Few of us realize how unfinished and incomplete most of our endevaours are. A Mother's work is never done, we say, and the late hours spent in sewing and planning, the early hours devoted to the children and the household duties, the long hours required for washing, cooking, cleaning... all merge into the never-finished task of a mother's life. The same striving but never finishing confronts fathers. They complete a day at the factory, the office, the store or on the farm. But after a night of rest, another day dawns with it's new demands. Like the moving platform in our automotive factories, life rolls on before us. We take our place in the line to perform our trivial tasks, but we never finish and the line never ends. Surveying the activities of a typical day in our lives, the duties that we should have met, the opportunities that we could have accepted, we ask "will we ever finish?"
Even when release comes in the last hour, it often brings an overwhelming sense of incompleteness... Death. And the artist's brush slips from his lifeless hand... the author's pen blots the unfinished page... the musician's bow falls from his fingers... a mother's needles left in her mending... a father's plans for his family only begun... a young life on the threshhold of a promising manhood... ...taken away forever!
How we ought to thank God on bended knees, then, that while incompleteness is the curse of our existence, and the hard struggles of life often remain unfinished or unrewarded,... the greatest blessing of heaven and earth combined: the salvation of our souls has been finished with divine finality! Completed forever by the substitutionary suffering of our ever-blessed lord and saviour, Jesus Christ. For in one of the shortest of the saviour's seven utterances from the cross - it is only a single word in the original Greek - but what a blessed, faith building word of eternal promise it is. Jesus p[uts the keystone into the arch of our Christian faith, and shows us the completed redemption as he speaks this divine and deathless assurance, IT IS FINISHED! (St. John, 19:30).
Let us study the glory and comfort of these three words, as I employ them with the help of the Holy Spirit, to bring you the most blessed of all messages that the radio can ever convey: The promise of salvation completed! The immovable assurance, that in Christ our Lord, our redemption is eternally perfected.
When the death-marked lips of Jesus spoke the sentence "It is finished", barely audible above the din of Calvary, the dying saviour signified that the sufferings of his soul were drawing to their close; that on the cross he had drained the cup which his father had placed before him to it's last death-dealing dregs.
To us, the cross has become an emblem of splendour. We glorify it with our choiceset artistry. Wreath it in flowers and entwine it with garlands. But for Jesus, it was an accursed tree, raised by the regiments of hell and stained with his own life-blood. We sing songs that glory in the cross of Christ, yet how the saviour shuddered before that cross. We bless the cross, but the men who saw Jesus crucified on it cursed it. The ancient world knew no more protracted anguish than that timber on which the victim sometimes writhed in agony for three days in indescribable horror. Yet the sharpest pain and the deepest darkness in the saviour's sorrow were the anguish of his sin bearing soul. You know the pain and convulsions of a single death. How indescribable then, the agony of him that should taste death for every man. You know what the wages of sin are in one life. How appalling the punishment of Him that gave his life a random for many.
Now, however, these long hours of sleepless agony are drawing to a close. And the saviour, disowned by his own, taunted by men who had become demons, the saviour who had lived as no other man lived, who spoke as no other voice had ever spoken, was to die as no other man had ever died.
Yet, this last-hour cry "It is finished!", proclaims an infinitely more vital message. These words show us Christ not only as a sufferer, an innocent victim of astonishing cruelty, an apostle of peace who could forgive his executioners and lay down his life for his friends, as a patriarch or an idealist sacrifices himself. This cry, "It is finished!" means that our deliverance is completed. The eternal plan of our redemption fulfilled, the suffering that brought our salvation ended. By this one sacrifice for sins, forever, in the temple of calvary, on the cross, Jesus, as both High Priest and atoning sacrifice paid the full price for all sins!
There, rejected by the common man and the cultured, by priest and layity, by the religious and unreligious, by Jew and Gentile, Jesus wrote the last word in heaven's volume of salvation.
