A FINISHED PORTRAIT
THE 52 GREATEST STORIES OF THE BIBLE • Sermon • Submitted
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In his book The Secret Life of Pronouns, social psychologist James Pennebaker has spent years researching the significance of our words. With a team of grad students, he developed a sophisticated computer program that analyzes what our words say about us. Based on his research, Pennebaker claims that the words we generate over a lifetime are like "fingerprints." Even small words, or what he calls "stealth words"—like pronouns (such as I, you, we, they) and prepositions (to, for, over)—"broadcast the kind of people we are."
As a simple example of his research, Pennebaker analyzed the typical tweets of four celebrities:
Paris Hilton: "Good morning everyone! Have a fabulous day! Xoxo Paris:)"
Michelangelo: the name brings to our mind great artistry, architecture, and sculpture. To say his name is to be reminded of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican at Rome. Yet time and again he left that work, tiring of it, to return to his beloved and native Florence—only to be coaxed back by the Pope, insisting that he finish that work. When we think of his name, we think of those statues of Moses or David. What we may not remember, however, is that he left far more works unfinished than finished. In the sacristy of a church in Florence, the unfinished masterpieces of Michelangelo were gathered together, and by count, he left more works unfinished than complete.
John McCain: "went to the mountains above Beirut yesterday to meet with Walid Jumblatt—the leader of the Druze—fascinating experience."
In my study at home, I keep a picture of the desk of the late and great Dr. A. T. Robertson, perhaps the most famous and influential scholar the Southern Baptist people ever produced. It was a photograph taken of his desk the day he died. Our senior pastor and others in his class were there on that occasion, on September 23, 1934, when he walked into his senior class in the Greek New Testament at 3:00 in the afternoon. Thirty minutes into the class he was stricken, and two hours later he was taken. When they looked at the rudiments that were left on his desk, they found he had begun the masterwork of his life: a translation of the New Testament bearing his own name. He had translated as far as the feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew's Gospel, and then he was taken, leaving across his desk unfinished notes, manuscripts, and papers.
Oprah Winfrey: "Hanging with friends—"Pom martinis—getting ready to watch Xmas special. 10 eastern 9 central. Going caroling afterward!"
Lady Gaga: "time to drink a bottle of wine and sketch for the new tour. St.louis was brilliant. There's eyeliner on my knee, and blood on my elbow. Shady."
Pennebaker knows that on one level, "Paris Hilton is simply calling out a greeting. John McCain is describing meeting an important person in Lebanon. Oprah Winfrey tells us about her plans for the evening. Lady Gaga wants us to know … [about] her new tour."
The world-famous Cecil Rhodes, whose name was known across the continent, said as his last words, "So much to do, so little done."
But as an experienced scientist and researcher, Pennebaker also makes the following observations about these celebrities' word-fingerprints:
Hilton is relentlessly upbeat with her exclamation points and emoticons. McCain works to impress his readers with his big words and worldliness. Winfrey, the consummate salesperson, drops what time the Christmas special (which is actually her Christmas special) will air. Lady Gaga conveys that she is a bit wild but also thoughtful, but judging by her use of pronouns, somewhat prone to depression.
We've read the mighty, triumphant shout of Jesus from the cross: "It is finished."
Based on his research, we don't randomly choose our words; instead, words reveal the condition of our hearts. Or as Pennebaker says, words act like "powerful tools to excavate people's thoughts, feelings, motivations, and connections with others."
Long before Pennebaker’s research Jesus, the knower of hearts, taught that our mouth conveys the contents our hearts.
What do you suppose the most significant word in human history might be? Was a word of wisdom uttered by a philosopher, Aristotle or Socrates? Was it spoken by a poet who—in perfect rhyme and meter—arrived at just the right word? Was it spoken by a statesman, Churchill or Roosevelt? Or was it this word, which Jesus cried out from the Cross that has baffled and inspired for the ages: "It is finished"?
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
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Words are brush strokes on the canvas of our self portrait. They paint with clarity and without bias a portrait of our real identity. If we are what we eat then we are definitely what we speak. There are no slips of tongue but small revelations of our real identity.
