSELVES. He muttered it in mans hearing; His Holy Spirit has recorded it in His Word. We may be sure, therefore, that He intended it for man. It speaks to us the language of
1. Joyful congratulation. Angels came down from heaven to bid the earth rejoice when this Saviour began His work on it; He seems to have uttered this cry to congratulate His Church again now He has completed it. And has He left nothing for us to do? Yes, but only to seek, accept, and enjoy the salvation He has completed.
2. Of invitation. What is your souls desire? I want pardon, you say. It is finished, this sentence says, and all you have to do is to go and say, Lord, give it me. And do you want a perfect righteousness in which you may stand with humble fearlessness before a holy God? It is finished, this dying Saviour says again. Or is it the grace of a Holy Spirit that you want to teach you, to comfort you, to strengthen you, to sanctify and guide you? Again the same voice says, It is finished. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
Christs finished work
There never existed but one Being who in truth could affirm of His work–It is finished! Incompleteness and defect trace the most vast, elaborate and accomplished products of human genius and power. Let us consider these words as
I. THE CRY OF A SUFFERER. Contemplate
1. His Divine dignity. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow, &c. Upon the doctrine of Christs Deity reposes the fabric of the atonement.
2. The expiatory and vicarious character of His sufferings. He was wounded for our transgressions, &c.
3. These sufferings were unparalleled and intense. That is a sublime sentence on the liturgy of the Greek Church–Thine unknown agonies.
(1) There was the physical element.
(2) There was mental agony, and what He endured in His mind who can conceive?
(3) But the soul-suffering was more intense than all.
My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. The billows of Gods wrath began now to penetrate His nature. When a vessel coursing its way over the ocean is arrested by a storm, as long as his gallant bark ploughs its way, and keeps its course, the mariner treads its deck undaunted by fear, confident in its strength and firmness. But let the cry be heard, A leak! the waters are coming in! And in a moment despair enters, and the hearts of the stern sons of the sea die within them. That was the moment of our Lords unknown agony, when He could explain, Save Me, O God, for the waters are come into My soul. In what else can we resolve all this mystery of agony but in the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Oh mystery of suffering! Oh deeper mystery of love!
4. But these sufferings now are over. Rejoice, then, that the tempest will no more beat around him, and all the sorrow, through which He leads you home to Himself, hath not one drop of the curse to embitter it. He took your cup of grief and of the curse, drank it to its dregs, then filled it with His love, and gave it back for you to drink, and to drink for ever.
II. THE LANGUAGE OF A SAVIOUR Those words speak hope to the hopeless, pardon to the guilty, acceptance to the lost. He had finished all that justice asked, that the law demanded; and opened the bright pathway for the sinner to retrace his steps back to God, and once more feel the warm embrace of his Fathers forgiving love.
III. THE SHOUT OF A CONQUEROR. Christ was a man of war, our glorious Joshua was He. He met His foes on the battle field, confronted all His enemies, and on the cross He destroyed–He divested death of its sting, triumphed over Satan, the grave, and hell. Conclusion:
1. What a spring of comfort is here for the true believer amid his innumerable failures, flaws, and imperfections. What service do you perform, what duty do you discharge, of which you can say, It is finished? But Ye are complete in Him. God beholds you in Christ, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.
2. If Christs atoning work is finished, what folly and sin to attempt to supplement it! Away with your tears, confessions, duties, charities, even your repentance and faith, if these things dare to take their place side by side with the finished work of Christ.
3. Let me warn you of the utter worthlessness and fallacy of all grounds of faith, and of all human hope that comes in conflict with the finished work of Christ.
4. Beware of the errors of the day, the tendency of which is to veil the light and glory of Christs finished work, and to mislead, misguide, and misdirect souls on their way to the judgment seat. (O. Winslow, D. D.)
Finished work
It was the labour of Mr. Charles, of Bales, lifetime to procure a complete and correct Welsh Bible. His toil was very great, and wholly unremunerative. He often expressed a strong wish that his life might be spared till the work was done, and then, he used to say, I shall willingly lay down my head and die. He lived to see it completed; and he expressed himself very thankful to the Lord for having graciously spared him, and the last words ever written by him, as it is supposed, were these, with reference to his great work, It is now finished.
Finishing of work
In the year 735 there stood on the south bank of the Tyne, near the retired hamlet of Jarrow, a small monastery. On the evening of the 26th of May a stillness, unusual even in that peaceful sanctuary, reigned throughout the building. The monks moved along the corridors with silent tread and solemn faces, ever and anon addressing each other in low, anxious whispers. On an humble pallet in one of the little cells lay an aged monk. His body was wasted almost to a skeleton. The sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, and quick-drawn, gasping breath told but too plainly that death was near. Beside the bed sat a scribe. A book was before him, and a pen in his hand. He had just raised the pen from the page, and as he held it ready, he looked with an expression of deepest anxiety, mingled with grief, on the face of the dying man. Now, father, he said, there remains only one chapter; but you speak with difficulty, the exertion is too great. It is easy, replied the monk, in feeble accents. Take your pen; write–write as fast as you can. Sentence after sentence flowed from the tremulous lips, and was committed to writing. There was a pause. Nature seemed exhausted. Father, said the scribe, with anxious tenderness, only one sentence is now wanting–only one. In faltering accents that sentence too was repeated. It is finished, said the scribe. It is finished, repeated the dying saint. Lift up my head; higher yet; let me sit in my cell. Let me sit in the spot where I have been accustomed to pray. And now, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Thus died the venerable Bede; and thus was completed the first vernacular translation of a portion of Gods Word in this country. (Clerical Anecdotes.)
In what sense these words refer to the prophecies
All the Scripture prophecies which spoke of Christs death and sufferings were now accomplished, as
1. That He should make His entrance into Jerusalem upon an ass in humility (Zec 9:9, cf. Mat 21:4-5).
2. That He should be betrayed by one of His familiars, His own disciple Psa 55:12-13; Psa 41:9, cf. Mat 26:23; Mat 26:47).
3. That He should be sold for thirty pieces of silver (Zec 11:12, Mat 26:15).
4. That with this price there should afterwards be bought a field of potsherds (Zec 11:13, cf. Mat 27:7).
5. That being apprehended, He should be most barbarously entreated Isa 50:6, cf. Mat 26:67).
6. That they would wound His body with scourges before they put Him to Isa 53:5, cf. Mat 27:26).
7. That He should be put to death (Dan 9:26).
8. That His death should be that of the cross (Psa 22:16; Zec 12:10, cf. Luk 23:33).
9. That He was crucified between two malefactors was according to Isa 53:12 (cf. Luk 22:37)
.
10. That He was to pray for His enemies (Isa 53:12, cf. Luk 23:24).
11. That He should have vinegar to drink (Psa 69:21, cf. Joh 19:30).
12. That they should divide His apparel, and cast lots for His upper garment (Psa 22:18, cf. Mat 27:35). (T. Manton, D. D.)
Christ finishing the types and prophecies
I will give the Old Testament to any wise man living and say, Go home and construct in your imagination an ideal character who shall exactly fit all that which is herein foreshadowed. Remember, he must be a prophet like unto Moses, and yet a champion like unto Joshua; he must be an Aaron and a Melchisedec; he must be both David and Solomon, Noah and Jonah, Judah and Joseph. Nay, he must not only be the lamb that was slain and the scapegoat that was not slain, the turtle dove and the priest that slew the bird, but he must be the altar, tabernacle, mercy-seat, and shewbread. Nay, to puzzle this wise man further, we remind him of prophecies so apparently contradictory that one would think they could never meet in one man. Such as these, All men shall fall down before Him, &c., and He is despised, &c. 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 hieroglyphics must be 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.)
And He bowed His head and gave up the ghost
The death of Christ
I. WHEN. Not till all was perfected.
1. Why?
(1) Love to His Father (Joh 18:11).
(2) Love to the Church (Eph 5:25-26; Rev 1:5, Eph 5:27).
(3) Respect to the glory set before Him (Heb 12:2).
2. The lessons this teaches.
(1) Confidence in the benefit purchased.
(a) The wrath of God is appeased (Rom 5:9).
(b) The law is satisfied (Gal 4:4-5).
(c) Satan is vanquished (Joh 12:31).
(d) Guilt is removed (Eph 1:7).
(e) Sin is subdued (Rom 6:6).
(f) Death is unstinged (1Co 15:55-57).
(g) The curse is removed (Gal 3:13).
(2) Perseverance in duty that when we come to die we may be able Joh 17:4; 2Ti 4:7-8.
(3) Comfort in death. It finishes all our labours and sorrows, as
Christ shows when He gave up the ghost (Isa 57:2).
II. How?
1. Freely and willingly. He first bowed His head in resignation, or as beckoning death to come and do its office, and then yielded up the ghost. Wicked men, because they die against their wills, their souls may be said to be taken away (Luk 12:20; Job 27:8). In Christs death, while there was much of violence, there was no coercion.
2. Why Christ was so willing to die.
(1) Out of obedience to the Father (Luk 22:37; Luk 24:46; Joh 10:18).
(2) Out of love to us (Mat 20:28).
(3) To finish His labours. Death was Christs last enemy.
(4) To complete His triumph (Heb 2:14; Col 2:15).
(5) To enter into His glory.
III. THEIR USES.
1. To commend the love of Christ to us.
2. To comfort humbled sinners. Take Christ as freely as He offers Himself. He resigned Himself to death, and will you not resign yourselves by faith?
3. Learn to imitate Christ. (T. Manton, D. D.)
The death of Christ
I. ITS NATURE.
1. What is death? The dissolution of soul and body; departure from this world.
2. Christ experienced the usual accidents of death. His soul left His body and entered Hades; His body became inanimate.
3. But it is not the death of a man, but of a Divine Person–of the Lord of Glory, of the Son of God, of God. The Divine nature as little affected as the human soul. To this is due its infinite value and efficacy.
