What “It Is Finished” Really Means

While hanging on the cross, Jesus’ last words to the world were “It is finished” and then he died (John 19:30). I think for a long time, I just thought he was talking about the fact that his work on the cross was finished; the trial is over. His whole life and death is complete. But recently I began thinking more about what he accomplished on the cross.

My man Matthew Henry says that when Jesus declared this, “we may suppose him to say it with triumph and exultation.” I hadn’t considered it in that way before - that He was declaring something great and amazing and world-shattering.

Now, I don’t know WHY this is, but I realized I had made some assumptions most of my life about the work of Jesus on the cross. I had an understanding that there was a strong IF clause in place. Yes, Jesus died on the cross and your sins can be forgiven, IF you come to Him. I don’t know why I thought this, like I said, but there was a pervasive idea in my head that essentially the work of Christ was only done for you once you did something for Him. Almost like He was constantly re-doing the work every time someone came to him. Don’t take that too far now - I believe He was crucified one time only and that it worked totally, but I thought somehow that there was some small part of the transaction being completed only IF and WHEN you came to Jesus. Kind of like, it wasn’t for you until you showed him you were on his side. And the crazy thing is, I never realized I believed this until I began thinking about it this week. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, hmmm… I think I was thinking wrongly about this.

To begin describing my new understanding, here is what Matthew Henry also said: “It is finished, that is, the work of man’s redemption and salvation is now completed, at least the hardest part of the undertaking is over; a full satisfaction is made to the justice of God, a fatal blow given to the power of Satan, a fountain of grace opened that shall ever flow, a foundation of peace and happiness laid that shall never fail. Christ had now gone through with his work, and finished it.”

I read The Shack this weekend, by William Paul Young, and it was amazing.
But it has had an effect on my thoughts about Jesus’ death. My new understanding is that when He died on the cross, He literally died for the WHOLE world. Way beyond you and me - he died for serial killers, rapists, guys who beat their wives, drunk drivers who kill families in car accidents, even Hitler. Now, many of those people don’t end up in Heaven with Him - so I’m not saying that at all. But the work on the cross was completed only ONE TIME. That means it was for EVERYONE when it was done. Every single person has a multitude of sins and Jesus died for all of them. Why? Because He loves every person He’s ever made.

Why is this so huge for me? Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll try. See, before I had an understanding that was essentially exclusive. I think I took my string of thoughts to an extreme and figured, if your salvation isn’t complete until you come to Jesus, then He doesn’t like you until you do. You’re living still filthy in your sins, and he doesn’t like that. But that doesn’t make a lick of sense! Guess what? I’m living in his salvation right now, and I’m STILL filthy in my own sins. I still sin. So, he can’t possibly think differently of me than of a serial killer. God is love and God is eternal - therefore God is eternally loving. That death on the cross - that was for everyone, across the board, and all their sins are already forgiven. There’s nothing left to finish regarding that. The guy who doesn’t know or love Jesus who murders tomorrow - that sin is already paid for by Jesus.

I used to think that the main difference between “saved” people and “unsaved” people was the amount of sin in their lives. WRONG. How can you even measure the amount of sin in a life? I don’t think you can. Then what is the main difference between people with Jesus and people without Jesus? Just that - they don’t have Jesus, and therefore they don’t have life. People living apart from Jesus, they are missing out on real life! The people who are in relationship with Jesus, they still have sin, but they are learning to live real life in spite of it. They are learning to control their sin a bit better, so live in grace instead of under expectations - and they are finding the freedom that Jesus came to provide. I still live with sin, but not under the bondage of it.

I’m still thinking that I haven’t yet conveyed the entirety of why this is so big for me… This has made me think differently about God, which makes me think differently about the way I act too. I used to think God didn’t “like” people who were not in relationship with them. I believed he wanted that, but that until it happened, he kind of kept them at arm’s length. So, I did the same. But I don’t see it like that anymore. I believe God loves every single person on the planet, just as much as me, and he is active and working furiously to bring every single one of them into relationship with Him. He doesn’t have to worry about it when they do - their sins have already been paid for! He made sure of that on the cross. That part is already finished. But his biggest work now is bringing people to Himself - trying to give them that true life and freedom that is possible if they embrace Him and begin walking with Him. And it’s his goal for everyone. That should be my goal as well.

You might be thinking right now - well, you’re just talking about “evangelism” and, duh, we already knew we were supposed to be doing that. Well, sort of. I don’t want to use the word “evangelism” in my post because it has certain connotations and meanings that I may not intend for the purposes of this post. But yes, it is obvious for some people that we should be reaching out to everyone and trying to get them closer to God. I guess that was clear to me, but I had a hard time doing it because of my misunderstandings of the completeness of Christ’s work on the cross and God’s view of every person in the world. My new thoughts this week now make it easier for me to join in with Him - now that I understand that in God’s eyes, there’s no difference between me and anyone else. I thought I understood that, but evidently I didn’t quite grasp that before.

Maybe this is all obvious for you and you didn’t need to hear that. I’m glad. But there might be others out there like me who didn’t quite have a hold of that one yet. This post is for you.