It is Finished

One word in the Greek. Translated into three words in English. It came at the end of oppressive physical darkness, brought on by the Father. For three hours sin loomed large. Satan surely thought he had won. The evil work he started in the Garden of Eden was brought to a climax on the side of a street outside the city gate.

When God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden, God didn’t hole himself in the Garden. A thousand times no! Jesus left the comfort of heaven for the discomfort of earth and died outside the city gate so that we could enter the city gate. Through his death on the cross, he opened a way into the new Jerusalem, a city that will one day come down out of heaven, with twelve gates that never close! Heaven on earth.

How did Jesus accomplish such a remarkable feat? What was finished?

John Stott gives great insight about this:

Being in the perfect tense, it means “it has been and will for ever remain finished.” We note the achievement Jesus claimed just before he died. It is not men who finished their brutal deed; it is he who has accomplished what he came into the world to do. He has borne the sins of the world. Deliberately, freely and in perfect love he has endured the judgment in our place. He has procured salvation for us, established a new covenant between God and humankind, and made available the chief covenant blessing, the forgiveness of sins. At once the curtain of the temple, which for centuries had symbolized the alienation of sinners from God, was torn in two from top to bottom, in order to demonstrate that the sin barrier had been thrown down by God and the way into his presence opened.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ

The work of man does not last. It is temporary. The work of Jesus Christ lasts forever. Our punishment delivered to a sinless king. Thank you Jesus.