II. ITS DESIGN. In general the redemption of man, including deliverance from condemnation and restoration to the favour and image of God. This it effects
1. By being a satisfaction to justice, a propitiation.
2. And hence He becomes our ransom by delivering us from the law and from Satan.
3. Presents us righteous before God.
4. Secures the gift of the Holy Ghost.
5. Secures access to God, and with His favour all the blessings of the covenant of grace.
III. ITS RELATION TO US.
1. It is our death, because it was the death of our Representative, endured in our place.
2. Hence it is also our death effectively as well as legally. It involves a death to the law, to sin, to the world.
3. It becomes a source of life; the motive for avoiding sin; the reason why we should live to God; the ground and source of our joy.
IV. ITS RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE.
1. The great means of exhibiting the manifold wisdom, i.e., the perfections of God–to good and fallen angels, to lost men.
2. Hence to sustain the authority of God.
3. To promote the holiness and happiness of the kingdom of God.
V. INFERENCES. The death of Christ should be
1. The constant theme of our meditations.
2. The ground of gratitude and devotion.
3. The means whereby we should endeavour to convert the world. (C. Hodge, D. D.)
The death of Christ
The death of Socrates, peacefully philosophising among friends, appears the most agreeable that one could wish: that of Jesus, expiring in agonies, abused, insulted, and accursed by a whole nation, is the most horrible that one could fear. Socrates, indeed, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, amidst excruciating tortures, prayed for His merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. (J. J. Rousseau.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 30. It is finished] As if he had said: “I have executed the great designs of the Almighty – I have satisfied the demands of his justice – I have accomplished all that was written in the prophets, and suffered the utmost malice of my enemies; and now the way to the holy of holies is made manifest through my blood.” An awful, yet a glorious finish. Through this tragical death God is reconciled to man, and the kingdom of heaven opened to every believing soul.
“Shout heaven and earth, this SUM of good to MAN!”
See Clarke on Mt 27:50.
The prodigies which happened at our Lord’s death, and which are mentioned by the other three evangelists, are omitted by John, because he found the others had sufficiently stated them, and it appears he had nothing new to add.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
When Christ had tasted the vinegar, he said, It is finished; that is, I have now done and suffered all things which lay upon me in this life to do and suffer. Having said this,
he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. They are terms expressive of death, and our Saviours free surrender of his soul unto his Father.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
30. It is finished! and he bowed hishead and gave up the ghostWhat is finished? The Law isfulfilled as never before, nor since, in His “obedience untodeath, even the death of the cross”; Messianic prophecy isaccomplished; Redemption is completed; “He hath finished thetransgression, and made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought ineverlasting righteousness, and sealed up the vision and prophecy, andanointed a holy of holies”; He has inaugurated the kingdom ofGod and given birth to a new world.
Joh19:31-42. BURIAL OFCHRIST.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar,…. Of the Roman soldiers, who offered it to him, either by way of reproach, or to quench his thirst; and he drank of it, as is very likely:
he said, it is finished; that is, the whole will of God; as that he should be incarnate, be exposed to shame and reproach, and suffer much, and die; the whole work his Father gave him to do, which was to preach the Gospel, work miracles, and obtain eternal salvation for his people, all which were now done, or as good as done; the whole righteousness of the law was fulfilled, an holy nature assumed, perfect obedience yielded to it, and the penalty of death endured; hence a perfect righteousness was finished agreeably to the law, which was magnified and made honourable by it, and redemption from its curse and condemnation secured; sin was made an end of, full atonement and satisfaction for it were given; complete pardon procured, peace made, and redemption from all iniquity obtained; all enemies were conquered; all types, promises, and prophecies were fulfilled, and his own course of life ended: the reason of his saying so was, because all this was near being done, just upon finishing, and was as good as done; and was sure and certain, and so complete, that nothing need, or could be added to it; and it was done entirely without the help of man, and cannot be undone; all which since has more clearly appeared by Christ’s resurrection from the dead, his entrance into heaven, his session at God’s right hand, the declaration of the Gospel, and the application of salvation to particular persons:
and he bowed his head; as one dying, and freely submitting to his Father’s will, and the stroke of death:
and gave up the ghost; his spirit or soul into the hands of his Father; freely laying down that precious life of his which no man could take away from him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Had received (). Second aorist active indicative of . Jesus took the vinegar (a stimulant), though he had refused the drugged vinegar. It is finished (). Same for as in verse 28. A cry of victory in the hour of defeat like in 16:33. Jesus knew the relation of his death to redemption for us (Mark 10:45; Matt 20:28; Matt 26:28).
Bowed his head ( ). First aorist active participle of . This vivid detail only in John.
Gave up his spirit ( ). With the quotation of Ps 31:5 according to Lu 23:46, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (the last of the seven sayings of Jesus on the Cross that are preserved for us). Jesus died with the words of this Psalm upon his lips. The apostle John had come back to the Cross.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Gave up the ghost [ ] . Rev., his spirit. Matthew, ajfhken dismissed. Mark, ejxepneusen, breathed forth (his life). So Luke, who adds, “Father, into thy hands I commend (paratiqemai, see on Luk 9:16) my spirit.”
31 – 42. Compare Mt 27:57 – 61; Mr 14:42 – 47; Luk 23:50 – 60.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar,” (hoto oun elabon to oksos ho lesous) “Then when Jesus took the vinegar,” or received it, from the Roman soldiers, with their cries of sarcasm, “If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself,” ringing in His ears, and across Golgotha, where the multitude sitting down “watched Him there,” Luk 23:37; Mat 27:36.
2) “He said, It is finished:” (eipen tetelestai) “He said, It has been and is finished,” or completed. It “tetelestai” was the “victors” cry. He had won the battle over sin, and His Father was satisfied, Isa 53:10-12; 2Co 5:21; Joh 4:34; Joh 17:4, Rom 10:4; Gal 3:13; Heb 10:5-10. The debt of sin was paid in full. So that believers in Him might be set free, forever; The term “tetelestai” was a term stamped on tax receipts that meant the claim is “paid forever,” Joh 8:32; Joh 8:36; Heb 2:15; We can shout “forever free!” Hallelujah!
3) “And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” (kai klinas ten kephalen paredoken to pneuma) “And inclining his head he gave up the spirit, of his own will or choice,” as He had said He would, Joh 10:17-18. It was at this instant the veil of the temple was rent in “two” from top to bottom, from heavenward above, to the earth below, Mar 15:38; signifying that the law forms and ceremonies of types, shadows, symbols, and object lessons were fulfilled, finished, to be required no more in approaching or directing one to God, in worship or service, 2Co 3:7-11; Col 2:14-17. The work of Jesus was finished and a new order of worship was hereafter to be followed, through His church which he had established, chosen, taught, loved, and purchased with His own blood, Mat 16:18; Joh 15:26-27; Mar 13:34-35; 1Ti 3:15; Joh 13:1; Act 20:28; Eph 5:25; Eph 3:21.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
30. It is finished. He repeats the same word which he had lately employed, (181) Now this word, which Christ employs, well deserves our attention; for it shows that the whole accomplishment of our salvation, and all the parts of it, are contained in his death. We have already stated that his resurrection is not separated from his death, but Christ only intends to keep our faith fixed on himself alone, and not to allow it to turn aside in any direction whatever. The meaning, therefore, is, that every thing which contributes to the salvation of men is to be found in Christ, and ought not to be sought anywhere else; or — which amounts to the same thing — that the perfection of salvation is contained in him.
There is also an implied contrast; for Christ contrasts his death with the ancient sacrifices and with all the figures; as if he had said,” Of all that was practiced under the Law, there was nothing that had any power in itself to make atonement for sins, to appease the wrath of God, and to obtain justification; but now the true salvation is exhibited and manifested to the world.” On this doctrine depends the abolition of all the ceremonies of the Law; for it would be absurd to follow shadows, since we have the body in Christ.
If we give our assent to this word which Christ pronounced, we ought to be satisfied with his death alone for salvation, and we are not at liberty to apply for assistance in any other quarter; for he who was sent by the Heavenly Father to obtain for us a full acquittal, and to accomplish our redemption, knew well what belonged to his office, and did not fail in what he knew to be demanded of him. It was chiefly for the purpose of giving peace and tranquillity to our consciences that he pronounced this word, It is finished. Let us stop here, therefore, if we do not choose to be deprived of the salvation which he has procured for us. (182)
But the whole religion of Popery tends to lead men to contrive for themselves innumerable methods of seeking salvation; and hence we infer, that it is full to overflowing with abominable sacrileges. More especially, this word of Christ condemns the abomination of the Mass. All the sacrifices of the Law must have ceased, for the salvation of men has been completed by the one sacrifice of the death of Christ. What right, then, have the Papists, or what plausible excuse can they assign for saying, that they are authorised to prepare a new sacrifice, to reconcile God to men? They reply that it is not a new sacrifice, but the very sacrifice which Christ offered. But this is easily refuted; for, in the first place, they have no command to offer it; and, secondly, Christ, having once accomplished, by a single oblation, all that was necessary to be done, declares, from the cross, that all is finished. They are worse than forgers, therefore, for they wickedly corrupt and falsify the testament sealed by the precious blood of the Son of God.
He yielded up his breath. All the Evangelists take great care to mention the death of Christ, and most properly; for we obtain from it our confident hope of life, and we likewise obtain from it a fearless triumph over death, because the Son of God has endured it in our room, and, in his contest with it, has been victorious. But we must attend to the phraseology which John employs, and which teaches us, that all believers, who die with Christ, peacefully commit their souls to the guardianship of God, who is faithful, and will not suffer to perish what he hath undertaken to preserve. The children of God, as well as the reprobate, die; but there is this difference between them, that the reprobate give up the soul, without knowing where it goes, or what becomes of it; (183) while the children of God commit it, as a precious trust, to the protection of God, who will faithfully guard it till the day of the resurrection. The word breath is manifestly used here to denote the immortal soul.
