THE last words of our dying Lord and Saviour, recorded by the disciple whom He loved, are these: “It is finished." The work His Father gave Him to do—the sufferings of His cross—the bearing of sin—the conflict with Satan—the work of redemption —were all finished. All was done according to divine perfection. And, since the mighty work which brought Him from earth to heaven was absolutely completed, there can nothing be added to it, nor taken from it. It is finished; yes, blessed truth, all is done.
The claims of the throne of the holy and eternal God have all been met by the sin-bearing and the suffering for sin of our Lord. He was made sin for us; Jehovah laid upon Him the iniquities of us all. He was the sin-offering; “thou shalt make His soul "—His soul, His holy and perfect soul—" an offering for sin." (Isa. 53:1010Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10).) He took the bitter cup of anguish from His Father's hands, and drank it to the dregs. The contents of that cup no human being could exhaust; endless ages spent in hell would not empty the cup of God's wrath and indignation against sin. Christ stood in the sinner's stead, and was forsaken of His God. And now God is satisfied, His righteous requirements are met, the work is complete: It is finished.
The powers of hell were broken through the death of our Lord Jesus. He destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil. (Heb. 2:44God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will? (Hebrews 2:4).) Satan tempted the Lord at the commencement of His path of service, and, foiled, departed from Him for a season, but, at the close of His path, the hour came for the combined energy of Satan and of man against Him; as He said, " This is your hour, and the power of darkness," (Luke 22:5353When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. (Luke 22:53).) Man was scoffing at the Lord; Satan tempting Him. God had forsaken Him; but, by His cross and death, the Lord, as a Man, overcame the enemy of God and men.
The ransom price for His people's freedom was paid by our Lord upon the cross. That ransom was His own precious blood, and, being paid, we now have in Him redemption through His blood. If a wealthy stranger, filled with compassion for a slave, laid down the ransom price, and redeemed him, can we imagine the slave saying to his redeemer,
“I have struggled hard during my years of slavery, and have managed to get a few pence together; let me give you them towards the hundred pounds you have paid for my redemption '? But, alas! how many a slave of sin and Satan, whom the Lord has redeemed, fails to rejoice in his Redeemer’s love and work, because his thoughts are upon the paltry "good" works, tears, repentance, feelings, experiences, and the like, which he thinks he can add to Christ's work for him Oh, anxious sinner, away with these vain things; the blood of Christ is the ransom price, and it has been paid—you are free. It is finished.
Having finished the work He had come to earth to accomplish, the gracious Saviour gave up the ghost, commending His Spirit as a Man to His Father's hands, and then His lifeless body remained upon the cross. All could see that Jesus was dead. The Lord of life and glory had laid down His life of His own voluntary will. No one took His life from Him; He had power to lay it down, and He had power to take it again.
It is most sweet to meditate upon the dying love of the Lord Jesus for sinners. His love is the abiding-place of His people's hearts, and His cross teaches what divine love is. As the world hangs in the skies surrounded on all sides by the boundless expanse of space, so the center, as it were, of the grace of Christ is His dying fortis; thence let us look abroad to the immeasurable heights and: depths, lengths and breadths, of infinite love. We cannot doubt our pardon or our absolute security as we remain in this blest center.
But if we have found by grace our perfect rest in the finished work of Christ for us, let us inquire. What is God's answer to these words of His Son, "It is finished"? We have it recorded in the fifty-first verse of the twenty-seventh of Matthew, “And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." God, who for so many long years had dwelt in the thick darkness—God, who had been hidden from His people behind the veil in unapproachable holiness—yes, God, who had wrapped the earth in darkness when the Lord was made sin for us, and who had then forsaken Him, when the work of sin-bearing was ended, rent the veil of the temple from heaven to earth. He was hidden no longer. He came forth in righteousness to the eye of faith—His nature of light became visible.
Divine righteousness is now declared. On the one hand, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness—no single spot of sin is now outside the clear shining of the divine light—no sinner in his sins is hidden from the full revelation of God's hatred against sin—the cross of Christ has witnessed what sin is according to God's righteousness. On the other hand, the way into the very holiest of all, where God is, from whom the light shines, is open to the believer. There is nothing whatever between God and His people. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ has made them fit for God's holy presence. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest, ... let us draw near." (Heb. 10:19, 2219Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, (Hebrews 10:19)
22Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22).) Holy confidence is ours, because the blood has been shed for us, and because He who shed it is in God's presence for us.
The immediate answer of God to the words of the Lord, "It is finished I” was the rending of the veil from heaven to earth. The only way in which we can know God is His own way, from heaven to earth. Reader, may we better understand this by the teaching of God the Spirit, and humbly take our place, by faith, in the Holiest, in the highest, because of what Christ has done, and because of what Christ is.
We cannot truly understand before God what sin is, until we know that our sins are put away by the blood of Christ. It is as looking back upon the cross from the light of the Holiest in heaven that we learn the true measure of sin-yes, and the depth of our sins. So long as the anxious soul is distressed as to whether his sins are forgiven or not, the measure of sin to him is his sense of his own sinfulness; but when, by grace, faith takes the true place of nearness to God (oh! let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance), then the realized measure of sin is God's own standard of righteousness.