The Gospel writers record 31,426 words of Christ. Each word a stroke revealing more and more of who Christ was and what he came to do. Today’s text allows us to see the see the final stroke of Christ unfinished portrait. His final word will complete the final stroke of His masterpiece.
Today’s text allows us to see the see the final stroke of Christ unfinished portrait. His final word will complete the final stroke of His masterpiece.
Christ did not end his life with a lengthy discourse or a short pithy saying but one word. Our English translation of the Scripture stretches this word, tetelestai, one into three, “it is finished”.
When a task has been accomplished a word, though brief, is sufficient. When a task is done it is enough to say “Finished”. It was a word of brevity and a word of intensity.
Remember Caesar's famous three-word message? Veni, vidi, vici. "I came, I saw, I conquered." It was enough to be said; it was a word of brevity and a word of intensity.
His final word according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospels, was shouted. It was the shout of success. It was the cry of completion. It was the vociferation of victory. It was the roar of the redeemer.
Though this word is compact it is worthy of our unpacking. Let’s buckle down for a moment and look at this word grammatically. This word tetelestai is a third person, singular, perfect, passive, indicative verb. It is in the grammar where we will find the gospel.
It is a third person singular, which means Jesus was not speaking of himself but of something else when he said, "It is finished." He did not say, "I am finished."
He said in the third person singular, "It is finished." He had in mind something of significance that was stated poignantly in the perfect tense of the Greek language, which indicates that a mighty act had been achieved and the results of it would abide. It was as if someone had chiseled these words into some kind of marble or granite that time could never efface. "It is finished."
But that's not the significance of this word. He did not say in the first person, "I am finished." He said in the third person singular, "It is finished." He had in mind something of significance that was stated poignantly in the perfect tense of the Greek language, which indicates that a mighty act had been achieved and the results of it would abide. It was as if someone had stepped in wet cement that hardened and left a footprint—as if these words had been chiseled for all time into some kind of marble or granite that time could never efface. "It is finished."
It was spoken in the indicative, which is certainty. Had there been any question about it, he might have said in the subjunctive, "It may be finished, it should be finished." Yet it was with a shout of triumph and certitude, he said, "It is finished."
Not only that, but that passive voice indicates that he had been acted upon by some great intention, some great force. He did not say, "I finished it." Putting that mighty deed out there, he said, "It is finished." It has been acted upon by the purposes of God—by the types, the symbols, the promises, and the prophecies of the Old Testament—and "it is finished."
The verb, tetelestai in the third person, singular, perfect, passive, indicative collects, in one word, the mighty sweep of God in history.
The noun of that verb is the word teles: it gives us words such as telephone, telegraph, television. It has about it the sense of that which has reached its goal, that which has come to ripen to maturity, that which has come to full completion. A telephone delivers a message in sound to its desired destination, a telegraph delivers a message encoded, and a television delivers a message in picture. When Jesus said, "Tetelestai," he was saying, "I have finished the right purposes of God and they have now been delivered to their appropriate and full intention."
In the 19th-century Egypt, pieces of papyrus that dated from the time of the New Testament were discovered by Adolf Deissmann and others. They were business papers, correspondence, real estate papers, papers from the marketplace of life. Further study of the preserved papyrus revealed insights dismissed previously held ideas. Scholars discovered that the Greek of the New Testament was not some special and sacred form of Greek but the language of the marketplace, the common language. Furthermore, the papyrus unlocked the meaning of the word tetelestai from today’s text. Research discovered this word on documents indicating that a deed had been signed, that a transaction had been completed.
As they began to look through these papyri, these pieces of plant on which had been written the very kind of language in the New Testament, they began to discover the same words that you have in the New Testament. Up to that time, it had been thought that the New Testament was written in some kind of special, holy, sacred form of Greek, because it was unlike other known Greek. As they study these papyri they realized Scripture was not written in some sacred form of Greek but in the language of the marketplace, the common language. Further study uncovered our word from today’s text: tetelestai. They found this word on documents indicating that a deed had been signed, that a transaction had been completed.