(181) The repetition of the word is concealed by the circumstance, that it is rendered, in the 28 verse, by impleta, Accomplished, and, in the 30 verse, by consummatum, Finished Οτι πάντα ἤδη τετέλεσται (verse 28,) that all things were now Accomplished Τετέλεσται, (verse 30) It is Finished or, it is Accomplished. — Ed.
(182) The last few sentences — commencing with “for he who was sent by the Heavenly Father“ — are not contained in the Latin original, but have been taken from the Author’s French Version. “ Car celuy qnt estoit envoye du Pete celeste pour nous acquitter pleinement, et achever nostre redemption, seavoit bien son office, et n’est pus esparg.n en ce qu’il scavoit estre requis. Or notamment pour appaiser nos consciences, et nous Faire contenter, il a pronone ce mot, Quc c’cstoit fait. Arrestons-nous-y done, si nons ne voulons estre frustrez du saint qu’il nous a acqnis.”
(183) “ Ne scachant ou il va, ne qu’il devient.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE LAST UTTERANCE OF THE CHRIST
Joh 19:30; Joh 19:41-42.
IT is appropriate that we give ourselves to-day to the subject suggested by this text. If we were churchmen instead of plainer Christians, we would call this Palm Sunday, and the week just ahead, Passion Week, with next Sunday for Easter.
It is my purpose to address you on the coming Lords Day on the subject of Christs Victory Over the Grave, touching which I entertain convictions as positive, and, I believe, as Biblical as some of those which have recently occurred in print were skeptical and unscriptural.
What better preparation, therefore, for the consideration of Christs resurrection than to think this day upon His last words, and upon His act in laying down His life?
Cunningham Geikie, speaking of this text, says, With a loud voice, as if uttering His shout of eternal victory before entering into His glory, He cried, It is finished! And, indeed, I think we shall see that this cry was the shout of the conqueror. For, although He bowed His head and gave up the ghost, He had already informed His disciples that if He laid down His life, He would take it up again; and that He had power to lay it down, and that He had power to take it up again.
It is a significant thing that when this Gospel of John, which is a record of the life and labors of Jesus, ends, the Book succeeding it opens with these words, The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach (Act 1:1). The thirty and three years which He had lived upon earth were but the commencement of His immortal career; and this death, instead of being the end, was only an episode in His historyDivinely appointed, I grant youwith a magnificent purpose, as we shall see; compassing a splendid mission, as we understand; and yet, belonging not to the end of His life, but to the beginning instead.
I have selected this text to set before you the thoughts suggested by its language: First, The Sufferings of the Son; second, The Success of the Son; third, The Sepulcher of the Son.
THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON
These involved the whole Manbody, soul, and spirit. His body was broken; His soul anguished, and His spirit was laden with the worlds sin. But His character shines under these circumstances of suffering as it never could have done in an experience wholly prosperous and peaceful.
His bodily afflictions were bravely borne. The context here brings out a notable fact. Matthew tells us, They gave Him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink (Mat 27:34), and we learn that the drink to which Matthew refers was a stupefying potion that Jesus refused. Had He received it, it would have deadened His pain and reduced His suffering by so much. But the Son of God never thought to escape suffering; He bore His bodily ills, not by drugging the intellect, but through bravery of spirit, and herein He set man an example. How many there are who, if they are sick, instead of looking to God for help, find the morphine habit a quicker way to overcome the affliction; and who, when they come into trouble, instead of conquering by faith, seek the saloon and drown their sorrow instead.
The second drink offered Jesus was nothing more nor less than soured watera refreshing draught which would slake His thirst. The Son of God who never sought to escape any suffering that He ought to bear, was equally rational in that He never needlessly endured or invited pain. Frederick W. Robertson says, He would not suffer one drop of the cup of agony which His Father had put into His hand to trickle down the side untasted. Neither would He make to Himself one drop more of suffering than His Father had given. If it is wicked for a man to render himself temporarily insensible to sorrow or pain by some stupefying potion, it is none the less iniquitous for him to needlessly inflict body, mind, or spirit. Self-martyrdom is nonspiritual and selfish! There are men who think to curry Divine favor by hanging with hooks in the flesh. Leave that to heathen!
His mental torture was met with equal courage. The state of Christs mind in the Garden of Gethsemane, who can imagine? Voltaire reports of Charles IX. that he died in his thirty-fifth year. His disorder was of a very remarkable kind; the blood oozed out of all his pores. We know that Charles came into this mental anguish in consequence of his heinous murder of the Huguenots, and with him it was a case of reproaching conscience, making mad. Christ, on the contrary, condemned by no guilt of His own, but so covered over with the load of the worlds sin that the last star of hope seemed for the moment extinguished, cried in agony, Let this cup pass from Me. And later, on the Cross, He exclaimed, My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?
Dr. Lorimer says, It was then that He poured out His soul unto death, and it was then and not until then that He tasted death for every man.* * By His love and sympathy He takes upon His heart all the pangs, pains and sorrows of the race from the time that Eve wept over the crime of her first-born to the day when the last tear shall be shed and the last sigh shall be breathed. He carries the afflictions of others just as we do, when, by our deep affections, we make the trials, disappointments, bereavements of our children or our friends our own. But we can only bear a part; He bore all. It was of this hour that the Psalmist wrote, All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me. And it was in anticipation of this experience that Christ said to the ambitious James and John, Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with (Mar 10:38)? I am in perfect accord with the teaching that the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was not in consequence of the coming Cross, and that when He prayed, Let this cup pass from Me, it was not suffering that He was seeking to escape, but the fear of death before He should reach the Cross, that appalled and alarmed Him. Paul puts this very interpretation upon it when he spoke of Christ as One
who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him tPiat was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared (Heb 5:7).
Courage does not consist in keeping an imperturbed mind, but in rising to meet the Divine demand in spite of any mental despair that may be upon one. And with this definition, Christ in Gethsemane and Christ on the Cross becomes a copy, short of which even the best men fall.
The soul anguish was Divinely endured. If a single sin committed at the instigation of another could drive Charles IX. mad, and cause his blood to quit his heart and seek an exit through almost impassable pores, who could imagine what must have been the agony of Christ on the Cross who was bearing every transgression that had been committed, and every sin to come? Who can imagine what it must have meant?
Many of us have had sleepless nights and have been in utter despair touching a single transgression, or else a fixed habit, but that is only as a drop to the ocean when compared with what crimes were raised against Him when He hung on the Cross. It is only in recent years that I have seen the meaning of Isa 53:3-6,
He was despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isa 53:3-6, R. V.).
The iniquity of us all! Who can tell what it means to bear it? No wonder Mrs. Sigourney wrote:
Thou who hast power to look Thus at Gethsemane, be still, be still!What are thine insect woes compared with His Who agonizeth there? Count thy brief pains As the dust atom on lifes chariot wheels, And in a Saviours grief forget them all.
THE SUCCESS OF THE SON
It is voiced right in the midst of this death scene. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished (Joh 19:30). We have already suggested that it was the shout of the victor, and so I believe it was. He did not mean that His sufferings were over; the escape from suffering was not of such concern to Him. He did not mean that His eyes were closing forever from the ugly vision of fiendish persecution, for He was not finishing with them; they rage against Him still. He did mean that His life had come to a noble end. He did mean that His labor of love lacked in nothing; He did mean that His sacrificial mission to the world was complete.
His life had come to a noble end. The people who stood about the Cross that day, as Isaiah said, esteemed Him stricken, smitten and afflicted of God. The ignominious manner in which He died; the popular clamor that had nailed Him to the Cross, charges of felony, proof of infamy, seemed like condemnation. But we cannot tell what a life has been by listening to the judgment of those whose characters have been uncovered by comparison; whose sins have been excoriated by speech. The whole line of noble martyrs died in public disgrace. The mediaeval Pharisees supposed they had done Gods service when they burned Ridley and Latimer; supposed they had rid society of its chief sinners when they sent Huss to the stake and Savonarola to six days torture, and then to the gallows and to the flame. When Wyclif is reduced to ashes, it seems to many that only justice is meted out; and yet these men of such bad reputations are marvelous characters of their time, whose noble lives were in conflict with ignoble people and purposes, and whose deaths excite more note in Heaven than the falling of any king of earth from his throne.
It does not make so much difference, beloved, what the world thinks of you, as it does what you know yourself to be. They may say, He is stricken, afflicted of God, but if in ones own heart he knows that he is suffering for the sins of the people, then, with the Apostle, he can join in saying, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
John Watson has said many wonderful things in his volume, The Mind of the Master, and among them this: Without His Cross, Jesus had been poorer in the world this day and might have been unloved. It was suffering that wrought in Him that beauty of holiness, sweetness of patience, wealth of sympathy, and grace of compassion, which constitute His Divine attraction, and are seating Him on His throne. Once when the cloud fell on Him, He cried, Father, save Me from this hour; when the cloud lifted, Jesus saw of the travail of His soul I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. In the upper room, Jesus was cast down for an instant; then Iscariot went out to arrange for the arrest, and Jesus revived at the sight of the Cross. Now is the Son of Man glorified. Two disciples are speaking of the great tragedy as they walk to Emmaus, when the Risen Lord joins them and reads the riddle of His life. It was not a disaster; it was a design. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? The perfection of Jesus was the fruit of the Cross.
His labor lacked in nothing. When He said, It is finished, He meant, touching His own life work, what the contractor means when he turns over to the owner the keys to the completed house. He meant that there was not one thing that ought to have been done that was not done. Other men look back over a single day to see how many Divine calls they have refused; how many Spirit-appointed opportunities they have despised. Not so with the Son of God. He never slept a single night leaving one duty of the past day undone. Sometimes the waking hours did not suffice to meet all demands, and He wrought on, praying until the third watch, and then going out on the sea to calm the storm and bring His disciples safe to land. But when He did lie down to rest, there was nothing left undone.
