“It Is Finished!”

Thus proclaims the Victor of Calvary moments before committing His Spirit into the Father’s hands. This cry piercing the gloom is the announcement of something accomplished.

That which the Saviour accomplished by His death was not merely the work of satisfaction to divine justice, by which He removed the curse from our heads, but likewise His representative obedience, which is henceforth imputed to His believing people, as the righteousness which avails in the sight of God. Along with the sentence, “Depart from me, ye cursed!” is also the “Mene, Tekel,” erased from our walls, and in its stead we read the mighty words, “Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.” And that we are so is confirmed to us by the fact that God now lovingly inclines toward us, breathes His Spirit into us, leads us in bonds of mercy and kindness, and as soon as we have finished our course, opens the gates of His heavenly mansions to us. But that condemned sinners are regarded as holy before God, without any infringement on His justice, holiness, and truth, is intimated by that which the suffering Saviour accomplished on the cross. Even the twenty-second Psalm asserts that this would be the consequence of His death, since in the last verse it is said, “They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.” How just and well founded is, therefore, the victorious cry, “It is finished!” with which the Lord, after performing His work, inclined His head to rest!

(FW Krummacher, The Suffering Saviour, pp. 400-401)

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

(Hebrews 10:11-14 ESV)

Hallelujah for the Cross!

“It Is Finished!”