It is Finished!

Why did Jesus cry out, it is finished just before he died on the cross for those who were eyewitnesses to the crucifixion there was probably a lot of speculation about what those words meant today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg turns to Hebrews 10 to show us the significance of the word finished is probably hard for each of us to imagine it certainly is for me what the circumstances send atmosphere must've been like in Jerusalem on the day of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly crucifixions were not new to the Jerusalem crowd but nevertheless the events that had led up to this particular crucifixion had been making a dramatic impact on the whole city and there surely wasn't a resident there who was unaware of what was going on and certainly not that this Galilean carpenter Jesus of Nazareth wants to find himself on the center of three Roman giblets on this particular day in the gospel writers record for is the fact that from mid day from noon on this particular day until three in the afternoon the whole sky turned black and the city of Jerusalem was engulfed in what must've been a very easy darkness, as crowds gathered around healing snippets and bits and pieces of the proceedings, they would have been forced to wonder at the statements that were being made by the people on these crosses, wondering to what was meant by such an unusual statement coming from the central cross, father forgive them for they know not what they're doing and these people would have been well aware of the sounds that came from the crosses and they would have regarded this as highly irregular. They would've listened carefully. Some of them to the loud cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and then the buzz would've gone around the group. He's calling Elijah for they really had no notion of what was going on and what did they make. I ask you of the loud cry which ended all of his statements, which presumably rose above the clamor of the crowd and was audible to the ears of most and was summarized in one striking word which pierced into the darkness of that day the people said to one another as they began to move away to the last tie. Why would he say finished what was actually a cryo- victory. It was a cryo- victory. It was the triumphant recognition on the part of Christ that he actually now fully accomplish the work that he had come to earth to do. And indeed this one word. I would say in some regards the keyword in relationship to redemption in the whole of John's Gospel. This one word summarizes the 18 verses which begin Hebrews 10. So what I want to do is unpack for you the meaning of finished we discover when we turn to Hebrews chapter 10 is that Christ was deliberately and freely and in perfect love engineering judgment in our place. He was procuring salvation for us. He was establishing a new covenant.

He was making available the chief blessing of the covenant, namely forgiveness of sins and the necessity that this would take place is summarize very clearly for us in the opening four versus why would it be necessary for this man to die in this way will let me quote the first four verses from Phillips paraphrase the law possessed only a dim outline of the benefits Christ would bring and did not actually reproduce them. Consequently, it was incapable of perfecting the souls of those who offered their regular annual sacrifices for if it had surely the sacrifices would've been discontinued on the grounds that the worshipers having been really cleansed would've had no further consciousness of sin in practice, however, the sacrifices amounted to an annual reminder of sins for the blood of bulls and goats cannot really remove the guilt of sin. So the law was only a shadow is a B Davidson included no repetition of the shadow can add up to the substance and the repetition of these sacrifices as the writer tells us here simply witnessed to their ineffectiveness that this annual sacrificial order provided simply an annual reminder that something needed to be done that another sacrifice needed to be offered for all of the benefits of the blood of bulls and goats was only insofar as it fixed. Attention on the Redeemer and the redemption to which it pointed, and so the necessity of a Christ who would die in the place of sinners is made perfectly plain white like you to see this evening is simply this, the Trinitarian nature of what happens if that sounds like a bit of a mouthful simply that God the father, God the son God the Holy Spirit, the triune God are involved in the great plan of redemption. It may seem to some that is a fairly esoteric notion that it is at arms length, but I want you to see that it is absolutely imperative and I want to draw your attention to simply three dimensions. First of all, that you would notice that what was happening here in this sacrifice was according to the father's plan. According to the father's plan. If you look at verse five. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, the same phrases we found in chapter 9 and verse 11. When Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, here I am, it is written about me in the scroll. I have come to do your will or will God repeat it again for is in verse nine the writer picks it up and he read quotes this Old Testament passage. Then he said, here I am, I have come to do your will.

Peter when he writes to his readers of scattered, a scattered Christian group in his day, tells them at the very beginning of it all in first Peter one in verse 20 Christ was chosen before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

You see, what is that significant one is very significant because there are a number of people and some may even be in our company this evening who view the development of Christian theology something like this. God contrived a plan in the Old Testament, which somehow or another when dreadfully wrong and then in recognizing the defect in the system.