I clipped and pasted into my scrapbook this statement from a writer: I attended a picture exhibit of the life of Jesus, and of the forty-five pictures, thirty-two dealt with His birth, childhood, trial, death and resurrection, while only eleven dealt with His life activities as a reformer, teacher, miracle worker. Of Tissots thirty-eight pictures of Christ, thirty-three deal with the former themes and only five with the latter. I am persuaded that these per cents represent the accents put by most preachers and Sunday School teachers on the life of Christ. On the other hand, the inspired writers give emphasis to the latter subjects. Matthew gives ten pages to the former subjects and fifty-two to the latterhis lifes activities; Mark, six to the former, and thirty-two to the latter; John, eleven to the former, and thirty-nine to the latter. What an appeal in these facts! No wonder the Psalmist, anticipating his labors, prophecies these words for His lips, Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God.
He meant His mission was complete. It is finished. At His birth, it was said, Thou shalt call His Name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins. He had seen the blood trickle from His hands and from His feet, and had felt it flowing from His face, and He knew that when He poured out His life unto death, He was compassing His ministry, for without shedding of blood is no remission. He knew that He was made a curse for us that we might be freed from the curse of the Law. He knew that He had become the end of the Law for righteousness to every man that believeth. He knew that He had suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God; and He also knew that all that the Father gave to Him should come to Him, since He had put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
He did more than complete the plan of salvation, for He is not only the Author but the Finisher of our faith, and those who put their trust in Him will find that He who finished His own ministry on this Cross, having perfected the same, proffers to you and me aid in finishing ours, saying, My grace is sufficient for thee. Here is hope for hours of discouragement; here is inspiration for times when one is tempted to despair. Christ said, It is finished, and with His speech completed His own labors, and He is not dead but liveth, and works with the same power to help you to bring your ministry to the world to such shapeliness that the same may be said of it.
You have heard the story of one of the great masters, how after a long absence, he came back to see how the art students were coming on with their work. One of these had formed a noble conception, but had tried in vain to put it on canvas. This night, discouraged by his failure and wearied by his efforts, he went to his lodgings. The master walking through the studio, saw the unfinished work. The touch of genius was upon it, but it would require the master-stroke to fill out the ideal. Taking up the brush, he supplied what was wanting, and then went his way. Next morning the young painter paused before his picture, and seeing that his ideal had been completed, cried, Oh, the master has come! The master has come!
Beloved, when we shall have wearied with our endeavor to bring out of life whatever we ourselves see in it, attempting in vain to fill up the flaws, we do well to remember that the Christ of this Cross in crying, It is finished, spake not alone of His ministry in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria, but His ministry in you and in methe completion of whose lives, He, with His infinite wisdom and power, has volunteered.
THE SEPULCHER OF THE SON
Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand (Joh 19:41-42).
It was a good mans gift. Joseph of Arimathea was rich; he was also righteous. This is one of the marvelous combinations that sometimes occur, and in which the Christ finds joy. No man can do so much for the suffering Son of God as a prospered, yet consecrated man. In his hand are powers that can provide a place in which Jesus can rest; or a place from which He can rule. When I meet a man who is rich and increased with goods, and yet loves God, I find in him an ideal for admiration. A few days since, in another state, I was entertained by one such, and while my converse with Christian hosts is commonly sweet, seldom have I felt such spiritual uplift as I got from ten days association with this modern Joseph, who, believing in a Risen Christ, instead of providing a sepulcher for Him, has put His money into the sanctuary; and, through that sanctuary, has sent it to state, and nation, and suffering world. There are no other such tests of goodness as gifts to the Son of God provide.
This sepulcher represents Christs share in human suffering. He who tasted death for other men drank the dregs of the cup by going also into the grave. Had He stopped short of this, the man approaching burial would feel that the Son of God would only go with him to the last breath; and the mother, compelled to lay her babe in the cemetery, would question whether Jesus knew how deep and dark seemed the grave. When He gave His great commission to the disciples, sent to heathen darkness, He said, Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age. And when men enter Christian experience He says to them, everyone, Lo, I am with you alway, even to the limit of life, the utmost of death, including the experience of the grave. Therefore, we can say,
Oh, love Divine that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear.
But finally, this sepulcher stands for sins pardoned and souls absolved. The last drop of blood did not trickle from His veins merely to be swallowed up by Calvary; it was the day of atonement, the sepulcher receiving the dead Son of God, that spoke exactly the same lesson to a sin cursed world that the slain lamb uttered to Israel. Dr. Lorimer once said, I can picture to myself that solemn day which was set apart by Israel for reconciliation, and I can see the high priest in his white garments of humility, having slain the victim, entering into the holiest of all to sprinkle the blood of expiation before the mercy seat, while the people, moaning over their sins, are prostrate without. A hush rests on the assembly, broken only by the waitings of the penitent and the heart sobs of the contrite. What does it all mean? Why do the multitudes rise with so much joy when the priest reappears and extends his hands in benediction? What have they received? In what are they advantaged? Let us ask yonder smiling Hebrew as he is returning to his tent. Do you not understand? he inquires, and adds: This is the day of atonement; our sins have been put away through sacrifice, and the nation is once more at peace with God.
But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
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.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh;
How much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!
And for this cause He is the Mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance (Heb 9:11-15).
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
(30) It is finished.That is (comp. Joh. 19:28, and Joh. 17:4), the work which God had given Him to do. (Comp. Notes on Mat. 27:50, and Luk. 23:46.) This word is the expression by Jesus Himself of what St. John had expressed by saying, Jesus knowing that all things were now finished, that the Scriptures should be fulfilled.
The order of the seven words of the cross will be, (1) Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luk. 23:34); (2) Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise (Luk. 23:43); (3) Woman, behold thy son, Behold thy mother (Joh. 19:26-27); (4) Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? (Mat. 27:46, Mar. 15:34); (5) I thirst (Joh. 19:28); (6) It is finished (Joh. 19:29); (7) Into Thy hands I commend My spirit (Luk. 23:46).
And he bowed his head.This reminiscence of the very attitude of the last moments is peculiar to St. John.
And gave up the ghost.Comp. Joh. 10:18, and Notes on Mat. 27:50; Mar. 15:37; and Luk. 23:46. All the expressions used lay stress on the voluntary action of the death.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
30. Vinegar The poscha or acid drink sufficiently stimulant to quench thirst, used by the common soldiery.
It is finished That is, the great work of suffering is finished. Primarily it thus has a reference to the past. Yet all the great results which that past suffering embodies are secured and accomplished. The great reparation for the fall of man is achieved, and in that achievement a glorious eternity for the human race, conditioned upon faith, is purchased. Through suffering and death Christ has acquired the right to bestow salvation upon all who believe. It is true, death has not yet been quite completely passed at this utterance. Yet it is by anticipation held as past, inasmuch as the yielding moment has now arrived. See opening note to chap. 17. Jesus is like a mighty swimmer, who, before leaping into the deep waters, exclaims, “The bottom is touched.”
Bowed his head With visible submission to death. The Evangelist describes like an eye-witness, which he claims to be. His brief, vivid words paint to the eye of the Church of all ages the pale, placid face and reclining head of Jesus reposing in death.
Gave up the ghost With words of voluntary surrender, furnished by Luke in the parallel passage.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished”, and he bowed his head and yielded up his spirit.’
All the Gospels tell us that ‘Jesus cried again with a loud voice’. Only John tells us what He said. “It is finished”, ‘tetelestai’, is the same verb as used in Joh 19:28. All was now finished. God’s will had been done. As the final words in Psalms 22 tell us ‘He has done it’. God’s work had been accomplished, and Jesus had successfully completed His mission. The means of the world’s salvation had now been provided, and we can only bow in wonder. Interestingly we know from papyri that tetelestai would be written across invoices to indicate ‘paid in full’. He had given His life as a ransom for many (Mar 10:45).
‘And he bowed his head and yielded up his spirit.’ As He had said earlier, no one would take His life from Him, He would freely offer it up Himself (Joh 10:18). Here then He bowed His head and gave consent to His death and then deliberately yielded Himself into the hands of the Father. He was in control to the end
As we conclude this passage we should note that John has laid stress on two sayings which both reflect Jesus’ humanity, care for His mother and thirst. Amidst all the pointers to Christ’s divinity he wants us to know that Jesus was truly human. This was no demigod who strode the clouds and watched from afar but a living, human person dying a human death.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 19:30. It is finished: See on Mat 27:50.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 1726
CHRISTS WORK FINISHED
Joh 19:30. It is finished.
THESE, with the exception of the words with which our blessed Lord commended his spirit into his Fathers hands, were the last words which he spake, previous to his dissolution. In the original, they are comprehended in one word [Note: .]: and since the foundation of the world there never was a single word uttered, in which such diversified and important matter was contained. Every word indeed that proceeded from our Saviours lips deserves the most attentive consideration: but this eclipses all. To do justice to it, is beyond the ability of men or angels: its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, are absolutely unsearchable. But that its import may be somewhat more clearly seen, we propose to shew,
I.
The truths contained in it
Our blessed Lord not having expressly stated what he alluded to as finished, we are left to gather his meaning from a general view of that work which he came to accomplish. We understand then, that when he uttered this word, the following things were finished:
1.
The fulfilment of prophecy
[Prophecy was of two kinds, one consisting of typical institutions, the other of positive declarations. Now both these kinds of prophecy received their accomplishment in the death of Christ.
The brazen serpent, the daily sacrifice, the burning of the flesh of the sin-offerings without the camp, with various other ordinances, shadowed forth the death of Christ by crucifixion without the walls of Jerusalem; and at that moment, when our Lord was about to resign his spirit, were all fulfilled: for he was then suffering without the gate [Note: Heb 13:11-12.]; and was lifted up, that all who believed in him might be healed of their wounds [Note: Joh 3:14-15.]; and was the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world [Note: Joh 1:29.].