He left in his creed nothing for his disciples to complete. Nothing that could ever be added to change or restrict his redemption. There were no mistakes in his life that had to be corrected. No blot on the stainless record that had to be removed. No heedless word to be recalled. No thoughtless deed to be undone. By that one, perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice, full and free redemption was finished for a race perishing in it's own rebellion.
It is finished! That was the cry which would quench the fire and smoke on temple altars, and leave the children of God gratefully to offer their prayers of their blood-bought hearts as incense and sacrifice. No more rams and bullocks to be slaughtered. For on the high altar of Golgotha, is the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world! No more blood of bulls and goats to be sprinkled before Jehovah; for the son of God and the son of man offered his own cleansing blood as it drips from his wounded head and his nail torn hands. No more sabbaths. Instead, by the great freedom wrought for all men and for all times, every day of the seven, devoted by thankful hearts and redeemed souls, to thw worship, praise glory and honour of the tiune and merciful God. No more old testament ceremonial with a priesthood restricted to the tribe of Levi. Instead, a universal priesthood, with every believer enjoying free and untrammeled access to the mercy seat of Jesus.
Gone forever the sway of the old testament law. But blessed forever, now, the sweet new testament gospel of mercy. Hushed for all times the rumbling thunder of Sinai and it's message of terror: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die!" Instead, the finished faith, sealed in the blood of the cross, proclaiming, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death."
This, then, is a full, unabridged, unabbreviated, gospel. Christ on the cross paid the full price for our sins. Therefore we need not - we cannot - pay for for them ourselves. Christ on the cross suffered the complete punishment for all our sins. Therefore, if we will only believe in him and trust in him, we need not - and we cannot - atone for our guilt.
It is not the teaching of Jesus that we must meet him half way, or a quarter of the way, or an infintesimal part of the way, for he says "I AM THE WAY!" Salvation is not made up of 50% of Jesus' suffering and the other 50% of our own good works, good resolutions, good intentions, and good purposes. The proportion is not 99% percent Christ and 1% ours. Not even ninty-nine and ninty-nine hundredths our saviours love, and one small one one-hundredth of one percent ours! Christ is everything! All in all! And when we believe this, we are his. As the apostle triumphs, "we are justified by faith without the deeds of the law."
We can repeat, to a gainsaying world, "By Grace are ye saved, through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God! Not of works, lest any man should boast."
That true Christian faith, as it is assured by the dying declaration of Jesus "It is Finished!" is not the gospel plus anything else. Not Christ in addition to anything else. But Christ only, and Christ Himself alone!
Hold fast to this firm gospel, my friends and fellow redeemed, for it is attacked as never before. We have hundreds of creeds, cults, and -isms, and divisions and subdivisions in our world today. Classified and according to their adherance to scripture, and you will find that many of them make the fatal error of adding something to the completed faith, or of subtracting and altering some of it's truth.
No error has been productive of more uncertainty and despair than this: That the atonement of Jesus must be completed by human endeavour. The great message that the churches of our country must shout from the housetops, and broadcast from coast to coast, is not the immature discussion of social or cultural, or economic moralising questions, but the triumph and summoning of the nation back to the completed salvation of the cross.
When everything else is gone and forgotten, that cross will be remembered. My friends in the ministry, preach that cross; teach that cross; live that cross; exault that cross. The world will thank you little for it, nor will it long remember your self-denial and courage. But in some solemn hours, when human souls approach the threshold of the next world, their faith will bless your loyalty. It has well been called the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. This heaven-born, scripture grounded teaching of the all-sufficient and universal grace, and the salvation completed at Calvary. Build your church on that rock, your sermons on that theme, your theology and implicit obedience to this word of God, then not even the gates of hell, combined with the cunning of men and the strategy of organised opposition will prevail against you.
And, may God give those of you that are not preachers of his word, who may have denied or rejected his mercies, the grace to treasure these dying hours words of your saviour in penitent believing hearts: the message of the blood.
This punishment on the cross can cut to the quick and wound deeply, and I pray to God that it will cut and wound some of you, who spurn the saviour's grace and live in the hard slavery of sin.
