It Is Finished

On the cross, Jesus said, "'Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.'" Nobody took His Spirit from Him. He delivered it into the hands of His Father, this One who had just experienced the fullness of forsakenness. Once the punishment was over, the Son entrusted His soul to the Father. The Roman cross was a terrifying instrument of torture and execution.

The sight of it must have filled all who saw it with fear. Yet for Christians, the cross is a sign of hope, a symbol of what Jesus did for us. It's where He bore our sins in His body.

On this Good Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind, Dr. R.C. Sproul preaches from the Gospel of John chapter 19. Verse 25 begins with the words, "'Now there stood by the cross of Jesus.'"

Stop right there. You would expect that the rest of the sentence would say something like, Peter, Andrew, James, Matthew, Nathaniel, Thomas. It doesn't say that. They were there, but they were watching from afar off, cowering in fear, ashamed to be identified with this spectacle of their leader being slain before them. But notice who it was who stood by the cross of Jesus, His mother, Mary, who we are told in the infancy narratives of Jesus, that when the angel announced to her that she would become the mother of this child whose name would be Jesus because He would save His people from their sins, and heard the prophecies and was in utter astonishment, we are told almost as a postscript at the end that Mary, having heard these things along with the prophecy in the temple that a sword would pierce her heart. She didn't understand the weightiness of these predictions, but the Scripture said that Mary kept these things. That is to say, she didn't just let these announcements go in one ear and out the other, but she held on to them tenaciously.

She kept them as she kept the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And then the Bible said, and she pondered them in her heart. I often wonder how many times during her lifetime and when she saw her son finally leave their home and begin his public ministry, did she return to ponder these things and wonder what it meant that a sword would pierce her own soul. That afternoon, when she stood by the cross, she felt the piercing of her soul as she watched her son be crucified.

But she stood by him until his last moments. With her was Mary's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and another Mary, Mary Magdalene. Jesus is on the cross, and He looks down from His place on the tree, and His eyes meet the eyes of His mother. And while Jesus is feeling the crushing curse of His heavenly Father upon Him in this atoning death, He can see the agony of His own mother. And as a godly son, He was concerned not for Himself, but for her.

What mother wouldn't want to step up and take her son's place on that tree? Mary would have done it in a heartbeat, and Jesus knew that. But she had also learned a deeper understanding of the identity of her son and of His destiny.

And Mary remembered, obviously, the words that she had uttered to the angel Gabriel. Even so, let it be unto me according to Your Word. And so their eyes meet, and Jesus, when He looked at His mother, didn't just see His mother, but He also saw standing by one who is described here as the disciple whom He loved. The tradition of the church identifies this unnamed disciple as the author of this book, the Apostle John.

The youngest of the apostles. And so Jesus spoke to His mother by saying, Woman, behold your son. What did He mean? He wasn't saying, Mother, look at me in my humiliation. Mother, behold me in my shame.

Mother, observe my disgrace. Jesus was not asking Mary to look at Him. When He said, Woman, behold thy son, He turns His gaze from His mother to John. And He speaks to John saying, Behold your mother.

And from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home. When Jesus died and breathed His last, John went home. And He took with Him Mary, the mother of Jesus. Because in His dying breaths, Jesus had turned to John and entrusted the care of His mother to Him. He says to Mary, Mary, behold your son, John.

Behold your mother. And so now John becomes the substitute son of Mary and Mary the substitute mother of John. From that hour, that disciple took her to his own home. Now after this, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Then a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with this sour wine, put it on a hyssop, on a lengthy reed, and lifted it up and put it to His mouth. And Jesus received that sour wine.

And so people have speculated again for centuries, why did Jesus speak this short word from the cross? When He knew that everything had been completed, He says, I thirst. I'm thirsty. And again the speculation goes something like this, that the reason why Jesus cried out about His thirst was because part of the agony of crucifixion was that the rigors of this form of death caused the one suffering it to experience severe dehydration. And clearly when Jesus spoke of being thirsty, He was at the same time revealing the fullness of His humanity. The divine nature is never hungry. The divine nature is never thirsty. But the human nature that is identified with us knows hunger, knows weariness, and on this occasion knows thirst. And so some say that this is simply a normal reaction to having had the fluid of His body dissipated, leaving Him with an excruciating, no pun intended, thirst. But the Bible says something a little more about this.

Notice how John puts it. He said, after this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished in order that the purpose of Scripture may be fulfilled. In other words, the clause that we have here is what's called a purpose clause, and that clause explains to us why Jesus said, I thirst. And it wasn't simply because He was thirsty, though indeed He had an unquenchable thirst from a human perspective. But He said it that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Jesus, every step of His ministry, was acutely conscious of the Old Testament-inspired prophecy of the destiny of the Messiah, of what would happen to the suffering servant of Israel.

And He knew that He could not change the sovereign will of God that God had appointed from the foundation of the world, and He knew that all things that God had decreed must needs come to pass. Only hours before, in the depths of His passion, sweating beads not of perspiration but of blood from His forehead, dared to ask the Father to change all that. Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me. Father, is there some other way than what Your Word has decreed? Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done, all things being equal. Father, I do not want to drink this cup. But more than I do not want to drink this cup, I do want to do what is pleasing to You.