There is a sense in which the whole of the Old Testament was a deed waiting to be signed. When Jesus said, "It is finished," it was as if he took the 39 books of that old covenant and wrote across them the name "Messiah," "Christ," FINISHED!”
Further excavation revealed more depth to this already rich word. Tetelestai was used to sign receipts after a business transaction. There in the marketplace, when a debt was paid in full, they wrote tetelestai: it is complete, it is paid.
What is finished?
What is finished?
What did our Lord say in the midst of his ministry?
THE PAIN OF HIS SUFFERING
THE PAIN OF HIS SUFFERING
HE SUFFERED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF SIN.
HE SUFFERED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF SIN.
HE SUFFERED UNDER THE WRATH OF GOD.
HE SUFFERED UNDER THE WRATH OF GOD.
To try to unpack a word like that makes me feel so trivial and so unable, so lacking to speak of it. At that very moment, Jesus must surely have meant that which he was suffering was finished. When he was born, his mother Mary was told by that old man in the temple, Simeon, that her own heart was going to be pierced by what would happen to the baby she held there in anticipation.
Jesus must surely have meant that which he was suffering was finished. When he was born, his mother Mary was told by Simeon, that her heart was going to be pierced by what would happen to the baby she held.
He lived his life with an ever present yet invisible hourglass counting down to that hour. It was that hour that oft spoke. It was in Cana of Galilee, at a wedding, that he first spoke of this hour. It was at this wedding that Christ preformed his first recorded miracle. Christ took bath water, bland H20 and converted it into the best vintage wine.
He would refer to this hour three times in concerning his refusal to enter the death trap known as Judea.
He would again use this phrase as he enters the upper room. The hourglass near empty. The final grains of sand falling. Only moments of life left and there we see him gathered with his followers.
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
From there he moves to the final moment in with his Father.
From there he moves to the final moment in John
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
It was this ever present hour that dictated his ministry. It was his sovereign guidance. The hour had arrived. Heaven’s hourglass was empty. The Day of Destiny had arrived. That which was slain in eternity past is about to be slain in eternity present. You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sin. There can be no crown without a cross. Suffering must be endured. A Man of Sorrow he must be.
he said All the days of his life, did he not speak of his hour, as if he saw some iItvisible hourglass hovering there? He said it at Cana: "My hour has not come." Like the striking of a clock, he said, "My hour has not come, my hour has not come." He lived as a man knowing that over his head there hung some awesome hour that he would face. At the very early part of his ministry, he spoke of the time when the bridegroom would be taken away and the disciples would be saddened. Six months before the cross, he began to predict to them—in those passionate sayings—that the Son of Man must go up to Jerusalem, must be arrested, must die, and must be raised.
You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sin. There can be no crown without a cross. Suffering must be endured. A Man of Sorrow he must be.
Before we examine our next truth let me reassure you of this truth. Though he died a criminals death he did not suffer like a criminal. Criminal’s suffered like the one recorded in Luke gospel
Criminal’s suffered like the one recorded in Luke gospel
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
Luke 23:
Criminal’s are narcissistic. They seek only their relief. Christ suffered seeking the redemption of others. When he cried “it is finished” he was not saying that suffering had finished him. He was emphatically proclaiming that he had finished suffering.
When we look at the Cross as the only suffering, we mistake the ministry of Jesus. Some of us cringe if we have to wait to go to the dentist next week. If we await a surgical operation that we know is on the calendar, it hangs over our heads. Here was the Son of Man, the Son of God, who lived out his life in ministry knowing that moment was coming, and all of that was bound up in that final triumphant cry of "It is finished."
THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION WAS FINISHED
THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION WAS FINISHED
Jesus therefore did not go to the cross because fickle people turned on Him, though they did. He did not go to the cross because demon-deceived false religious leaders plotted His death, though they did. He did not go to the cross because Judas betrayed Him, though he did. He did not die because an angry, unruly mob intimidated a Roman governor into sentencing Him to crucifixion, though they did. Jesus went to the cross as the outworking of God’s plan to reconcile sinners to Himself. In the first Christian sermon ever preached, Peter declared to the nation of Israel that Jesus was “delivered over [to death] by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God”
Only God could design an atonement for sin that would satisfy the demands of His justice, propitiate His wrath, and be consistent with His love, grace, and mercy. Only God could conceive the plan in which the second person of the Trinity would, “being found in appearance as a man, [humble] Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (). Only God knew what it would take to rescue sinners “from the domain of darkness, and [transfer them] to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (), making them “qualified … to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light” (). Only God knew how to make sinners deserving of hell acceptable in His sight and fit to spend eternity in His presence. Therefore, only God could author and execute the plan of redemption and reconcile sinners to Himself.
This divine plan was expressed in the Old Testament by types, symbols, emblems, and institutions.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2003). 2 Corinthians (p. 212). Chicago: Moody Publishers.
In Christ great inaugural manifest - the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus said
But he also meant that all of the types, symbols, emblems, and the institutions of the Old Testament—the priesthood, the temple, the altar, the sacrifice, all of it—were finished. In —the Sermon on the Mount, his great inaugural manifesto—Jesus defined his relationship to everything God had done before him, saying, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." What he meant by that is that every type and every symbol in the Old Testament would find its antitype and its substance in him. What he meant by that was every promise that predicted his coming would find its fulfillment in him. Every priest who had come to that altar and tabernacle and temple would find his ultimate fulfillment in the Great High Priest.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
What he meant by that is that every type and every symbol in the Old Testament would find its antitype and its substance in him. What he meant by that was every promise that predicted his coming would find its fulfillment in him. Every priest who had come to that altar, tabernacle, and temple would find his ultimate fulfillment in the Great High Priest.
priesthood, the temple, the altar, the sacrifice, all of it—were finished. In —the Sermon on the Mount, his great inaugural manifesto—Jesus defined his relationship to everything God had done before him, saying, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." What he meant by that is that every type and every symbol in the Old Testament would find its antitype and its substance in him. What he meant by that was every promise that predicted his coming would find its fulfillment in him. Every priest who had come to that altar and tabernacle and temple would find his ultimate fulfillment in the Great High Priest.
Church it is an amazing work of God that all of his promises, prophecies, and types which are so diverse could be accomplished in one person. Sequester the world’s wisest men in one room for eternity and they still could not create such character. Our imaginations are not great enough to create one of such complexity and completeness.
He must be a prophet like Moses and yet a champion like Joshua. He must be both Aaron and a Melchizedek. He must be David, Solomon, Noah, Jonah, Judah, and Joseph.
Furthermore, he must not only be the lamb that was slain but the scapegoat that was not slain. He must the be the turtledove dipped in blood and the priest who slew the bird. He must the be altar, tabernacle, mercy seat, and showbread.
If that wasn’t difficult enough there are still the prophecies. He is one that ‘all kings shall fall down before him and all nations shall serve him,” and yet “He is despised and rejected of men.” He is a man born of a virgin mother, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” He must be a man without spot or blemish, but yet one upon whom the Lord places on him the iniquities of us all. He must be a glorious one, a Son of David, but yet a root out of a dry ground.
The complexity is to profound for any person to put forth a worthy candidate. Therefore, God puts forth Christ. He is the summation of everything. He is the finished work of the Old Testament therefore only he can say “It is finished”.
In Him, we see everything fulfilled , which God spoke of by the prophets. In Him, we discover everything carried out in substance, which God had set before us in the dim mist of sacrificial smoke. Glory be unto Your name! “It is finished”—everything is summed up in You.
