What Was Understood When Jesus Said, ‘It Is Finished’?

Just a few weeks ago Christians around the world completed their annual observance of Holy Week, commemorating the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, followers of Christ understand that the significance of Good Friday and Easter has no real season. The impact of what those days represent, individually and collectively, is experienced 365 days a year.

 

I’d go so far as to say that all of humanity ultimately hinges on three small words, the last ones uttered by Jesus on the cross that gruesome yet glorious day: “It is finished” (John 19:30). That is an English translation of the Greek word tetelestai, which also can be translated “it is completed” or “paid in full.” 

 

After uttering those words, certainly in excruciating pain as the last bit of strength oozed from His body, Jesus bowed His head and died. With the benefit of historical hindsight, we now know what He meant by that simple declaration, but I wonder how those words were understood by those who heard them on that day 2,000 years ago.

 

For the Roman guards charged with nailing Jesus to the cross and then lifting it for Him to hang there for hours, they probably interpreted the meaning as what seemed obvious – He was breathing His last.

 

For the Pharisees and other religious leaders who had orchestrated the rigged trial and trumped-up charges that would justify Christ’s crucifixion, hearing “It is finished” probably meant the threat that “troublemaker” Jesus had posed to their prominence, prestige and authority had been put to an end. They must have been thinking, ”Good riddance!”

 

For Jesus’ followers, who had devoted the previous three years to joining Him in ministry and leaving behind their families and livelihoods, those words must have sounded like the crushing climax to their hopes and dreams. Their charismatic, miracle-working leader hung lifeless as blood continued to seep from His body. The great cause He had personified seemingly had come to a tragic conclusion.

 

Thankfully, they all were wrong. When Jesus declared, “It is finished,” in no way did He mean defeat or failure. Rather, He was announcing that His mission was complete. His ultimate purpose, to become the atoning sacrifice for sin and make it possible for broken, sinful people to establish personal relationships with the holy, righteous God, had been accomplished.

 

This is the message throughout the New Testament. As the apostle Paul asserted in Romans 8:1-3, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.”

 

In another New Testament letter, writing to believers in the ancient church of Corinth, itself a wicked, sin-infested city, Paul said, “And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

 

At times, we all have seen our own hopes and aspirations dissolve, falling short of much-desired goals. With dismay and even despair we’ve thought, “It’s over. I’m done.” And we struggled to pick ourselves up from the heap of humiliation to try again, hoping for more success the next time. 

 

But for Jesus there was no need for a “next time.” For Him, “It is finished” meant He had provided the ultimate remedy for sin’s consequences and death would be dealt its ultimate defeat. On the third day, the empty tomb would serve as vivid, tangible evidence of that. Because of that reality, we can cling to this wonderful promise: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Thank God we can live according to His perspective and not our own. For us, because of what Jesus has done,  “It is finished” means it’s only just begun. 

Free Lunches, Free Postage, and Other Free Stuff

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” We’ve probably all heard that at one time or another, even though many of us have been the beneficiaries of a lunch that we didn’t have to pay for. So why do they insist there’s no such thing as a free lunch? 

 

It’s because that lunch does cost somebody. The best scenario is someone covered the cost of the lunch for you. It might be a friend or family member, employer, or even the restaurant itself. It might not have taken anything out of your wallet, but someone had to absorb the cost. Worst case scenario is that even though your lunch might have been free, it created an obligation you might be expected to fulfill sometime in the future. 

It's similar with “free postage” that’s offered when we buy something online. We might not have to pay the additional cost of getting merchandise shipped to us, but somebody has to pay it. Maybe it’s the retailer or the shipping company. The shipping cost might even be a hidden add-on included in the price we paid for the items we wanted. The U.S. Postal Service, which seems to be always losing money, certainly isn’t going to absorb the cost – and even if it did, it still must pay workers who sort, process and then deliver what we buy.

 

We seem to hear a lot about free stuff these days: “free” college educations; “free” health care; “free” unemployment benefits. The costs for these things might not be assessed to us directly, but someone has to pay for them. The “money tree” of legend still hasn’t been discovered, although we might have reason to believe it’s hidden somewhere in Washington, D.C., the way politicians like to throw money around. 