The declarations of the prophets were so numerous and minute, that a history of our Lord might be compiled from them, fuller, in many respects, than is contained in any one of the Evangelists. The person that betrayed him, the manner in which his trial should be conducted, the sufferings he should undergo previous to the final execution of his sentence, the death to which he should be doomed, the persons in whose company he should suffer, the manner in which his clothes should be disposed of, the very taunts with which he should be insulted in his dying hour, were all fulfilled as exactly, as if the agents in this bloody tragedy had designed to accomplish the predictions concerning him. There remained only one single prophecy to be fulfilled: and who would have conceived that ever that should be fulfilled? It was customary for the friends of the persons who were executed to give them wine mingled with myrrh, in order to blunt the edge of their sufferings: and the friends of our Lord had offered him such a potion; but he would not drink of it, because he would do nothing that should have a tendency to diminish his sufferings [Note: Mar 15:23.]: but when, in his last moments, he said, I thirst, the cruel soldiers, wishing only to mock him, and augment his anguish [Note: Luk 23:36.], dipped a spunge in vinegar, and gave him that to drink; and thus fulfilled that prophecy of David, In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink [Note: Psa 69:21.]. This done, no other prophecy remained to be fulfilled; and therefore our Lord instantly said, It is finished.]
2.
The work of Redemption
[Two things were undertaken by our Lord, and were to be done by him in order to mans redemption; the penalties of the law were to be endured by him, in order that Divine justice might be satisfied for our sins; and the demands of the law mere to be obeyed by him, in order that sinners, who could have no righteousness of their own, might be made righteous in him. Both these things were now completed. Our blessed Lord had obeyed the law in its fullest extent: not the smallest defect could be found in him: man could find none; Satan could find none; God himself could find none: for he did always the things that pleased the Father; and in him was no sin. By his obedience, the law, which we had violated, was magnified and made honourable: and a righteousness was brought in, a righteousness which shall be unto all and upon all them that believe, and which is amply sufficient for the justification of all who trust in it. Moreover all was now endured that was necessary to make an atonement for our sins. Did we deserve shame, and condemnation, and misery? did we deserve to have the face of God hid from us, and the vials of his wrath poured out upon us, and to be consigned over to everlasting death? All this he suffered, as far as was compatible with his nature, and as far as was necessary for the satisfaction of Divine justice. He was not indeed actually dead; but the moment was arrived for his surrendering up his life; and therefore he could properly say, It is finished.]
3.
The salvation of man
[All that was necessary for mans salvation was now effected. Nothing remained to be done, in order to the perfecting of his work on earth, or to the forming of a perfect ground for mans acceptance with God. It is true, that man must repent: but he need not to repent in order to make satisfaction for his sins: no repentance of man can add to the value of Christs sacrifice. Men must repent, in order to justify God in the denunciations of his wrath, and to evince their abhorrence of their past ways, and to bring their souls to a fit state for the enjoyment of Gods mercy: but to atone for sin, he needs not to repent: the offering of the body of Jesus Christ upon the cross is a sufficient propitiation for the sins of the whole world. It is true also, that man must obey: but he need not to obey in order to form for himself a justifying righteousness before God: he can never add to the perfection of Christs righteousness; and any attempt to add to it will defeat, instead of furthering, his acceptance through it. Whatever obedience men may render for the honouring of God, and the adorning of their profession, they must renounce it utterly in point of dependence, and must look for salvation solely through the righteousness of Christ [Note: Php 3:9.]. Nothing remains for man but to accept the salvation which Christ has purchased: and if he be enabled in his last hour (like the dying thief) to rely on the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus, he shall as assuredly be saved, as if he had repented and obeyed a thousand years. We do not say this to lessen the importance of repentance and obedience (for in their proper place they are of infinite importance); but only to explain and vindicate our Lords assertion in the text.]
The meaning of our Lords declaration being ascertained, let us bring forth,
II.
The truths to be deduced from it
Selecting such inferences only as are most prominent, we observe,
1.
That there is a sure ground of hope for all who feel their need of mercy
[If persons of a desponding frame would state what they could wish God to do for them, in order to remove their fears; we are well persuaded, not only that every thing they can desire has been already done, but that infinitely more has been done for them than they could even ask or think. Would they have an atonement made for their sins, even such an atonement as shall perfectly satisfy Divine justice, and discharge the utmost farthing of their debt? We must say to them, It is done; It is finished. Would they have a perfect righteousness wrought out for them? Would they be invited and commanded by God himself to clothe themselves with it as a robe, so that not even the piercing eye of God should be able to behold a spot or blemish in them? It is finished. Would they have the gift of the Holy Spirit purchased for them, so that they may be assured of almighty aid in all their difficulties and conflicts! It is finished. Let them state what they will, (provided it be really calculated to inspire confidence, and suited to the condition of the Church militant,) and we do not hesitate to say respecting it, It is finished. Why then should any despond, as though their guilt were too great to be forgiven, or their corruptions too strong to be subdued? Let the humble and contrite only reflect on this dying declaration of our Lord, and they can never want encouragement to trust in him.]
2.
That they in whom a good work is begun, have reason to hope that it shall be carried on and perfected to the day of Christ
[The work of bringing sinners to repentance, and of renewing them after the Divine image, is committed to Christ. He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins. In him, according to the Fathers appointment, all fulness dwells; and out of his fulness all his people are to receive the grace that shall be needful and sufficient for them. Now if in the arduous work which Christ undertook to do for men, he persisted till he could say, It is finished; why should he not do the same in the work that he has engaged to accomplish in them? If he stop short in this, it must be either from a want of power, or a want of inclination, to persist in it. But it cannot be from want of power; since it is surely an easier thing to preserve life than to give it; and therefore if he have given it, he cannot want power to maintain it. Nor can it be from a want of inclination; for, if he had not been carried on by an irresistible inclination to save us, he would not have persisted in his former work; he would have put away the bitter cup from his lips, instead of drinking it, as he did, to the very dregs. If therefore he drew not back in the former case, we may be sure he will not in this case: he will never cease from working effectually in us, till he can say, It is finished. That this deduction is clear and scriptural, we have very abundant evidence. The prophet declares, that He who has laid the foundation of the spiritual temple, will also finish it: and that he will bring forth the top-stone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace, unto it [Note: Zec 4:7; Zec 4:9.]. On this account the Apostle also calls him, The Author and Finisher of our faith; and declares himself confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun the good work, will perform it till the day of Christ [Note: Php 1:6.]. Let believers then cast their care on Him who careth for them, and know assuredly, that he will keep the feet of his saints, and perfect that which concerneth them.]
3.
That those who have obtained mercy have the strongest possible incentive to maintain good works
[We have before stated, that Christ has done every thing that was necessary for mans salvation; and that nothing remains for man to add to the finished work of Christ. But we also noticed, that, though man has nothing to do for the purpose of meriting salvation, or for laying a foundation of his acceptance with God, yet in other points of view he has abundant occasion to work; yea, he is commanded to work out his salvation with fear and trembling. We have no other way of proving the truth of our faith, or the sincerity of our love, than by bringing forth the fruits of righteousness. Shall this then be thought a wearisome task by any of us? Shall we wish to intermit our labours, or to stop short of the highest attainments? Surely not: for if Christ finished the work assigned him, because of his love to us, we can do no less than persist in our work, whereby we are to evidence our love to him. Let us then go on towards perfection: let us forget what is behind, and press forward towards that which is before: let us work while our day lasts; that in the evening of our life we may be able to say with Christ, Father, I have glorified thee on earth, I have finished the work which thou hast given me to do. Then, while hypocrites and apostates shall take up this expression in reference to their hopes, of salvation, and say, My day of grace is finished, and all possibility of obtaining mercy is finished; we shall shout in heaven, It is finished, it is finished! fears, temptations, conflicts, are all finished! I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; and nothing now remains to me but an eternity of uninterrupted happiness and glory.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
Ver. 30. It is finished ] Christ would not off the cross till all were done that was here to be done; that which remained being rather a play than a work to him. The consideration whereof should cast us into a real ecstasy of joy and admiration; nothing like that counterfeit ecstasy whereinto Rondeletius saw a priest at Rome to feign himseff to fall whenever he heard those words of Christ, Consummatum est, It is finished. But the physician observing this counterfeit careful in his fall to lay his head in a soft place, he suspected the dissimulation, and by the threats of a club quickly recovered him.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
30. ] expresses the fulfilling of that appointed course of humiliation, obedience, and suffering, which the Lord Jesus had undertaken. (“Verbum convenit rebus, scriptur sacr,” Bengel.) That was now over, the redemption of man accomplished, and from this time “the joy that was set before Him” begins. It is beyond the purpose of a note to bring out the many meanings of this most important and glorious word. There is an admirable sermon on it by Schleiermacher (vol. ii. serm. 10); and Stier’s Comment, vi. 473 ff., should be read.
