From a Gospel Address.
HOW carefully we treasure up the last words of our beloved ones. We write them in our diaries; we quote them to our relatives and friends; and thus have them handed down from one generation to another.
“It is finished” (John 19:3030When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:30)) were the last words uttered by the blessed Lord on Calvary’s cross, amidst the scoffs and jeers of the religious and the godless ones, when He was suffering untold agonies, and when, in love to us, God made His soul an offering for sin. Oh! how God must prize these three last words of His beloved Son; uttered, as they were, just as He was accomplishing the wondrous work which was to bring everlasting glory to God, and everlasting blessing to poor sinners.
First think of Who it was that uttered these words―JESUS the Holy One of God. All the waves and billows of God’s wrath had rolled over His blessed head, causing that terrible cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:3434And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Mark 15:34)). It was Jesus, the beloved Son of God, Who said, “It is finished”. It was to God He said it, and for you and for me that that He did so.
Let us look at these three words separately for a moment.
“IT is finished.” What was finished? The work God gave Him to do to express His own love in our salvation. In what did this work consist? The wrath of God against sin must be endured, death tasted, judgment exhausted, sin forever put away, and Satan’s power broken. And, blessed be God, this has been done; so that Jesus could say, “I HAVE glorified Thee on the earth”, “I HAVE finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do”.
“It IS finished.” Mark you well; not it is being done; not it has to be done; but “it is” done: done as God required it should be done, as Christ alone could do it, and done as you and I needed it should be.
“It is FINISHED”; and nothing left for God, or the sinner to add. On the ground of this work, God gives FREELY to every believing, repentant sinner, a present and permanent pardon.
Think again Who it was that said “It is finished”; of the circumstances under which the words were uttered; of the blessed God into whose ears they were uttered; and of the poor, judgment-deserving sinners for whom they were uttered; and let us ask, Can you not trust your soul’s everlasting salvation to Jesus and His “finished” work? Perhaps you think, as thousands do, that you have to do something for pardon; and your agonizing question is, “What must I do to be saved?” We answer in the words of the Gospel hymn―
“Nothing either great or small,
Nothing, sinner, no;
Jesus did it, did it all,
Long, long ago.”
“‘Till to Jesu’s work you cling
By a simple faith,
Doing is a deadly thing,
Doing ends in death.”
The Spirit of God must pass your soul through deep exercises, like those the prodigal passed through on his way to the father’s house; but you have no more to do for salvation than the prodigal had to do for the best robe, the ring, the shoes, and the fatted calf. He confessed he had sinned, and was unworthy, and you can say nothing less. A father’s loving heart provided all the rest, and the prodigal son became the happy recipient of that father’s bounty. The father gave, the son received, and the house was filled with heavenly mirth.
God has received Christ up into glory as a proof that He is perfectly satisfied with the work that He did, once for all, on the cross; and now it remains for you to receive Him by simple faith, as a proof that you are satisfied with what He accomplished at such a cost.
H. M. H.