IT IS FINISHED!
Raymond B Clark
Hebrews 10: 1-18; 9: 27-28
Contemporary history records for us that the crucifixion was nothing unusual at the time we have read about. Despite its awfulness, it was a common form of capital punishment for those that fell afoul of the Roman system. Therefore, it is quite likely that the soldiers that participated in the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus may have been assigned similar duties in the past. It is also quite plausible that those that witnessed that occasion may well have witnessed things like it before.
But, at the death of this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, events took place which would have struck them as being a lot different. What must they have thought, for example, when the sun was darkened, from what would have been around mid-day until about three o’clock in the afternoon? The whole land was covered in what must have been a very eerie darkness. In his article, ‘The Sufferings of Christ’, Mr Darby writes that it was ‘all dark, without one ray of light even from God’, Collected Writings vol 7 p169. I suppose these soldiers, too, may have been familiar with the sounds that came from the crosses; the distress, the agony. But what must they have made of the statements that came from that central cross? The Lord Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 34. They had never heard that before. The Lord makes another statement; He says, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?”, Mark 15: 34. It tells us that the crowds mocked Him; they said, “he calls for Elias”, v 35. And then there is a final statement towards the end, which I think and understand from Mark’s gospel and Luke’s gospel would have been louder than all the rest, penetrating that darkened afternoon: the Lord says, “It is finished”, John 19:30. “Finished”: that was not a cry of defeat or abject acceptance. It was not a cry of surrender. Dear friend, that was a cry of victory! And everything that God had desired to find in the offering of Jesus had been fulfilled to absolute perfection in Him.
In Hebrews 10 where we read, these first eighteen verses summarise that word ‘finished’. It speaks throughout this epistle to these Jewish believers as to the law and the old sacrifices that were made, and they serve as a contrast to this new sacrifice. The Lord Jesus was here for the will of God and He fulfilled the will of God in absolute perfection. That was all part of the Father’s plan. You must see that the Father’s plan, and the Son’s obedience, go along together; they are parallel. You cannot separate them. Sometimes we use that word ‘intrinsic’ to describe features of Christ. I would say that would be seen here - the intrinsic quality of Christ in the Son’s obedience to the Father’s plan. It is like a coin; you cannot separate the two sides of a coin. You have a distinct impression on one side and you have a different feature on the other side; they go along parallel together. In the home this morning, we read about Abraham and Isaac approaching the sacrificial altar, and it says the two of them went up together, Gen 22. It speaks of the Father’s plan and the Son’s obedience. The Lord Jesus was here and He was “obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”, Phil 2: 8. The world had never seen a man like Jesus. It says of the Lord Jesus that, when they listened to Him, they “wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of His mouth”, Luke 4: 22.
So, dear friend, are you listening? This gospel is for you! It is not only for us older ones, much as we need it; the gospel is for you. The Lord said when He was here, “Suffer the little children to come to me … for of such is the kingdom of God”, Mark 10: 14. The Lord Jesus loves you. There is a distance between man and God through the incoming of sin. God cannot have sin in His presence. The Bible tells us, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, Rom 3: 23. We are all sinners; we have all done things that we should not have done, said things that we should not have said, thought thoughts that we should not have thought; that is sin, and it creates a gulf between man and God. And God presents Jesus to you, dear friend, in the gospel in order to deal completely with that sin. What a message we have! Well might we sing -
Hallelujah! what a Saviour! (Hymn 426)
Think of Him coming into this world; holy, blameless, undefiled, without sin. He went that way for you and for me. It says here in the epistle to the Hebrews that the blood of bulls and goats is incapable of taking away sins. It is a contrast, looking back to the days of old where they would offer up sacrifices to God. Think of the blood that was shed, but the sacrifices served for nothing other than this constant reminder of sin. But they also served as wonderful illustrations of the way that the Lord has gone, although in and of themselves they could not remove sin. It says at the beginning where we read that they were a shadow of the things that were to come. No repetition of a shadow could ever make up the whole. God has provided a Man. And that was in the heart of God before all eternity, that He was going to provide a Man.
We could turn to Peter. He explains it well in 1 Peter 1: 19-20 where he says, “the blood of Christ, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but who has been manifested at the end of times for your sakes”. So even before the foundation of the world, God had a plan in mind for you. I remember, when I was quite a bit younger, trying to reconcile the Old Testament with the New. My interpretation, very feebly, was that God had a plan, but because of the incoming of sin, because of the fall of man, because of man’s inability to keep the law, that plan failed; and so He brought in Jesus, almost like a second chance. But, if you go into scripture, nothing could be further from the truth! It was always in the mind of God that a Man was coming. We could go back to the book of Isaiah where it says, “he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground”, chap 53: 2. Six hundred years before the incoming of Christ, Isaiah could prophesy that a Man was coming. Or we can go back further again to the Psalms. Psalm 8 says,
When I see … the work of thy fingers,
the moon and stars, which thou hast established;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”, v 3, 4.
Or we can go back even further to the book of Genesis.
Chapter 49 says,
The sceptre will not depart from Judah,
Nor the lawgiver from between his feet, v 10.
A Man was coming! - the Man of God’s choice, the Man of God’s purposes, the Man of His counsels.