 

This matters because of something available free to each of us, something that’s of far greater value than any of the things cited above. It’s described in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This gift of eternal life truly is free – offered to each of us – but it still comes because of an extremely high cost that has already been paid.

 

This cost, of inestimable value, was paid 2,000 years ago by Jesus on a lonely cross outside of Jerusalem. As someone has said, He paid a price we could not pay to satisfy a debt He did not owe. Or as Romans 5:8 declares, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

 

Question: How many sins had you personally committed when Jesus Christ willingly gave His life on that cross centuries and centuries ago? Not a single one, right? Because you weren’t born yet; not even a tiny glimmer is someone’s eye. And yet Jesus paid it forward, we might say, covering the sin debt you had yet to start accumulating. As it says in the Greek, “tetelestai” – “it is finished.”

 

Why was that even necessary? Why didn’t the Lord just wait for us to earn our way to heaven and eternal life by doing good things? Because He is perfect, holy, all-righteous, and even a slightly imperfect life is totally unacceptable to Him. “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12). Countless biblical scholars have studied this passage, and no one has yet to uncover a single exception to this dismal assessment.

 

So as we think about all the free stuff that tantalizes us in this world – “buy this and we’ll throw in that, absolutely free” – we must remember that it’s not really free. Someone is taking responsibility for the cost. And in a far more profound, enduring way, each one of us is offered the greatest free gift of all, the gift of everlasting life. 

 

There’s just one catch: As John 1:12 states,“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13). Just as a free lunch is of no worth if we don’t accept it when it’s offered, the Lord’s gift of eternal life also must be received. Refusing to accept it is a cost no one can afford. 

Benefits of a New Balance

Paying a bill the other day, I noticed the statement listed my new balance. It occurred to me this phrase – “new balance” – has multiple meanings, ones that are strikingly different.

The new balance the billing statement cited, of course, was the remainder on the debt that was yet to be paid. But then I considered New Balance shoes, which many people use for walking and running. The name promises both comfort and a proper fit and balance for wearers engaged in various forms of exercise.

When considering a "new balance," there
are many ways of applying the phrase.

There’s the new balance some people are demanding to alleviate the logjam of partisan politics and posturing that has slowed legislative progress in Congress. In sports sometimes we hear cries for a new balance to correct what’s perceived as a competitive imbalance at both collegiate and professional levels.

When economists review the balance of trade, the comparison of a nation’s imports and exports, they sometimes declare a new balance is necessary.

Even the Bible makes the promise of a new balance. Because similar to my bill, there’s a debt – in this case, a spiritual one – to be paid.

There are some who consider God’s acceptance in terms of a balance scale: Do enough good that outweighs the bad you’ve done, and you’ll be okay. Sounds right, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the Bible contradicts that rationale. It states, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). In other words, we’re way out of balance.

If we argue, “Well, what about all the good I’ve done?” the Scriptures respond, “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) To emphasize this point, Romans 3:10-12 declares, “There is no one righteous, not even one…there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Put another way, even when we do good things, they are typically tainted with bad – pride, improper motives, selfishness and self-centeredness. What seems good to us is totally unacceptable to God.

That leaves us with a dilemma. As the jailer asked the apostle Paul and Silas, “what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). Or we might ask, “How then can I get right with God?”

Returning to the debt analogy, whenever we receive a billing statement that cites our “new balance,” it’s saying even though we’ve made a payment, we’re still indebted. Spiritually, every day we’re running up a “tab” of sin we can’t possibly pay – conscious and subconscious rebellion against God and disobedience to His standards. This ultimately is why Jesus came – and went to the cross.

As someone has said, “Jesus paid a debt He did not owe, to save those who owed a debt they could not pay.” The last word He said before dying on the cross was “Tetelestai," which means, “It is finished" (John 19:30). This word also was used on business documents or receipts in New Testament times to show a bill had been paid in full.

Perhaps when we arrive in heaven, we will be presented with a bill representing our spiritual debt, one we could never repay. But on the bill will be stamped, in blood red, the word, “Tetelestai.” Or perhaps, for those that can’t read Greek, “Paid in full.”

We’ll have a new balance – a zero balance. The debt has been satisfied. Can you imagine?