26th March 2024

The last words of Jesus from the cross: …‘finished’
  This is the sixth in a series of studies for the Easter Preparation season.

…Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’…
John 19:30 (NIVUK)

Jesus had just moistened his lips with the wine vinegar when he gathered up the last surge of energy and strength to give a victorious shout: tetelestai. It is just one word in Greek: finished. Tetelestai is in the perfect tense, which is significant because it describes ‘a completed action which produced results which are still in effect all the way up to the present’.¹ The past tense simply says something happened, but the perfect tense adds the idea that something happened and is still in effect today.

Throughout his gospel, John has been preparing us that Jesus will finish the task the Father has given him to do (John 4:34, 5:36, 17:4), but as we come to the cross what was finished and is still in effect today? Certainly, Jesus had fulfilled the Old Testament scriptures that pointed to him: “Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, [tetelestai] and so that Scripture would be fulfilled…Jesus said, ‘It is finished. [tetelestai]’ ” (John 19:28, 30). But supremely Jesus’s most important finished task was salvation for all humanity, as he said, ‘…I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ (John 12:32), and that everyone who believes will have eternal life in the Son of Man (John 3:14-15). 

As he approached death, Jesus did not say, ‘I am finished’ but ‘It is finished.’ It is the victorious cry of the Son of God accomplishing a task on our behalf that we could never achieve for ourselves. The ‘it’ Jesus perfectly completed, as scripture is fulfilled, is the salvation of humanity. The work of salvation that Jesus came to do was finished, totally complete. Jesus did not leave any unfinished business. It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present, and it will remain finished in the future. We are not asked by God to continue Jesus’s saving work and finish it for him. We cannot add to the work Jesus fully accomplished on the cross. All we can, and must do, is to believe it, and rely upon it.

As we meditate on Jesus’s death, we can be so grateful for this one word, tetelestai. It is good news not just for us but for all humanity who are included in what Jesus completed. Tetelestai is the Saviour’s victory cry to the finished work that endures throughout time, and for which we can all say ‘Amen’ 

Prayer
Loving Father, thank you for the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Help us to grasp that there is nothing we can add to his completed work, and may we rest in the salvation Jesus has won for us. In Jesus’s name, Amen. 

Study by Barry Robinson 

¹ Greek Tenses Explained – Ezra Project

About the writer:
Barry Robinson is a minister in Grace Communion International and Regional Pastor for Southern England, the Midlands, and Wales

Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA

Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm

Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church