It Is Finished

Have you ever heard the cliché, everyone's entitled to one mistake? The Garden of Eden, God says, if you eat of this tree, you shall surely die if you do it twice. He said, I'll give you one because there's an entitlement program here in creation and everybody here is entitled to one mistake.

Well, obviously that's not true. We're never entitled to sin. We hear so many people today say, we're only human, right? We're all going to make our fair share of mistakes.

But as we just heard R.C. say, that's not the way God sees it. Welcome to this Good Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today, Dr. Sproul is going to examine Christ's death on the cross to see why it was necessary, and it all boils down to just one thing, your sin and mine. On this Good Friday evening, we're going to be looking at the gospel according to Saint John chapter 19, reading verses 23 to 30. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts to each soldier a part, and also the tunic, and the tunic was without seam woven from the top in one piece. And they said therefore among themselves, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which says, they divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.

Therefore the soldiers did these things. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, when Jesus therefore saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by. He said to His mother, woman, behold your son. And then He said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. And after this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. And the vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine and 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. In His earthly ministry, the incarnate Jesus was a man on a mission.

But the question we want to look at this evening briefly is this. Why did He have to go on this mission? Why did He have to seek and save those who were lost? Why did He have to give His life as a ransom for many? Even in the liturgy earlier this evening, in our affirmation of faith, we ask the question, why did Christ have to go all the way to death?

You remember the reply that we read together? Because God's justice and truth demand it. They require it. Only the death of God's Son could pay for our sin. So there in that brief statement, we get the clue to the reason for the mission, the reason why it was necessary for Him to die. It was necessary because of sin. Well, what is the big deal about sin? How are we to understand sin? And there are many ways to look at the reality and the power of sin and to give definition to it.

But this evening, I would like to look at three basic foundational aspects of sin, three ways in which the Scriptures describe sin. The first way that the Bible speaks about sin is as a debt. We all understand what a monetary debt involves. A debt is where we are owing money for something for which we have not yet paid. But when the Scripture speaks of our debt with respect to sin, it's not talking about money. It's not a monetary debt, it's a moral debt.

And where does that debt come from? It comes from our standing before God as He is our Creator. And as our Creator, God is sovereign, and He has inherently, intrinsically, immutably the right to impose obligations upon His creatures. You know, when somebody comes to you and says, well you ought to do this or you ought to do that, sometimes our response is, who says so? Why do we have to do this or why do we have to do that?

Well, parents will say, because I said so. And that's not always sufficient, is it? But ultimately, when God imposes an obligation, that obligation can never be excused until it is fulfilled. And this is why the Bible speaks to us in terms of sin as a moral obligation imposed upon us when God says, thou shalt, or He says, thou shalt not. When God Almighty says, I may or may not do something, I am now obligated to obey His commandment.

When we sin, we fail to fulfill our obligation to God. When we fail to do that in a monetary way in this world, we are subject to lawsuits or foreclosures. And there is a sense in which ultimately if we don't have our debt paid morally by God, He will foreclose on that debt.

And that's one foreclosure we never ever want to experience. And so the Bible describes us as debtors to God. But the bad news is the Scriptures go on to say, we're debtors who can't pay our debt. So the first way the Bible speaks about sin is in terms of moral indebtedness for which we have no possible way of settling that debt. You know, you hear the cliché, everybody's entitled to one mistake.

Where did that come from? The Garden of Eden, God says, if you eat of this tree, you shall surely die if you do it twice. He said, I'll give you one because there's an entitlement program here in creation and everybody here is entitled to one mistake.

Well, obviously that's not true. We're never entitled to sin, ever. But even if we were entitled to one mistake, how long ago did you use your entitlement up? You spent that entitlement many times over since you got out of your bed this morning. We are debtors who cannot pay our debts.

But here's the myth that abides in our culture. Oh yes, I know I have failed to pay my debts. I haven't done everything that God has told me to do and required me to do, but I've tried to live a good life. I'm trying to make up for it. But if God calls you to perfection, to perfect holiness, which He does, you sin once.

What do you do to make up for it? There's nobody in this room who has the ability to atone for his or her own sin. We're debtors who cannot pay our debts. Secondly, the Bible speaks of sin in terms of enmity.

And here's where it gets very muddled, I'm afraid. I'm sure that most of you are aware that the Scriptures say that by nature we are at enmity with God. That is, rather than willingly serve Him, obey Him, and worship Him, our natural inclination is to despise Him. We don't want Him in our thinking. We don't want Him in our lives. We flee from Him as we flee from our debts. And so the Scriptures tell us we need to be reconciled because by nature we're estranged from God because of enmity. He's our enemy, not our friend. Now that's describing our posture towards Him.

But on the other side, what is His posture toward us? Well here's where the mythology comes in. The mythology that's pervasive in the culture and sadly even in the church is that even though we're at enmity with God, God still loves us. Even though we are estranged from Him, He's not estranged from us. After all, the Bible says God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.

That is true. God loved the world that much that He sent His Son on this mission to save sinners, sinners from whom God is estranged. It's not only that He is our enemy, but in our natural estate, dear friends, we are His enemies. We've declared war against Him, and He has declared war against us.

And there's no way we can win that war. Yes, God loves everybody in one sense of His benevolence and His beneficence, but not in the filial sense, not in the redemptive sense. And the Scripture makes it clear that when we remain impenitent that God abhors us. Oh, we don't believe anybody ever goes to hell.

