Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2344
“It is finished.” John 19:30.
IN the original Greek of John’s Gospel there is only one word for this utterance of our Lord. To translate it into English, we have to use three words, but when it was spoken, it was only one—an ocean of meaning in a drop of language, a mere drop, for that is all that we can call one word! “It is finished.” Yet it would need all the other words that ever were spoken, or ever can be spoken, to explain this one word. It is altogether immeasurable! It is high—I cannot attain to it. It is deep—I cannot fathom it. “Finished.” I can half imagine the tone in which our Lord uttered this word, with a holy glorying, a sense of relief, the bursting out of a heart that had long been shut up within walls of anguish. “Finished.” It was a Conqueror’s cry—it was uttered with a loud voice! There is nothing of anguish about it, there is no wailing in it. It is the cry of One who has completed a tremendous labor and is about to die—and before He utters His death-prayer, “Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit,” He shouts His life’s last hymn in that one word, “Finished.”
May God the Holy Spirit help me to handle aright this text that is at once so small and yet so great! There are four ways in which I wish to look at it with you. First, I will speak of this dying saying of our Lord to His Glory. Secondly, I will use the text to the Church’s comfort. Thirdly, I will try to handle the subject to every Believer’s joy. And fourthly, I will seek to show how our Lord’s Words ought to lead to our own awakening.
I. First, then, I will endeavor to speak of this dying saying of Christ TO HIS GLORY. Let us begin with that.
Jesus said, “It is finished.” Let us glory in Him that it is finished. You and I may well do this when we remember how very few things we have finished. We begin many things and, sometimes, we begin well. We commence running like champions who must win the race, but soon we slacken our pace and we fall exhausted on the course. The race commenced is never completed. In fact, I am afraid that we have never finished anything perfectly. You know what we say of some pieces of work, “Well, the man has done it, but there is no, ‘finish,’ about it.” No, and you must begin with, “finish,” and go on with, “finish,” if you are, at last, able to say broadly as the Savior said without any qualification, “It is finished.”
What was it that was finished? His lifework and His atoning Sacrifice on our behalf. He had interposed between our souls and Divine Justice and He had stood in our place to obey and suffer on our behalf. He began this work early in life, even while He was a Child. He persevered in holy obedience 33 years. That obedience cost Him many a pang and groan. Now it is about to cost Him His life and, as He gives away His life to finish the work of obedience to the Father, and of redemption for us, He says, “It is finished.” It was a wonderful work, even to contemplate—only Infinite Love would have thought of devising such a plan! It was a wonderful work to carry on for so long—only boundless patience would have continued at it—and now that it requires the offering of Himself and the yielding up of His earthly life, only a Divine Savior, very God of very God, would or could have consummated it by the surrender of His breath! What a work it was! Yet it was finished while you and I have lots of little things lying about that we have never finished. We have begun to do something for Jesus that would bring Him a little honor and glory, but we have never finished it. We did mean to glorify Christ—have not some of you intended, oh, so much? Yet it has never come to anything. But Christ’s work, which cost Him heart and soul, body and spirit—cost Him everything—even His death on the Cross! He pushed through all that till it was accomplished and He could say, “It is finished.”
To whom did our Savior say, “It is finished”? He said it to all whom it might concern, but it seems to me that He chiefly said it to His Father, for, immediately after, apparently in a lower tone of voice, He said, “Father, into Your hands I com-
mend My spirit.” Beloved, it is one thing for me to say to you, “I have finished my work”—possibly, if I were dying, you might say that I had finished my work—but for the Savior to say that to God, to hang in the Presence of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, the great Reader and Searcher of all hearts. For Jesus, I say, to look the dread Father in the face and say, as He bowed His head, “Father, it is finished; I have finished the work which You gave Me to do”—oh, who but He could venture to make such a declaration as that? We can find a thousand flaws in our best works! And when we lie dying, we shall still have to lament our shortcomings and excesses. But there is nothing of imperfection about Him who stood as Substitute for us and, unto the Father, Himself, He can say, concerning all His work, “It is finished.” Therefore, glorify Him tonight! Oh, glorify Him in your hearts, tonight, that even in the Presence of the Great Judge of all, your Surety and your Substitute is able to claim perfection for all His service!