The Sixth Saying: “It is Finished!”
We are continuing our meditation on the seven last sayings of Christ during the six hours that He was on the cross. Our last meditation was about Christ’s thirst, where He was given sour vinegar held in a sponge lifted to him on the stalk of the hyssop plant. He needed to be able to shout to all listening a loud cry of victory, His sixth saying:
6) “It is finished” (John 19:30).
When Jesus felt the time had come, the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), tell us Jesus shouted out a loud shout, but neither of them tells us what it was He shouted. Only John standing near to the cross with Mary gives us the one word in Greek, “tetelestai!”It is translated as: it is finished in most English Bibles. It was not a shout of weariness, but great victory. Filling His lungs one more time by pushing on the piece of wood at His feet, Jesus shouted out loudly for the entire world to hear, “It is finished!”
This Greek word, tetelestai, was a word used in accounting in the common language of the day. When a man’s debt was paid, it was stamped tetelestai. It means to make an end of, complete or accomplish something, not merely ending it, but bringing it to perfection or its destined goal. It also means to pay in full, as in a tax or tribute.[1]
Justice demanded the guilty sinner had to pay the price of death for any sins committed in his life. This was the warning given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:17). All pain and sin that happens in this world are rooted in that one act of disobedience. The only way to overcome this bent toward sin we are born with is that God had to put us right at the very root of the problem, the human heart. Jesus came to reconcile us to God by paying the price of death for us and as us.
Let’s try to explain why a substitute could pay the price of death for us: Let’s think in terms of the value given to all life (Matthew 6:26). If one were to try to barter or swap ants for a lamb, how many ants would equal the value of a sheep? Why, you say, you can't do anything with ants, it's not as if they can be eaten, they would be more of a problem than value, so you would naturally say that all the ants in the world could not equal the value of a sheep. Let's take that thought further. How many sheep are equal to the value of human life? One must take into view the value that human beings live forever—death is not the end. If you understand the value of human life before the Creator God who made us, you must reply that all the sheep in the world are not equal to the life of an eternal soul created in the image of God. So to buy a human being from the slave market of sin where Satan has held humanity, the only One who can buy all human beings is the life of the sinless Son of God, God in the flesh. The value of God’s death atones for all men who will receive His payment as their payment for sin. When Satan, through his minions, murdered Jesus on the cross, he became a murderer, for Jesus had no sin. In this way, Satan’s power was broken at the cross of Christ. Before the judicial courts of heaven, Jesus bought all who will entrust their lives to His account.
"It is finished" was a cry of triumph. It is accomplished. Paid in full. There is no debt remaining to those who call on God as Savior. They are free! No wonder He shouted. He wanted the world to know that the debt of sin was paid. God's judgment and justice had been atoned (to make amends and to reconcile). The true Day of Atonement had come! Keith Thomas
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