You big, boastful men! You hard, sneering women! You smart, sophisticated young people, who think that you have outgrown the church of Jesus Christ; that the bible is only ancient history; that you can hush the saviour out of your lives; follow your own dictates and be responsible to no one but yourselves. As you behold Jesus bleeding for you, suffering for you, pleading for you, dying for you... May you be shaken from your security into a sense of terror over your sins, and gripped by a quaking fear for your soul. For then, when you accept the message of Christ, you have the glorious blessings that that saviour offers. With your redemption sealed in Christ, you have the blessed pledge that as long as you cling to Jesus, no mist or haze of uncertainty can enshroud your hereafter.
It is a lamentable truth that we have too much empty speculation in spiritual matters. Too many question marks. Too much guess-work in our modern creeds. But because Christianity is no "try it and see what happens" speculation, no theory subject to change, evolution or modification. Instead, the eternal, unchangeble, immovable truth of God completed at the cross, sealed in it's finality by the blood of the saviour. You need not cringe in fear of the future if you have Christ. You need not despair over the hereafter if you can call the crucified your ransom; your friend in life and death.
If our salvation were not completed; if there were still something to be done; some victory yet to be won, we would be lost in the labrynth of doubt. Because the son of God has performed every sacred act required for our redemption by the divine justice of his heavenly father, you and I, grasping the cross of Christ with the firm grip of faith are raised above the uncertainty which limits us to hoping, yearning, praying for our salvation! We have everlasting, time-defying, doubt-destroying assurance in these three words of golden truth, "IT IS FINISHED!"
Do not think that if you have Christ as your saviour, that the question of your redemption is still open to debate. It is closed, certified, infallible, unchangeable, it is the truth of truths, approved by the word, acknowledged by the father, attested by the spirit, glorified by the angels of heaven.
How marvelously faith in this complete salvation fortifies our lives and strengthens us for our troubles. Under the blessings of this finished faith, the eternal errorless word promises us, "Thou, o God, will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee." Perfect peace that triumphs over the dischord and the rankling hatreds of life. Perfect Peace! that can place a gleam of heavenly joy into eyes filled with tears. Perfect Peace! that enables us to look at life through the eyes of faith, who sees remarked the dark desperate days of our affliction when there seems to be no justice in earth or in heaven; no help in God or man. How all this, by the marvel of God's mercy has kept us closer to him and farther from sin. How in these blessed trials, he has purified and refined, sifted and strengthened our faith and given us that perfect peace which passes all understanding because it is built on a sealed, sure salvation.
What comfort for our lives we can take from this cry from Calvary, "It is Finished!"
Much of our human zeal is misplaced. Focus on the few, fleeting years that we live on earth, and only incidentally concerned about that which lies beyond the grave.
We like to learn how to live fully. We study how to live intelligently, gracefully, usefully, successfully. Our whole education is pointed towards the objective of teaching each generation how to live according to the best standards. Yet, we need to be taught how to die! The story of Calvary brings us that lesson. And the crucified saviour is our teacher.
When our last hour comes, if the eye of unfaltering faith is directed to him, if like the British essayist Addison we can ask our beloved ones and friends to gather about our bedside and tell them, "See how easy it is for a Christian to die?" then our departure will be blessed by a radiant prevision of eternal glory, where our saviour is no longer suspended upon the cross, but enthroned in his heavenly eternity repeats the cry, "It is Finished!" In the words of St. John's revelation, "It is done! I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end."
My fellow citizens, my fellow redeemed, let us ask God for the strength to live in this trusting faith, so that with St. Paul, as he awaited his end in the Roman prison, we too can say "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness."
O God grant us all not primarily money, honour, security, but the grace, likewise, to be found faithful to Christ and zealous in his service. Then his cry, "It is Finished!" will become a joyful "It has Begun!" in a better and blessed life, side by side with those who have gone before us in this faith. Face to face with our ever-blessed redeemer. God grant us that end, and that beginning, for our saviour's sake. Amen!