. ] We have the minuteness of an eye-witness, on whom every particular of this solemn moment made an indelible impression.
viz. in the words given by Luke, , , which was also the of Matt. and Mark. This was strictly a voluntary and determinate act no coming on of death, which had no power over Him, see ch. Joh 10:18 , and note on Luk 23:46 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 19:30 . . The cry, , “it is finished,” was not the gasp of a worn-out life, but the deliberate utterance of a clear consciousness that His work was finished, and all God’s purpose accomplished (Joh 17:4 ), that all had now been done that could be done to make God known to men, and to identify Him with men. , “gave up His spirit,” according to Luk 23:46 , with an audible commendation of His spirit to the Father. in Eurip., Hecuba , 569; Plut., Dem. , xxix. 5.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
John
AN EYE-WITNESS’ S ACCOUNT OF THE CRUCIFIXION
CHRIST’S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK
Joh 19:30
One of these sayings was spoken from the Cross, the other from the Throne. The Speaker of both is the same. In the one, His voice ‘then shook the earth,’ as the rending rocks testified; in the other, His voice ‘will shake not the earth only but also heaven’; for ‘new heavens and a new earth’ accompanied the proclamation. In the one, like some traveller ready to depart, who casts a final glance over his preparations, and, satisfied that nothing is omitted, gives his charioteer the signal and rolls away, Jesus Christ looked back over His life’s work, and, knowing that it was accomplished, summoned His servant Death, and departed. In the other, He sets His seal to the closed book of the world’s history, and ushers in a renovated universe. The one masks the completion of the work on which the world’s redemption rests, the other marks the completion of the age-long process by which the world’s redemption is actually realised. The one proclaims that the foundation is laid, the other that the headstone is set on the finished building. The one bids us trust in a past perfected work; the other bids us hope in the perfect accomplishment of the results of that work. Taken singly, these sayings are grand; united, they suggest thoughts needed always, never more needful than to-day.
I. We see here the work which was finished on the Cross.
Now, there, taking the words even in their most superficial sense, we come upon the strange peculiarity which marks off the life of Jesus Christ from every other life that was ever lived. There are no loose ends left, no unfinished tasks drop from His nerveless hands, to be taken up and carried on by others. His life is a rounded whole, with everything accomplished that had been endeavoured, and everything done that had been commanded. ‘His hands have laid the foundation; His hands shall also finish.’ He alone of the sons of men, in the deepest sense, completed His task, and left nothing for successors. The rest of us are taken away when we have reared a course or two of the structure, the dream of building which brightened our youth. The pen drops from paralysed hands in the middle of a sentence, and a fragment of a book is left. The painter’s brush falls with his palette at the foot of his easel, and but the outline of what he conceived is on the canvas. All of us leave tasks half done, and have to go away before the work is completed. The half-polished columns that lie at Baalbec are but a symbol of the imperfection of every human life. But this Man said, ‘It is finished,’ and ‘gave up the ghost.’ Now, if we ponder on what lies in that consciousness of completion, I think we find, mainly, three things.
Christ rendered a complete obedience. All through His life we see Him, hearing with the inward ear the solemn voice of the Father, and responding to it with that ‘I must’ which runs through all His days, from the earliest dawning of consciousness, when He startled His mother with ‘I must be about My Father’s business,’ until the very last moments. In that obedience to the all-present necessity which He cheerfully embraced and perfectly discharged, there was no flaw. He alone of men looks back upon a life in which His clear consciousness detected neither transgression nor imperfection. In the midst of His career He could front His enemies with ‘Which of you convinceth Me of sin?’ and no man then, and no man in all the generations that have elapsed since-though some have been blind enough to try it, and malicious enough to utter their attempts,-has been able to answer the challenge. In the midst of His career He said, ‘I do always the things that please Him’; and nobody then or since has been able to lay his finger upon an act of His in which, either by excess or defect, or contrariety, the will of God has not been fully represented. At the beginning of His career He said, in answer to the Baptist’s remonstrance, ‘It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,’ and at the end of His career He looked back, and knowing that He had thus done what became Him-namely, fulfilled it all-He said, ‘It is finished!’
The utterance further expresses Christ’s consciousness of having completed the revelation of God. Jesus Christ has made known the Father, and the generations since have added nothing to His revelation. The very people, to-day, that turn away from Christianity, in the name of higher conceptions of the divine nature, owe their conceptions of it to the Christ from whom they turn. Not in broken syllables; not ‘at sundry times and in divers manners,’ but with the one perfect, full-toned name of God on His lips, and vocal in His life, He has declared the Father unto us. In the course of His career He said, ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father’; and, looking back on His life of manifestation of God, He proclaimed, ‘It is finished!’ And the world has since, with all its thinking, added nothing to the name which Christ has declared.
The utterance farther expresses His consciousness of having made a completed, atoning Sacrifice. Remember that the words of my first text followed that awful cry that came from the darkness, and as by one lightning flash, show us the waves and billows rolling over His head. ‘My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ In that infinitely pathetic and profound utterance, to the interpretation of which our powers go but a little way, Jesus Christ blends together, in the most marvellous fashion, desolation and trust, the consciousness that God is His God, and the consciousness that He is bereft of the light of His presence. Brethren! I know of no explanation of these words which does justice to both the elements that are intertwined so intimately in them, except the old one, which listens to Him as they come from His quivering lip, and says, ‘The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all.’
Ah, brethren! unless there was something a great deal more than the physical shrinking from physical death in that piteous cry, Jesus Christ did not die nearly as bravely as many a poor, trembling woman who, at the stake or the block, has owed her fortitude to Him. Many a blood-stained criminal has gone out of life with less tremor than that which, unless you take the explanation that Scripture suggests of the cry, marred the last hours of Jesus Christ. Having drained the cup, He held it up inverted when He said ‘It is finished!’ and not a drop trickled down the edge. He drank it that we might never need to drink it; and so His dying voice proclaimed that ‘by one offering for sin for ever,’ He ‘obtained eternal redemption’ for us.
II. Now, secondly, note the work which began from the Cross.
Now it has very often been the case, as I take leave to think, that the interpretation of the former of these two texts has been of such a kind as to distort the perspective of Christian truth, and to obscure the fact of that continuous work of our Lord’s. Therefore it may not be out of place if, in a sentence or two, I recall to you the plain teaching of the New Testament upon this matter. ‘It is finished!’ Yes; and as the lower course of some great building is but the foundation for the higher, when ‘finished’ it is but begun. The work which, in one aspect, is the close, in another aspect is the commencement of Christ’s further activity. What did He say Himself, when He was here with His disciples? ‘I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.’ What was the last word that came fluttering down, like an olive leaf, into the bosoms of the men as they stood with uplifted faces gazing upon Him as He disappeared? ‘Lo! I am with you alway, even to the end of the ages.’ What is the keynote of the book which carries on the story of the Gospels in the history of the militant Church? ‘The former treatise have I made. . . of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which He was taken up’-and, being taken up, continued, in a new form, both the doing and the teaching. Thus that book, misnamed the Acts of the Apostles, sets Him forth as the Worker of all the progress of the Church. Who is it that ‘adds to the Church daily such as were being saved?’ The Lord. Who is it that opened the hearts of the hearers to the message? The Lord. Who is it that flings wide the prison-gates when His persecuted servants are in chains? The Lord. Who is it that bids one man attach himself to the chariot of the eunuch of Ethiopia, and another man go and bear witness in Rome? The Lord. Through the whole of that book there runs the keynote, as its dominant thought, that men are but the instruments, and the hand that wields them is Christ’s, and that He who wrought the finished work that culminated on Calvary is operating a continuous work through the ages from His Throne.
Take that last book of Scripture, which opens with a view of the ascended Christ ‘walking in the midst of the seven candlesticks, and holding the stars in His right hand;’ which further draws aside the curtains of the heavenly sanctuary, and lets us see ‘the Lamb in the midst of the Throne,’ opening the seven seals-that is to say, setting loose for their progress through the world the forces that make the history of humanity, and which culminates in the vision of the final battle in which the Incarnate Word of God goes forth to victory, with all the armies of heaven following Him. Are not its whole spirit and message that Jesus Christ, the Lamb who is the Antagonist of the Beast, is working through all the history of the world, and will work till its kingdoms are ‘become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ?’
Now, that continuous operation of Jesus Christ in the midst of men is not to be weakened down to the mere continued influence of the truths which He proclaimed, or the Gospel which He brought. There is something a great deal more than the diminishing vibrations of a force long since set in operation, and slowly ceasing to act. Dead teachers do still ‘rule our spirits from their urns’; but it is no dead Christ who, by the influence of what He did when He was living, sways the world and comforts His Church; it is a living Christ who to-day is working in His people, by His Spirit. Further, He works on the world through His people by the Word; they plant and water, He ‘gives the increase.’ And He is working in the world, for His Church and for the world, by His wielding of all power that is given to Him, in heaven and on earth. So that the work that is done upon earth He doeth it all Himself; and Christian people unduly limit the sphere of Christ’s operations when they look back only to the Cross, and talk about a ‘finished work’ there, and forget that that finished work there is but the vestibule of the continuous work that is being done to-day.
Christian people! The present work of Christ needs working servants. We are here in order to carry on His work. The Apostle ventured to say that he was appointed ‘to fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ’; we may well venture to say that we are here mainly to apply to the world the benefits resulting from the finished work upon the Cross. The accomplishment of redemption, and the realisation of the accomplished redemption, are two wholly different things. Christ has done the one. He says to us, ‘You are honoured to help Me to do the other.’ According to the accurate rendering of a great saying of the Old Testament, ‘Take no rest, and give Him no rest, till He establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth, Christ’s work is finished; there is nothing for us to do with it but trust it. Christ’s work is going on; come to His help. Ye are fellow-labourers with and to the Incarnate Truth.
III. I need not say more than a word about the third thought, suggested by these texts-viz., the completion of the work which began on the Cross.
Brethren! nothing else than such an issue can be the end of Creation, for nothing else than such is the purpose of God for man, and God is not going to be beaten by the world and the devil. Nothing else than such can be the issue of the Cross; for ‘He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied,’ and Christ is not going to labour in vain, and spend His life, and give His breath and His blood for nought.
Nothing but the work finished on the Cross guarantees the coming of that perfected issue. I know not where else there is hope for mankind, looking on the history of humanity, except in that great message, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come, has died, lives for ever, and is the world’s King and Lord.
So for ourselves, in regard to the one part of the work, let us listen to Him saying ‘It is finished!’ abandon all attempts to eke it out by additions of our own, and cast ourselves on the finished Revelation, the finished Obedience, the finished Atonement, made once for all on the Cross. But as for the continuous work going on through the ages, let us cast ourselves into it with earnestness, self-sacrifice, consecration, and continuity, for we are fellow-workers with Christ, and Christ will work in, with, and for us if we will work for Him.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
had received = received. [on Mat 27:84.
