“It is Finished”
John 19:30

IH

May you realize, not just what you have been separated from at the cross, but what you have been united to, for that is the grace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

One Word: Two Meanings

Have you ever heard someone, a teacher, your pastor, your spouse say something, and though you heard the words perfectly, you didn’t quite get what they are saying?

You heard them so well you could quote them back verbatim, and they would acknowledge you heard the words perfectly, but the message did not communicate?  I hope you were smart enough NOT to do that by the way.

When we hear Jesus words, there are two ways of hearing it, “it is done away with….”,  or ”it is completed”

The question is which we will hear,

and which we should hear…..

It is Finished!

The first way to hear these words, “It is finished”, is to consider all that has been dealt with, the bill that has been paid.

To think that sin has been made impotent, its power to cause guilt or shame has been eliminated.

The guilt and shame of being a sinner, wiped away in baptism, therefore the power of Satan’s accusation is no longer valid.
It is not that the Ten Commandments has been eradicated, it is that the curse for shattering them as we have, has been met.  The terms of our relationship with God have been met.

In this man, beaten, brutalized and scorned, that the complete burden of sin has been placed.

The debt for our envy, the damage done by our gossiping about others, the pain caused by our desires, our lust, our thirst for revenge, for the times when we would play God, or use His name to get what we want, rather than find rest and our burdens revealed by him.

All that debt, all that pain, all that brokenness….
It is finished.

It is finished……

Yet it is more than that….

It is Consumated/Completed!

As I looked through the history of the church, I saw something more than what we’ve been separated from as the focus of these words.  Augustine and the early church fathers used the equivalent of consummated, completed in regards to this phrase.  It is consummated, it is complete, complete, it has been accomplished.

They talk not just of the payment of sins, our being freed from sin and the devil, and the power of death.

They talk of what we are freed to, that the Holy Ghost, which Christ surrenders here, would soon be breath out upon the church.

It is completed, the work Paul talks of in Ephesian 2:10

¹⁰  For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

It is there, at the cross of Christ, this work has been accomplished, we’ve been taken into Christ, united with His death,

And with the hope of the resurrection, with that which we shall celebrate on Sunday.

It is completed this work to bring us to the Father, who finds us righteous, who welcomes us, His children, into His presence.  Sharing in His death, we now share in His resurrection.

That’s the point, what Jesus completed at the cross.  It is the so what, that changes a historical story into something that matters here in Brea, in the life of every person here this afternoon, that should matter to everyone who is driving by this church, to every person listed among our Facebook friends.  They all need to hear it – every person alive and every person that will be born until He come again. He has become the Way, the Truth and the Life, even as His head slumped, and He breathed His last breath.

We now can walk with Christ, we who trust in His work, who God has cleansed with water and the word.

Yes – He finished off all that would finish us off, but He completed that which He came to complete – to make for the Father a people who would be His, who would recognize Him as God their Father.

We have been united to Him, we dwell with Him, we are protected, our hearts and minds even as we dwell in the indescribable peace of God our Father.

AMEN?