God wouldn't send anybody to hell. God may hate the sin, but He loves the sinner. But it's not the sin He sends to hell, it's the sinner from whom He's estranged. Unless that sinner is reconciled to God, he will everlastingly live under the burden of enmity and estrangement from God. Now, I know what I've just said to you is something that the vast majority of the people in this world and the vast majority of the people of the church don't really believe, but that's what the Bible teaches, and that's what the truth is. Finally, the third way in which the Bible speaks of sin is in terms of guilt, legal trespass. You know what the Confession says? We teach our little kids what is sin. Sin is any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.

When we break the laws of men, the laws of our society are subject to arrest and prosecution. We're brought before the bar of justice, and we seek to have a defense attorney who will stand up for us and try to explain away our guiltiness. And I talk to people all the time. When I talk to them about their guilt, they'll say, well, I don't feel guilty. And I say, well, if you don't feel guilty, that's a shame because that's like not feeling pain when you're sick because the pain is a signal to you that something is seriously wrong with your body.

And if you don't feel the weight of guilt in your life, that's a shame because you're not getting the signal that there is something seriously wrong with your soul. And can you imagine a defendant giving this defense, Your Honor, I can't be guilty of this crime because I don't feel guilty. But criminal trials in our nation's legal system are not about feelings. But the question is, was the law broken? Because if the law is broken, you're guilty, whether you feel guilty or don't feel guilty.

You may hate the law, you may disagree with the law, but in terms of the law, if you violate it you've incurred guilt, and ultimately this is our standing before God. When we break His law, we incur guilt. Well Jesus had a mission to deal with the debt, to deal with the estrangement, and to deal with the guilt. All of that was laid upon Him. That was the mission that the Father gave Him in eternity.

The Son had to come and pay the debt that we couldn't pay. He had to fulfill the moral obligation that we didn't fulfill. That's why He had to live a life of perfect obedience to qualify for giving this perfect sacrifice to the Father. He came paying the price that was required of those for whom He died. He came to take upon Himself the fullness of the wrath of the Father, that on the cross the Father would forsake Him and regard Him as an enemy, because He stood in My place and I was His enemy. And so the Son of God became the enemy of God, and God forsook Him. Is there any wonder that He sweat beads of blood in Gethsemane saying, Father, let this cup pass from me?

Must I become Your enemy? Must I take all of the hostility of Adam's fallen race towards You on me and subject myself to Your just and holy reprisal that the estrangement may pass and that My people can be reconciled to You? Do you realize that when Jesus was on the cross and the Father saw this hideous bundle of sin, He was indignant. Finally, the guilt required a just punishment.

This had to be satisfied. And that's why the Fathers referred principally to the atoning work of Christ as a work of satisfying the justice and the righteousness of God, because God is not like us. He doesn't wink at sin. God doesn't look at our sin and say, oh, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

No, no, no, no. The first thing we have to learn about God is that He's holy. And a holy God never winks at sin. He never negotiates His own righteousness. If we are to have any kind of saving relationship with God, His righteousness must be satisfied. His holiness must be satisfied. That's why He demands a perfect sacrifice, which only one could give.

There was only one Lamb without blemish. And it was His mission to satisfy the justice of God that our sin may be remitted, that is sent away. He spent His whole life preparing for that moment. And finally it came when He went to the cross. We read in verse 30, so when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, Tetelestai, in Greek, consummatum est in Latin. Tetelestai, the perfect sense of the verb, it has finished its language borrowed from the commercial world, where somebody's paying time payments, time after time after time, and finally makes the last payment, and the receipt is stamped, paid in full.

That's the language He uses from the cross. His work of redemption has reached the point of consummation, and He knows it. The mission is over, it's finished. No church, no person can add anything to what was consummated in that hour.

I can't add anything. But thanks be to God, I can't subtract anything from it either, because it's finished. All the things in the Old Testament were only shadows of this reality that was to come. The bulls and blood and goats could not take away sin, could not pay the debt, could not placate the wrath of God. Only this sacrifice by the Lamb of God can take away your sin, and that's what He did. For all who put their trust in Him, the debt has been paid once and for all. The estrangement is gone, now we have peace with God. The guilt has been satisfied, and our sin is removed. No wonder then that the darkest hour in human history is called Good Friday.

That's Dr. R.C. Sproul preaching a Good Friday sermon at St. Andrew's Chapel where he served as co-pastor for many years. It is our tradition at St. Andrew's Chapel that after every Good Friday sermon that there is no benediction, no music, no postlude.

The congregation simply walks out of the church in silence. It is a powerful moment. We thank you for joining us for this special edition of Renewing Your Mind.

I'm Lee Webb. Dr. Sproul preached verse by verse through many books of the Bible over the years. One of them was the Gospel of Luke. We've collated those sermons into a hardback volume that we'd like to send you today for your donation of any amount.

This is an online offer only, so make your request when you go to renewingyourmind.org. You know, when we see clearly what Good Friday is about, we can't help but rejoice at the overwhelming significance of the gospel. We're reminded that the phrase, Christ died for sinners, is the best news we could ever hear. Thank you for being with us for this special edition of Renewing Your Mind, and we hope you'll join us again Monday as Ligonier teaching fellow, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, walks us through the basics of the Christian life, and Dr. Stephen Lawson will show us the doctrines of grace in the Gospel of John. That's beginning Monday here on Renewing Your Mind. God bless you. God bless you.