It is finished. Greek. teleo, as in Joh 19:28. Psa 22 ends with. the word “done”. Of the seven sayings from the Cross, Matthew (Joh 27:46) and Mark (Joh 15:34) record one (Psa 22:1); Luke three (Joh 23:34, Joh 23:43, Joh 23:46); and John three (verses: Joh 19:26, Joh 19:27, Joh 19:28, Joh 26:30). It is clear from Luk 23:44 that the promise to the malefactor was before the darkness. The words of Psa 22:1 were uttered at thebeginning or during the course of the three hours darkness. Probably the Lord repeated the whole of Psalm 22, which not only sets Him forth as the Sufferer, but also foretells the glory that is to follow. Perhaps other Scriptures also, as a terrible witness against the chief priests, who were present (Mar 15:31. Luk 23:35), and must have heard.
bowed. This suggests that till then He had kept His head erect. He now lays down His life, as He said (Joh 10:18).
gave up. Greek paradidomi. This word occurs fifteen times in John; translated nine times “betray”, of Judas; five times “deliver”, of the chief priests and Pilate.
ghost. Greek pneuma. App-101. Matthew says, apheke to pneuma, sent forth His spirit (Joh 27:50); Mark (Joh 15:37) and Luke (Joh 23:46) say, exepneuse, breathed out, i.e. drew His last breath. Compare Gen 2:7. Psa 104:29, Psa 104:30; Psa 146:4. Ecc 12:7.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
30.] expresses the fulfilling of that appointed course of humiliation, obedience, and suffering, which the Lord Jesus had undertaken. (Verbum convenit rebus, scriptur sacr, Bengel.) That was now over,-the redemption of man accomplished,-and from this time the joy that was set before Him begins. It is beyond the purpose of a note to bring out the many meanings of this most important and glorious word. There is an admirable sermon on it by Schleiermacher (vol. ii. serm. 10); and Stiers Comment, vi. 473 ff., should be read.
. ] We have the minuteness of an eye-witness, on whom every particular of this solemn moment made an indelible impression.
-viz. in the words given by Luke, , ,-which was also the of Matt. and Mark. This was strictly a voluntary and determinate act-no coming on of death, which had no power over Him,-see ch. Joh 10:18, and note on Luk 23:46.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 19:30. , it is consummated [finished]) This word was in the heart of Jesus in Joh 19:28 : it is now put forth by word of mouth; [-and it is put forth too before His death, which, however, itself was truly the principal head of those things which were to be consummated. What is meant is, His toil was accomplished; the prophecies were completed, not even excluding that as to the drink; and so now all things were tending to the one point, that He should deliver up His spirit by death into the hands of the Father. Most truly, therefore, He comprised in one joyous word the things past with those most surely and immediately about to be.-Harm., p. 574.]-, having bowed) with His mind still present.[392]-, He gave or delivered up) That which is delivered up, is permanent [still continues].
[392] Retaining His senses to the last, so that His bowing the head was not involuntary, but His deliberate act.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 19:30
Joh 19:30
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished:-[The work of the suffering Savior is accomplished, all the prophecies embodying it are fulfilled, the price of redemption is paid, henceforth will be the work of the conquering, triumphant, and glorified Savior.]
and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.-After drinking the vinegar all was completed and he let his head fall upon his breast and surrendered his spirit to God. Luk 23:46 says: And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said this, he gave up the ghost. [Consult Mat 27:51-56; Mar 15:38-41; Luk 23:47-49; Joh 19:31-37 for the accomplishment of his death.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
It is finished It is the Victor’s cry. Joh 4:34; Joh 17:4; Rom 10:4; Gal 3:13; Heb 10:5-10.
and gave up delivered up his spirit. (See Scofield “Mat 27:50”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
It is: Joh 19:28,*Gr: Joh 4:34, Joh 17:4, Gen 3:15, Psa 22:15, Isa 53:10, Isa 53:12, Dan 9:24, Dan 9:26, Zec 13:7, Mat 3:15, Rom 3:25, Rom 10:4, 1Co 5:7, Col 2:14-17, Heb 9:11-14, Heb 9:22-28, Heb 10:1-14, Heb 12:2
and he: Joh 10:11, Joh 10:18, Mat 20:28, Mat 27:50, Mar 15:37, Luk 23:46, Phi 2:8, Heb 2:14, Heb 2:15
Reciprocal: Lev 1:17 – shall not Num 6:20 – and after Psa 69:21 – vinegar Mat 27:48 – and filled Luk 12:50 – and Luk 13:32 – I shall Act 13:29 – when Col 2:15 – triumphing Heb 2:10 – perfect Heb 4:10 – hath Heb 5:9 – being Heb 7:28 – consecrated Rev 11:7 – when Rev 16:17 – It is
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE FINISHED WORK
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished.
Joh 19:30
It is finished! What was finished here? It is the pent-up agony of centuries breaking into relief at that sighing word. Finished!
I. Finished all that the Father and the Son had worked for since man fell.So far backwe are told it by Johnso far back as the first deplorable hour when the child of His love fell away, the hope of this redemption had begun to fill Gods heart, and the will of God had bent itself to this new task that we had set Him. And on and on the long years have dragged, working out their wicked will, and sin had grown, and the trouble had deepened, and the sorrows had multiplied, and the disease had spread, and the warfare had sharpened, and death darkened, and still the Father strove with plan to follow and pursue and implore, and invoked, and chastened, and smote, and punished, and fought, if by any means He yet might win and gain the sheep that He had lost. Still all was in vainin vain until He gathered everything into one final and supreme effort, when He Who so loved the world sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For this final deed He had chosen a people stubborn and stiff-necked, who yet, if they once laid hold of the truth, would by their very stubbornness never let it go. For this He carried them in the wilderness, like an eagle carries her young. For this He had fed them, and nourished them, and planted them, and brought them by ways they knew not; for this He had raised up prophet and priest and king. And the image of a Redeemer had grown clearer before His eyes; through persecution and suffering of these men the need of that tremendous task had marked out its outlines. So through the pressure of this thousandfold experience, under the tumult of disaster and incessant defeat, under the iron heel of the Captivity, the deed that had to be done grew and assumed more and more definite proportions in its terrors and its glories.
II. And at last the day had come.The awful venture was made. Gods last stakethere was no more that could be done when once He had said of these evil husbandmen, They will reverence My Son. He had come. The dream of all these centuries had been fulfilled as it were in a moment, and the work of the entire story of mans fall and his rescue had been up-gathered and concentrated into this single act. And down the storm had broken. And when it came, who could have guessed it would have been so fierce? The rush, strength, and rage of the whole thingwho could have measured its horror? Down it had poured upon Him, the flooded hate of the whole worlds sin, turned by the course of one wicked will down on the patient Martyr of God, merciless, savage, horrible, as He hung there on the bloody tree. What sorrow could ever have been like His sorrow? How long is it to last? Will it ever end? Will He bear it much longer?
III. And then, just at the worst and blackest moment of all, there is a sudden turn, a flasha door opened.It is finished! He is through! Round and about Him indeed the scene is but little changed. The storm roars and blusters, but deep within it is felt, it is known, the signal is given from God and recognised. The corner has been turned, the battle has been won. He shall not die, but live. It is secured and done for ever. No fear now; He is through, He is out on the other side. It is finished! It is finished!
Rev. Canon H. Scott Holland.
Illustration
It is finishednearly done and over. We come to the peace, the incomparable peace of reliefthe relief of the sailor on the groaning, labouring ship, as his quick eyes detect that the fury of the storm is spent, that the gusts that still shake his vessel begin to betray their exhaustion, and have not their old terrible intensity. The worst is past. It is finished. He will ride it out, thank God! It is the whisper of hope to those who are beset in some desperate garrison, like that of Lucknow. After all the sickening delay, after all the hopeless disappointment, as day after day they had looked from the shaking, crumbling ramparts, it seemed as if they would hardly last another hour. They looked out over the plain every morning to see if they could just see the glitter of an English bayonet, just listen to the sound of an English gun. Would they never come? Would they ever hold out all those long eighty days? Who would believe it? And at last, as they look one day, they see a movement, a stir somewhere. Hark! There is the far sound of a Highland pibroch! Look, we are saved! The peril is past, tears start, tears of a joy that cannot be believed. We are saved! It is finished! Thank God! Thank God!
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE VICTORY OF THE PASSION
I. It were a poor view of the Redeemers Passion to take were we to dwell in any way exclusively upon its physical side of bitter suffering.This part was great; but added to it, and going with it, was, and always shall be, the note of eternal victory. It is finished, the work is done, the labour accomplished, the effort carried through. In the volume of the book it is written of Me, I come to do Thy will, O God.
II. Now that blessed will is altogether consummated.He had come down a little babe to Bethlehem; He had left the courts of heaven and the worship of the young-eyed cherubim, and had taken on Him, for our sakes, the form of human weakness and subjection. And for this they had hung Him, as if He were a malefactor, on the Cross of shame. We will not have this Man to reign over us.
III. But there is one thing that man cannot spoil: it is the victory of the Passion.It is finished. The Victor, alone and unaided, has trodden the winepress. He suffered, and was buried, says the Creed. It is the most glorious of epitaphs: It is finished.
Rev. A. Osborne Jay.
Illustration
There, in the studio of Michael Angelo, one sees on the canvas the inception of a splendid painting; but little more than the outline exists. Beside the easel lie oils and brushes as the artist left them, but the fingers of the renowned genius are cold and stiff in death. The skilful chisel of Thorswalden is never to give the finishing touch to the fine group in marble, which, at a glance, betrays the Danish sculptors marvellous power. On his study table at Gads Hill lies the unfinished MS. of the last novel which Charles Dickens began. The grandest engineering achievement of our time is inaugurated by royalty amid flying banners and universal congratulations; but the architect of the gigantic bridge that spans the Forth never saw its completion. It was only Christ Who could say, It is finished. And His finished work is our only hope.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
TIS FINISHED, ALL IS FINISHED
Finished! What a cry of relief from the long strain which had been upon Him! And what may we say the words specially refer to?
