"It is Finished!"
A Meditation on Christ's Dying Words
On this Good Friday, an excerpt from The Risen King - Day 38 - is over at Spurgeon.org, the official site of The Spurgeon Library.
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,”
and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. — John 19:30
“Let the day unfold in your minds. Christ is brought to the cross; he is nailed fast to the cruel wood. The sun burns him. His brutal wounds increase the fever....
At last, he cries, ‘It is finished!’ Christ dies.
Hear it, Christians. Hear this shout of triumph as it rings today with all the freshness and force which it had years ago! Hear it from the sacred Word and from the Savior’s lips, and may the Spirit of God open your ears that you may understand what you hear!
What did the Savior mean by ‘It is finished’? First, that all the emblems, promises, prophecies, and Old Testament sacrifices were now fully realized in him. All the Scripture was now fulfilled. When he said, ‘It is finished,’ the whole book—from the first to the last, in both the law and the prophets—was finished in him. There is not a single jewel of promise or prophecy, from that first emerald which fell on the threshold of Eden to that last sapphire stone of Malachi, which was not set in the breastplate of the true High Priest.”