He came up with a second plan to correct a system that had become faulty and what the Bible says is nothing could be further from the truth but that from all of eternity. The father had chosen out the sun to be the one who would provide an atoning sacrifice for the sins of many, and so Jesus incoming tanks if you like the words of the dishonest David from Psalm 40 which is what is being quoted here in verse five, and he gives to these words, their ultimate fulfillment in the point of emphasis that he makes is simply that the ritual offerings were worthless without a corresponding obedience of heart and life the animal itself was coerced onto that sacrificial altar. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ in this body that had been prepared for him was neither coerced nor nonrational, but it was voluntarily and it was in a full awareness and submission to the father's plan. Let me give you just from John's Gospel alone. Initially indication of the point that I'm making will actually let's start further bank that started in Isaiah 5310 four it says there it was the Lord's will or the father's will to crush him and cause him to suffer so here 600 years before Christ. Isaiah prophesies concerning the suffering servant of Mr. Khan and he says it is in the plan of the father that this son of his that this suffering servant will be crushed and will be the sin bearer. When Jesus walks onto the stage of human history.

And when his earthly ministry begins to unfold.

It is obvious that he is clear concerning these things in John chapter 4. Remember when he speaks with a lady at the well and the disciples of going off to get lunch and they come back with a lunch and suddenly Jesus is not hungry and they look at one another and they wonder what's going on in Jesus says in John chapter 4 my food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work. I am here according to the father's plan. John chapter 5 the very work that the father has given me to finish John chapter 6, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And of course in the garden of Gethsemane is the gospel writers recorded my father if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will why because the work of atonement is ground in the plan of the father from all of eternity so that men and women in Bainbridge Ohio on this night may have their sins forgiven may be in a right relationship with God himself not as a result of human initiative not as a result of contrived religion, but as a result of a plan in the mind of the father from all of eternity. James Danny, the Scottish theologian of the turn-of-the-century puts it like this atonement that is the sacrifice for sin. Atonement is not something contrived is it where behind the father's back. It is the father's way of making it possible for the sinful to have fellowship with atonement was not contrived behind the father's back as if God the father looked and it took him by surprise.

He says I've come to do your will. You have prepared a body for me. You don't concern yourself with these sacrifices, and so on, but it is by your very will buy the father's plan. Verse 10 that we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

Secondly, the father's plan is paralleled by the sons sacrifice and this is familiar territory to most of us know a series of striking contrast have been running through this whole epistle.

The writer has been bringing the wonderful truth again and again for a number of chapters to bear upon his readers minds. In verse 11, he describes the work of the Levitical priests always on their feet, because their work was never done because the sacrifice, the offered could never take away sin. In contrast, in verse 12, the Lord Jesus seated because his work has been completed and because his work has been completed and because he sits now waiting for evil. Finally, to be eradicated from the whole world and for his enemies to become his footstool in this.

Verse 14 rules out the possibility all over the necessity for any further offering for sins because by one sacrifice he has been made perfect forever those who are being made holy. I need no other sacrifice I need no other plea.

It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. I need no priests to stand between me and my father, I need no one to offer up some new sacrifice on my behalf. I need nothing because of the father's plan because of the sons sacrifice the work of atonement is unrepeatable by its very nature and is sacrifices of unspeakable value on account of his death upon the cross. We have been accepted in the beloved. We have been forgiven of our sins, we have been ransomed, restored, included in the family of God granted the Holy Spirit to fill our lives and it is on this one sacrifice and we take our stand.

If we truly believe one of the ways to test this is to find whether we ourselves are trying to make little sacrifices so as to make ourselves more acceptable to God, or perhaps if I cut this out for Lent. I may make myself more acceptable.