I. Finished sufferings.I think, first of all, to His own sufferings. Christ must suffer. That was, if we may say it reverently, a foregone conclusion. Think of all the world, with all its accumulated wickedness and sin. Think of the sin in our own hearts, the sin in our own parish, the sin of London, the sin of every great city accumulated, if our imagination is sufficiently vivid and acute. It is not different now, is it? The world is just the same to-day. It is more polished, perhaps; it calls sin, in its multiplicity of forms, by different names. But is not the heart of the world exactly the same to-day as it was then, the world as you know it, as you see it represented in those friends of yours who do not love Christ? The sin which animates their hostility to Christ, do you not think that that sin would put Christ to death again if He came to the world? Do you not think that if Jesus came to the world to-day He would not be wanted? Would He be wanted in our homes, our social life? If He came to our churches would He be wanted there? He must suffer in order to enter into His glory. How is it with us? Need we wonder if when we try to do right we must also suffer? It has been so from the very beginning, but because Christ has said in His moment of apparent defeat, when the world thought that they had done with Him, It is accomplished, therefore you and I may be assured that we shall have victory. The glory will be ours through suffering.
II. Finished temptations.Not only were His sufferings accomplished, but also His temptations. He had wrestled with the tempter and had overcome. All His life He had temptations to overcome. There is a note of quiet rest struck in these words, just as much as there is a note of triumph. Doubtless you have your temptations, something which you know, if you let it get the upper hand, will cripple your life, sap your spiritual energy, and you determine that you will set all your spiritual forces upon it that you may overcome it. And then you overcome it, and it becomes a thing dead. Weeks may pass away, and you may not have felt it; it has not touched your life, and you are rejoicing; and just in the moment of your rejoicing it comes again with all its old force and power, and you almost feel inclined not to wrestle with it any more, but to let it have its way because you cannot say, It is accomplished; it is finished. Do not let us give waylet us realise that it will be overcome some time. And the same way with our sin, and griefs, and pains. Do not let us despair because they take so much overcoming, because we have always to fight and wrestle with them, and there seems no finality with them. Jesus has said: It is accomplished. Thy temptation is at an end. It is finished. The most powerful thing in the world, Christ has vanquished it, and if you will but go on fighting in His strength, the time will come when you will be able to say, It is finished.
III. Finished work.And then something else, too, Jesus accomplishedHis triumphant work. The battle of His corporeal life was over, but not before redemption, full and free, had been secured. What does it all mean? You and I have sinned, there is no doubt about that; we have all sinned consciously, every one of us, I doubt notif not consciously, unconsciously. We have therefore broken Gods law, risen against Him, rebelled, and by our very sin we are afar off from God. How are you and I to get near, for Gods Law saith, The soul that sinneth it shall die? There is only one way. We have it put into words by St. Paul: If One died for all, then were all dead. There was the need, the need of one perfect One to come and die for us and take our place. And you and I are now to believe it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. That is the first step, I say, in our spiritual life. In our Communion Service we say that Jesus made upon the Cross a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; but that sacrifice is of no effect if we do not believe it and accept it as Gods way of salvation. Let us look at the Cross now, and pray that God will give us the faith we need, that we may see in Jesus our Saviour and our Redeemer, our Prophet, our Priest, and our King, One Who ever liveth to make intercession for us.
Rev. T. J. Longley.
Illustration
This remarkable expression, in the Greek, is one single word in a perfect tense, It has been completed. It stands here in majestic simplicity, without note or comment from John, and we are left entirely to conjecture what the full meaning of it is. For eighteen hundred years Christians have explained it as they best can, and some portion of its meaning in all likelihood has been discovered. Yet it is far from unlikely that such a word, spoken on such an occasion, by such a Person, at such a moment, just before death, contains depths which no one has ever completely fathomed. No one single meaning, we may be sure, exhausts the whole phrase. It is rich, full, and replete with deep truths.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
0
It is finished. In Joh 17:4 as Jesus was praying he said, “I have finished the work which thou gayest me to do.” That was said prospectively, because his work on earth was virtually completed then. In the present instance it was said literally, because it was among the last words Jesus uttered before death. Gave up the ghost (spirit), indicates that when a man dies, something in his body leaves it, which proves that the human being is not wholly material.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 19:30. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and he bowed his head, and delivered up his spirit. It is not said that Jesus took much of the vinegar, and the probability is that He did not. When He had taken it He exclaimed, It is finished. The word is the same as in Joh 19:28, but now He utters what there He knew. It is the shout of victory, not the cry of satisfaction that suffering is at an end. Having said this, He bowed His head (which had been previously erect), and delivered up His spirit. The verb used for delivered up is peculiarly important. The choice of the word leaves no doubt as to the meaning of the Evangelist. However true it is that by the cruelty of man the death upon the cross was brought about as by its natural cause, there was something deeper and more solemn in it of which we must take account. It was His own free will to die. There is in Him an ever-present life and power and choice in which He, even at the very last moment, offers Himself as a sacrifice (Heb 9:14). He tells us Himself of His life, No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again (chap. Joh 10:18); and these words have now their illustration. Compare the language of His dying cry, recorded by Luke (chap. Luk 23:46): Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. We forbear to enter further upon the physical cause of the death thus recorded. It is impossible not to feel that the speculations which have been indulged in on this subject have done more to shock Christian feeling than to satisfy a legitimate spirit of inquiry.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. Our Lord’s last words, It is finished.
2. His last act, He bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
As to the former, his last words, It is finished, this might be the probable intendment of it:
1. It is finished; that is, now is my Father’s eternal counsel concerning me accomplished, and now is the promise that he made of my becoming a sacrifice for sin fulfilled; both my Father’s purpose and my Father’s promise are now receiving their final accomplishment.
2. It is finished; that is, the scriptures are now fulfilled; all the types that did prefigure me, all the prophetical predictions that were made of me, all the Jewish sacrifices that pointed at me, have now received their final accomplishment in me, and are abolished in my death.
3. It is finshed; that is, my sufferings are now ended, my race is run, my work is done, I am now putting my last hand to it, my death is before me, I have finished the work, the whole work, which I came into the world for, doing as well as dying; all is upon the matter completed, it is just finishing, it will be instantly finished.
Again, 4. It is finished: that is, the fury and malice, the rage and revenge of my enemies, is now ended, they have done their worst; the chief priests an soldiers, the judges and witnesses, the executioners and tormentors, have all tired out themselves with the exercise of their own malice; but now their spite and spleen, their envy and enmity, is ended, and the Son of God is at rest.
5. It is finished: that is, the glorious work of man’s redemption and salvation is perfected and performed, consummated and completed, the price is paid, satisfaction is given, redemption is purchased, and salvation insured to a miserable world.
Woe unto us, if Christ had left but one farthing of our debt to the justice of God unpaid; we must have lain in hell to all eternity, as being insolvent; but Chrst has by one offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified.
Learn hence, that Jesus Christ hath perfected and completely finished, the great work of redemption, committed to him by God the Father.
Observe, 2. Our Saviour’s last act: He bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
Whence learn, the spontaneity and voluntariness of Christ’s sufferings, how freely he surrendered to death; his soul was not rent from him, but yielded up to God by him; Christ was a volunteer in dying; though his death was a violent death; yet it was a voluntary sacrifice; He bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Verse 30
He said, It is finished; with a loud voice, exulting in the final accomplishment of the great work of redemption. We notice that the expression is, “It is finished.” A mere martyr, enduring, passively, wrong done to him by others, would say, when he reached the end of his sufferings, “It is ended,” or “It is over.” Jesus said, “It is finished;” his mind regarding this great consummation, not as the end of the injuries which men had been inflicting upon him, but as the accomplishment of the great work which he had undertaken for them.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Jesus’ reception of the sour wine did not relieve His pain, though it did moisten his parched throat so He could speak. It also fulfilled Scripture (Psa 69:21).
"The ’vinegar’ was probably the cheap sour wine the legionnaires drank. Though it provided some refreshment, it was a strong astringent that could contract the throat muscles and prevent the condemned victim from crying out with pain. [Note: Tenney, "John," p. 184.]
Nevertheless Jesus cried out with a loud voice (Mar 15:37), "It is finished" (Gr. tetelestai). He probably shouted with a cry of victory. The verb teleo denotes the completion of a task. Jesus was not just announcing that He was about to die. He was also declaring proleptically that He had fulfilled God’s will for Him (cf. Joh 17:4). The use of the perfect tense here signifies proleptically that Jesus had finished His work of providing redemption completely and that it presently stands finished. Nothing more needed or needs to be done. This finished work of Jesus Christ is the basis for our salvation (cf. 2Co 5:21).
"Papyri receipts for taxes have been recovered with the word tetelestai written across them, meaning ’paid in full.’" [Note: Blum, p. 340.]
Having thus spoken, Jesus handed over (Gr. paredoken) His spirit to His Father (cf. Luk 23:46) and bowed His head in peaceful death. Normally victims of crucifixion experienced the gradual ebbing away of life, and then their heads would slump forward. All the evangelists presented Jesus as laying down His life of His own accord. No one took it from Him (cf. Joh 10:10; Joh 10:14; Joh 10:17-18). He did this in harmony with His Father’s will (cf. Joh 8:29; Joh 14:31).
John did not record Jesus’ final utterance from the cross (Luk 23:46). He evidently ended his account of Jesus’ death as he did to stress the completion of the work of redemption that Jesus’ sixth saying expressed. John stressed Jesus’ divine sovereign control over His own destiny in submission to His Father’s will.