Finished!

It was time to do some housework, I decided.  Not perhaps the most exciting way to spend a morning, but something that needed to be done.  So I set to work – actually I enjoy it once I’ve got started – and after a while I was able to look round with satisfaction and think, “There, that’s finished.”  But of course it wasn’t really finished; it was only finished till next time.  In this life, nothing stays tidy or clean or ‘finished’ for very long and then it has to be done all over again!

But in John’s Gospel we read: After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!”  Now a vessel of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth.  So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!”  And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.  (John 19:28-30) 

The other Gospel writers tell us that Jesus cried with a loud voice; not a whimper of defeat but a shout of victory.  All that He had come to do had been completely finished and there would never be the slightest need for it to be repeated!  His spotless life, lived in perfect, loving obedience to His Father’s will; His precious blood shed; atonement made for each one whom the Father had chosen before the foundation of the world and given to the Son; the way back to God opened…

What can I say?  Only join with John Kent:

On such love, my soul, still ponder,

Love so great, so rich and free;

Say, while lost in holy wonder,

‘Why, O Lord, such love to me?’

Hallelujah!

Grace shall reign eternally.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit. 1 Peter 3:18

I’ll give the last word to Charles Wesley:

‘Tis finished! the Messiah dies,

Cut off for sins, but not His own;

Accomplished is the sacrifice,

The great redeeming work is done.

‘Tis finished! all the debt is paid;

Justice divine is satisfied;

The grand and full atonement made;

God for a guilty world hath died.

The veil is rent in Christ alone;

The living way to heaven is seen;

The middle wall is broken down,

And all mankind may enter in.

The types and figures are fulfilled;

Exacted is the legal pain;

The precious promises are sealed;

The spotless Lamb of God is slain.

The reign of sin and death is o’er,

And all may live from sin set free;

Satan hath lost his mortal power;

‘Tis swallowed up in victory.

Saved from the legal curse I am,

My Saviour hangs on yonder tree:

See there the meek expiring Lamb!

‘Tis finished! He expires for me!

Accepted in the Well-beloved,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

I see the bar to heaven removed,

And all Thy merits, Lord, are mine.

Death, hell, and sin are now subdued;

All grace is now to sinners given;

And lo, I plead the atoning blood,

And in Thy right I claim Thy heaven.