So you come to the gospels. They start with Matthew 1, where the Lord was introduced into this world as a little Child. And it says, “and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins”, v 21. You think of that incoming, in the fulness of time: God manifest in flesh, come near to you in the Person of Jesus, fulfilling the plan, the perfect plan, of the Father. Dear friend, does it not appeal to you? You think of these souls of old who made these offerings, a constant reminder of sin. The priest was to be always on his feet, entering in once a year into the holy of holies. By contrast you find here that the Lord is seated; He is seated in heaven. Why is He seated? - because His work is complete, it is finished: that work is finished. What a gospel we can preach, of a Saviour who has died never to die again. His blood was shed. His blood will stand as witness to an eternal covenant. You think of the new covenant, and the very central basis of it being the forgiveness of sins. The blood of the Lord Jesus has been set there for you and for me, that you might put your faith and your trust in it. It says that He has “sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God, waiting from henceforth until his enemies be set for the footstool of his feet”. Dear friend, the Lord is coming back; in the meantime He waits. You might ask why the Lord is waiting. Well, dear friend, He might be waiting on you. The blood is there. The blood is on the mercy-seat. It is the ground of God’s invitation to the sinner, that you might put your faith and trust in Him. One could say that the blood cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1: 7) - “all sin”. You might ask if that is even your sin. Remember Paul, as he looked back upon his history and the things that he had been occupied in, and he says that he reckoned himself as being the first of sinners, 1 Tim 1: 15. Think of that. Paul would look upon the whole human race, all of mankind, every man that had ever sinned, as if they were to be ranked according to their disobedience and their naughtiness before God; and he would put himself right at the top, the first of sinners.
You may sometimes feel a bit like that in the gospel. Paul could say, “for this reason mercy was shown me”, v 16. Dear friend, the blood is on the mercy-seat and the Lord Jesus waits for you. It says He waits until His enemies be set as the footstool of His feet. You think of the day when the Lord will come, and He will come in righteousness. You might think He is coming as a Saviour. Yes, indeed, He is coming as a Saviour, but He is coming too as Judge. This world will be judged by the Man whom God has appointed; it will be judged in absolute righteousness. You think of that day. You can read in Philippians that “at the name of Jesus every knee” shall bow, chap 2: 10. What a day that will be! Heavenly and earthly and infernal beings, and every tongue will confess that He is Lord to God the Father’s glory. Even infernal beings , earthly beings, will bow before Jesus. Tyrants will bow before Jesus; make no mistake about it. The tyrants of this world will meet Him as the righteous Judge, but He sits in heaven right now waiting for you. What a Saviour we can speak of!
Finally, I would say a word as to the Spirit here. We have spoken of the Son’s obedience and the Father’s plan, but I add a word too as to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness to these things. So the Trinity is occupied with the same thought towards you in the gospel. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are towards you. The Holy Spirit will write these things on your heart. He will testify to them. And He testifies to them through the living words of God. He writes these things on our heart that we might, through the reception of the Holy Spirit, have an appreciation of these things, an appreciation of the new covenant. It is that you might have an appreciation of Christ’s relationship as Head over all things to the assembly, and as to the bride belonging to Him. He would speak that we might have an appreciation of the Lord’s supper and entering into it. The Holy Spirit will give these things to you. The world cannot receive them. It says of the world that these things were foolishness to them. Dear friend, these things are for you. The Lord Jesus promised that the Spirit would come. He says, “I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”, John 14: 16.
And then what a note there is in these verses to end on. God says, “I will write them also in their understandings; and their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more. But where there is remission of these, there is no longer a sacrifice for sin”. You think of that; how the Lord has set sin completely aside for believers. Sin has been defeated in the precious shed blood of Jesus at the cross; put your faith and trust in it, dear ones. As the psalmist could say of sins, “As far as the east is from the west”, Ps 103: 12. He will never remember them any more, - never, never remember them. That is not an act of weakness: we forget things because we are weak, because we may be mentally frail, but this is a willing act of God. This is a deliberation of the grace of God, that He will not remember them any more. He will set them aside. Why does He not remember them? - because they are nailed on the cross, gone and gone for evermore. Put your faith and your trust in Jesus. Do not put it off. There is nothing, there is no other sacrifice that needs to be given, there is nothing that I could ever add to what Christ has done. It says He has sat down in perpetuity. His blood stands forever and it stands unique.
I have told this story before and I do not mind telling it again. When we were in Scotland once, we went out to a little island in the river Forth, called Inchcolm; there was an abbey there, an old monastery, which dates back to the twelfth or thirteenth century. Monks would go and live out there, isolating themselves from all creature comforts, from the rest of civilisation. Day after day they would labour over the Word. And when they felt they had sinned they would flail themselves, self-harm themselves. They missed the point that the atoning sufferings of Christ mean that there is nothing else that I need to do to atone for my sins. It has been done in absolute totality and perfection in the blood of Jesus. There is nothing else that I can add. If I were to say that anything else could be added to my sacrifices, it would suggest that the blood of Jesus was not enough. Dear friend, it was perfect in every way. It stands supreme.
Now you might say that it talks in the Scriptures about presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, Rom 12: 1. It talks in the Scriptures about our lips bringing the sacrifice of praise. Indeed, but that is not to attract God’s mercy; rather a response to His wondrous love and grace that Christ lives in heaven as the great High Priest. He lives for you. The stone is rolled away from the tomb of Jesus. That speaks to us of the abundance of life. Christ is seated in heaven as the great High Priest. What a Saviour, dear friend.
Well, may you put your faith and your trust in Him. And may the Lord bless the word. Amen.
Aberdeen, Idaho
20th March 2022