Nay, to puzzle this wise man further, we remind him of prophecies so apparently contradictory, that one would think they never could meet in one man. Such as these, “All kings shall fall down before him and all nations shall serve him,” and yet “He is despised and rejected of men.” He must begin by showing a man born of a virgin mother, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” He must be a man without spot or blemish, but yet one upon whom the Lord does cause to meet the iniquities of us all. He must be a glorious one, a Son of David, but yet a root out of a dry ground. Now, I say it boldly, if all the greatest intellects of all the ages could set themselves to work out this problem, to invent another key to the types and prophecies, they could not do it. I see you, you wise men, you are poring over these hieroglyphs. One suggests one key and it opens two or three of the figures, but you cannot proceed, for the next one puts you at a perplexity. Another learned man suggests another clue, but that fails most where it is most needed, and another, and another, and thus, these wondrous hieroglyphs, traced of old by Moses in the wilderness, must be left unexplained, till one comes forward and proclaims, “The cross of Christ and the Son of God incarnate,” then the whole is clear, so that he that runs may read, and a child may understand. Blessed Savior! In You, we see everything fulfilled which God spoke of in old by the prophets. In You, we discover everything carried out in substance, which God had set before us in the dim mist of sacrificial smoke. Glory be unto Your name! “It is finished”—everything is summed up in You.
THE PAYMENT OF REDEMPTION WAS FINISHED
THE PAYMENT OF REDEMPTION WAS FINISHED
When you visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, a painting hangs on a wall there with an inscription that reads Ha megalos archiereas—the Great High Priest. That bloody trail of the sacrificial victims—every lamb, goat, and bull, everything that had been offered in that river of blood flowing from the tabernacle and temple—flowed right up to that cross when he cried out, "It is finished." It was as if every promise were a spring compressed, about to spring like a rubber band stretched, about to break, and all humanity was agape and agog with expectancy for the day when it would be cried out, "It is finished."
Go with me for a moment in your imagination to heaven. Imagine those pre-flood saints such a Adam, Eve, and Abel looking done upon the earth. They see Abraham stand in awe of God revealing Christ to Abraham in the person of Isaac. They gaze, like angels do, at the mystery of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They see smoking altars, reminding them that man is guilty and the spirits before the throne say, “Lord, when will sacrifices finish?—when will the bloodshed end?”
They gaze just as the angels do, desiring to look into the mystery. From the times of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they see altars smoking, recognition of the fact that man is guilty and the spirits before the throne say, “Lord, when will sacrifices finish?—when will the bloodshed end?”
There is no end to bloodshed in the O.T. only increase. Aaron, the high priests, and the Levites offer a lamb every morning and every evening while greater sacrifices are offered on special occasions.
Bullocks groan, rams bleed, the necks of doves are wrung and all the while the saints are crying, “How long, O Lord.” Year after year the high priest goes within the veil and sprinkles the mercy-seat with blood; the next year sees him do the like, and the next, and again, and again, and again. David offers 100, Solomon slaughters tens of thousands, Josiah gives thousands of well fed beasts, and the spirits of the just say, “Will it never be complete?—will the sacrifice never be finished?—must there always be a remembrance of sin?—will not the last High Priest soon come? Heaven responds in silence. Not a word for 400 years. No prophets. No preachers. Nothing but silence.
Listen, do you hear it? Its a voice crying from the wilderness; “make way it is the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world”.
Come close and hear it once again, tetelestai. Not only has he fulfilled the Old Covenant but He has come to finalize the New Covenant.
What is finished? The ransom had been paid. Jesus paid it all!
It is finished. Jesus propitiated or satisfied Heaven’s judicial system. An eternal sentence carried out in a compressed three hours. The cup of God wrath finished not a dreg left for those who would repent.
If you don’t submit your life to the finished work of Christ you will never experience the finished life. There remains one declaration for which every Christian awaits; “well done my good and faithful servant enter into your rest”. The unfinished life is sent to eternally live under what Christ finished. The unfinished life will spend eternity paying for their sin. The unfinished life will never hear, “it is finished”, for an eternity in hell can never satisfy all that the law demands.