So if You really want Me to drink this cup, I will drink it to its bitter dregs." And after they tried to quench His thirst with the sour wine, He said, it is finished. And He bowed His head, and He gave up the ghost. He gave up His Spirit. Nobody took His Spirit from Him.

He seeded it. He delivered it into the hands of His Father. This One who had just experienced the fullness of forsakenness, what He has just gone through with the Father turning His back on Him, once the punishment was over, the Son entrusted His soul to the Father. You know, the first pain that we experience in this world, we begin to curse God and trust Him no more. But after the Savior takes the full brunt of the Father's wrath upon Him, and when it's finished, when it's over, knowing that it was the Father who bruised Him, that it was the Father who was pleased to have Him suffer for our iniquity, the Father who turned His back on Him, the Father who abandoned Him now, when it's over, He says, Father, into Your hands I commit My soul.

John doesn't include that word here. He ends the record with Jesus simply saying, It is finished. What are we to make of that? There are different aspects to that statement that Jesus makes here on the cross. If we look at it in the context where He says, knowing that all things have now been accomplished, He's speaking of the completion of His mission. It's over. Oh Father, it's done.

I have tasted the last drop of the cup of Your wrath, and now My atoning work is complete. Students of the language also see in these words, it is finished, a phrase that is borrowed from the commercial language of that time when people borrowed to buy something and paid back their debt on installment plans when the final payment is made, and the stamp comes on the bill, paid in full, the Word was to tell us that. The last payment has been made, and this is the very word that Jesus utters from the cross.

When we read in the New Testament about our predicament before a holy God, it is this that we are compared by way of the biblical metaphor to people who are debtors who aren't able to pay their debts. If the bank came to me tomorrow and said, R.C., you owe us ten thousand dollars. You have twenty-four hours to come up with ten thousand dollars because you owe us that ten thousand dollars, and unless you come up with that ten thousand dollars, we're going to take your house.

I want to tell you something. I am absolutely confident that I could put my hands on ten thousand dollars in the next twenty-four hours if I had to. Not that difficult of a burden. But what if the bank came to me and said, R.C., you owe us ten billion dollars, and you've got twenty-four hours to pay it.

What am I going to do? Where am I going to get my hands on ten billion dollars in the next twenty-four hours? I would find myself in a situation where I had a debt that I had no way of paying. But my little illustration here collapses by its own weight because the debt I actually have before a holy God cannot be measured in dollars and cents. The debt I owe God for my sin and my rebellion against the sovereign Creator of the universe, the one who owns my very soul, is a debt that is infinite. If I could amass all of the money in this finite world, it wouldn't be enough to pay the debt. That's what Jesus said. That's how He describes you. That's how He describes me, that we're not only debtors, but we are debtors who cannot possibly pay our debts.

You know, the Muslim idea is that if a person's good works outnumber their bad works, and in the balance good is more than evil, they go to paradise because their idea of God is a God who negotiates His own righteousness, a God who grades on a curve, a God who was only kidding when He said, Be ye holy even as I am holy. You know, we hear the cliché, everybody's entitled to one mistake, the ultimate entitlement program. Whoever gave you a title to one sin? Did God say to you, Be you perfect except just one sin? I'll let you have one.

That's not what He said, but suppose He did. How long ago would you have used yours up? Be ye holy even as I am holy. Now, if what you owe to God is perfection, and if you have one blemish on your soul, what would you have to do for the rest of your life to achieve perfection?

Once the blemish is there, perfection now becomes not only a presence, but a future impossibility. You owe a debt that you can't pay. That's what the drama of the cross is all about. Jesus says, come here. Where are the invoices? How much debt is there attached to your soul? What do you owe my Father? Give me the bills, give me the debts, and I'll pay them for you so that a certificate of completion of the paying of our debts to the last penny is nailed to the tree.

You see, that's why Black Friday is Good Friday. Bad for Jesus, good for us because the Lord laid upon Him the iniquity for us all. And when He paid the very last cent of your debt, He groaned from the tree saying, it's finished.

Tell us thine. There's nothing left over to be paid. Jesus, as the hymn writer says, paid it all. Standing before Pilate, Jesus declared that He is a King and that He is the truth. What great teaching from a familiar story today here on Renewing Your Mind.

Dr. R.C. Sproul has been taking us through the arrest and trial of Jesus over the past couple of days. Every time we hear this story, the details are familiar, but the lessons we learn are pointed and particular. It's really the joy of studying God's Word, isn't it?

We learn new lessons every time we open it. Using Dr. Sproul's series from the Gospel of John as a springboard, we have considered the importance of this Easter holiday. And we would like to help you in your own study of the Gospel of John.

When you give a donation of any amount today to Ligetier Ministries, we will send you the hardbound edition of R.C. 's Expositional Commentary. He introduces John's Gospel in his accessible conversational style. Each chapter is packed with insights and exhortations to draw us closer to the light and light of our Savior. My colleagues and I are home today on this Good Friday, so we will not be answering the phones, but you can request Dr. Sproul's commentary online when you go to renewingyourmind.org. And let me thank you in advance for your generous donation. Well, as we anticipate Resurrection Day this coming Sunday, I hope that you're able to stop and contemplate what it means and the implication it has on our lives. I hope you have a blessed Easter, and I hope you'll join us again Monday for Renewing Your Mind. Thank you.