It Is Finished # 1

It Is Finished # 1

John 19:30 "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar He said, "It is finished" and bowed His head and gave up the ghost"

I said last week that I'd attempt to talk to you on the three most important words, I believe, in history - IT IS FINISHED. This is one of the seven sayings, as we say, of the Lord Jesus on the Cross. Just three words - IT IS FINISHED.  The greatest Words ever uttered by the Greatest Man that ever lived.

In these three words I see the consummation of all the Old Testament truth and the germination of all New Testament truth.

I don't believe that ever in history, anywhere, at any time, by anybody, were three words more pregnant with meaning than these three words given by one Man at the end of His life - It is finished. It is finished.

Now supposing that you were here and I was where you are - How would you start to handle text like this? I feel as though I am trying to catch the wind in my arm. I am trying to pick up the Atlantic Ocean up in a sieve. How do I deal with it? Its magnitude staggers me, its mystery staggers me, its majesty staggers me.

It seems to me that here is a terminus in the life of the Lord Jesus: all the  prophesies, all the law, all the prophets, terminate in this saying of the Lord Jesus Christ. And everything from here blossoms out because that is the beginning of it all. Three simple words - it is finished.

I suggest to you in all reverence that these three words terrified hell! IT IS FINISHED!

You see, this English phrase of ours, this little sentence, is not in the Greek at all. And I don't know much about Greek, but I did discover that in the Greek it is just one word: FINISHED!

Matthew 27 says that Jesus cried with a loud voice: "FINISHED!" And I am sure all hell shook! You see, this is an arena into which Jesus is moving. You can say the life of Jesus was a three act drama. You get the first years of His life, 30 years in preparation for 3 years. The first chapter has been written, the second chapter is now coming to a climax on the Cross, the third chapter is yet to come in all His resurrection splendor

There is nothing to equal it anywhere!

I get indignant when I hear people say, "What we need to do is study comparative religion." Well, I say again with some heat and some feeling in my spirit, Christianity is not a comparative religion, it's a SUPERLATIVE religion! Because this one saying of Jesus Christ explodes every other religion on God's earth! They are all fakes! They are all useless. This momentous event ... I can see demons peeping out from hell as they see Jesus has gone to the Cross. I can see angels looking over the parapets of heaven, I can see the Jews and the Romans and the Greeks. They are all at the Cross! 

The Cross of Jesus...we sing the hymn -

"Beneath the Cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land,
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way."

Look, if you put the Cross on Palestine, like that, and let the arms go round, you can scoop them round the whole world, because geographically, the Cross is almost the center of the world. It is the center of time. When we shot a rocket, did we change the calendar? When we invented the atom bomb, did we change the calendar? Isn't it amazing a little Baby came into the world and He divided time? - He divided men - He divided nations. People say, "If we have revival we'll all be one." NO!! If we have revival we will be more divided than ever!

The first thing Jesus did before He could walk or talk was divide men. Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him." The last thing He did on the Cross was divide men. In His lifetime He divided men. He went into the Synagogue and there was a division because of Him. Wherever Jesus goes there is division.

And those demons were looking down in terror. Come on, come on, you've forgotten. Think again about the majesty of this event. You know how great it was? One of His other sayings was, "My God, my God why hast Thou forsaken Me?" In a tongue He knew so well, He says, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani." Which we can hardly interpret except: "My God, I am deserted." Everybody deserted Him. You see, there at that moment when Jesus said: "It is finished," Mercy and Truth met together, Righteousness and Peace kissed each other... and hell went into panic! How do I know? Because the earth was shattered. The whole earth rocked on it's axis. The earth trembled under the impact of the sin that He bore for us. Heaven trembled under the impact of the sin that He bore for us. Heaven trembled.... I've been to art galleries around the world, you've been in many I guess, you saw some beautiful pictures. But you know, there never was a photo of the Cross; it's representations are all imagination. That event was so sacred that, as it were, God took His coat off and hung it over the sun. And there was darkness for three hours. He would not let anybody see His Son become corruption.

Jesus Christ, in the mystery of God's divine grace, was, as Wesley says, God "contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man," in the incarnation. The heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. Yet, He clothed Himself in flesh and blood and crept into a woman's womb. How God became man I do not know, but less, less, less do I know HOW DID HE BECOME SIN?

You know the answer? No, you don't. Neither does any living person. Every man who's honest - take Spurgeon or anybody - the more honest the man is he, more he says, "I am baffled." As I get older I see more and more that, "great is the mystery of Godliness." I said to a brother today, "I feel that in spiritual matters, after 55 years walking with God, I don't have my feet wet, not even the sole underneath, never mind water to the ankles, or the knees, or the loins."

God has opened His treasure house to us. As I've used the phrase so often: Do we really explore the possibilities of God? What's the most exciting thing in your life? Don't answer me, answer straight up to God. Tell Him what is the most exciting thing. That you become more knowledgeable, make more money, become more fit? What is the most exciting thing to you? Is it that day by day you slip in to Him and worship and adore Him?

~Leonard Ravenhill~

(continued with # 2)

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