Perhaps if I live a little sacrifice here in another little sacrifices there. Perhaps if I forgo this and forgo that that somehow or another the father will be more amenable he disclosed to me is that in anybody's mind to the degree that it is we have not understood the nature of the father's plan of the sons sacrifice. If we can add one thing to that atoning sacrifice. It is an insufficient sacrifice for sin. Somebody says Wallace is in the Bible that were supposed to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice good invited toes that were to offer our lips as a sacrifice of praise. He says we should offer our gifts and so on that are number of things that were to offer sacrifices, but not in order to attract God's mercy, but rather as an expression of the fact that we have been laid hold off by God's mercy when you think tonight of the father's plan and the sons sacrifice again and I want to emphasize this. Do not think somehow of the father laying on his son an ordeal that he was unwilling to bear. Nor should we think of the sun extracting from the father salvation that he was unwilling to bestow. It is true that the father gave the son, but it is equally true that the son gave himself. John start put it masterfully, as always when he says we mustn't speak of God punishing Jesus or of Jesus persuading God. We must never make Christ the object of God's punishment or God.

The object of Christ's persuasion for both father and son are subject's not objects taking the initiative to gather to save sinners. Somehow in the realm of eternity in a covenant of redemption.

The father son and Holy Spirit in context with one another and in perfect fellowship and harmony with one another, determined that this would be the way the father's plan.

The sons sacrifice, and finally just a word on the Spirit's testimony is there in verse 15. The Holy Spirit also testifies to his about this. The Holy Spirit is the one member of the Trinity that applies the truths of Christ to our lives as were Jesus promised he was going to go away.

He would send the Holy Spirit who would be with us and who would be in us, and it would take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, and make them real to us in our lives so that when we talked about this strange experience of knowing God in an intimate way that it would be something far beyond a mathematical formula that it would be something beyond some kind of religious externalism, but it would be a reality in our experience, and inexplicable reality to those who do not know Christ for the natural man and woman does not receive the things of the Spirit because they are foolishness to them and they think that the believer is describing some algebraic formula of theology, but once their eyes would be opened once they would understand the sacrifice of Calvary.

Once they would be redeemed by God spirit once they would be made and members of the family then all would be new in the spirit of God comes in he testifies to this truth here in Hebrews 10.

What is he due out is the spirit of God testified he testifies through the word of God through the written word of God. What is he saying to us in our day. He says what he has said within this book, and he reminds his readers of the wonder of the sacrifice he says you want and encouragement in relationship to these things get a hold of this, the covenant that God has made with us after that time is one in which he put our laws in our hearts his law in our hearts.

He writes these things on our minds and then he acts and water. In addition, their sins and their lawless acts I will remember no more. You see, under the old covenant. There was this constant reminder of sentence constant reminder of the fact that they could not be freed from these under the new covenant. There is this wonderful reminder of the sacrifice for sin planned by the father procured by the sun and applied by the Holy Spirit is why Jesus said when he took the cup, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. And for some of his only in the last few weeks the lights have begun to go on in relationship to that phrase. Why is it so amazing the hymn writer says it is a thing most wonderful. Almost too wonderful to be that God's own son should come from heaven and die to save a child like me and yet I know that it is true. He chose a poor and humble lot and wept and toiled and mourned and died for love of those who loved him not that the truth.

I sometimes think about the cross and shut my eyes and try to see the cruel nails and crown of thorns and Jesus crucified for me.

I cannot tell how he could love a child so we can full of sin, his love must be most wonderful if he could die.

My love to win. And yet I want to love the Lord will light the flame within my heart and I will love you more and more until I see as you are from the cross he cried one final word. It's finished. The father's plan. The sons sacrifice spirits test God the father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit, the triune God's masterful plan of redemption unfolded on the cross. Today's message from Alistair Begg is titled, it is finished. And this is Truth for Life. You may recall a portion of today's message where Alister was talking about the atonement that it is God's way of making it possible for sinful men and women to have fellowship with him. God desires a relationship with his people and author and counselor Ed Welch has written a book on the subject called created to draw near Ed Welch takes us on an extraordinary journey, he connects the Old Testament with the New Testament by looking at the special relationship God shared with those who were part of the priesthood as we begin to understand that believers are actually a part of God's lineage of priests, we begin to see how we can draw near to God because of what Christ has done on our behalf. Request your copy of created to draw near.

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