All to Him I owe
Looking about, though, I wonder if there were not a word about sin and the works of the adversary, the devil, Satan himself. From the time of the temptation of the first pair to this very night, every one of us knows the sting of defeat. We know the alluring seduction of temptation. We know the vacillating weakness of our own will. We look back and see the guilt of the past, and we sense in the present the powerlessness of our own life apart from the mighty power of God. You look around yourself: in this city, you see the works of the adversary up and down every boulevard and street. In every neighborhood and home, you see there the shadow of the accuser, the slanderer, the enemy of our souls.
Little wonder that it was said in : "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work." What was meant by that is that on that cross, underneath his pierced feet, Jesus was crushing the head of the Serpent. As one said to me so many years ago, "If he is dead, he sure looks alive." Yet from that moment, it is our belief that Jesus struck the blow that will ultimately render inoperative the great enemy of our souls, and in this age of the church, we are seeing the final display of the powers of darkness. But when he comes again in the shout of victory in the tribulation, chained will be the Enemy, and we will see the truth of the cry, "It is finished."
Jesus' audience
Jesus' audience
This word was spoken, but to whom was it spoken? To whom did he cry it out? Did he not cry it out to God the Father himself? Who could imagine that hour when the eternal Word of God stood from his regal seat and as a glad volunteer said to the Father, "I lay down my life, no one takes it from me"? The word from the Father came down to the Jordan: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." When was that? Was it not when Jesus laid aside the splendor of the eternal Word of God and came to the crèche of Bethlehem, to be born there and walk among us? At the Transfiguration, that voice thundered again from heaven to earth, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" Now there echoes back from Earth to heaven the word of affirmation from the Son to the Father: "It is finished."
But was it not also spoken to those unseen angelic hosts gathered around the Cross? The Word says that he had at his call legions of angels. Who could even imagine it? Seraphim, cherubim, burning spirits, divine agents. It seems as if the Bible suggests they were almost restrained from intervening as the Son of God bled to death on the Cross. Was it not to those restrained celestial creatures that he cried out, "It is finished"?
But there were also those more interested than any others; those Old Testament believers who, one by one, had been gathered into the bosom of Abraham. When the blood of Jesus fell on Golgotha, leaving its crimson stain, those droplets of blood must have cried out to the green grass alongside Calvary, and the grass to the trees lifted toward heaven, and the trees to the songbirds, and as those birds circled to high heaven above: "It is finished." I wonder what was heard there when Father Abraham heard that word and whispered to his son Isaac, "That for which I took you to Mount Moriah in symbol is finished." Isaac said to Jacob, "We are told it is finished." Jacob said to Joseph, "It is finished." Joseph to those, "It is finished." All of heaven rang with the affirmation—"It is finished"—and they began to prepare to fall down before the throne and say, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." What a resounding sound must have gone through the rank and file of those Old Testament believers who were there on credit. Can you imagine the interest they had in that Cross with every flinch of the Savior, lest he come down and it not be finished?
I wonder if that cry wasn't uttered toward hell itself, where the adversary had to cover his very ears: the one who, from the gates of Eden had let loose the hounds of hell to stop the purposes of God. The one who had animated Herod the Great to butcher the infants in Bethlehem, the one who had tried to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, the one who had tried to slay him in the very Garden of Gethsemane, lest he bleed to death before the Cross. I wonder if he didn't hear that shout of triumph, "It is finished."
HOW DO WE KNOW IT IS FINISHED?
HOW DO WE KNOW IT IS FINISHED?
How do we know it's finished? It could be said, "It is finished," but how do we know it? The ripped veil cries out, "It is finished." Matthew, who is Jewish, wrote in his Gospel that at that same moment, the veil—60 feet long, Josephus says, heavy with embroidery, hung on acacia wood covered with gold—was torn from the top to the bottom. Can you imagine that sleepy-eyed priest on 15th Nisan, who walked in to go through his desultory ministrations and suddenly turned to see that the veil was torn from top to bottom? He must have run out in a holy terror and said church was never like this. It is finished because the veil was ripped.
It is finished because of the vindicating resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. If his body had turned to dust in some unmarked Palestinian sepulcher, we would have had no vindicating assurance. But the book of Romans opens with triumphant words, that Jesus was proved and attested to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection. Then he was exalted to the right hand of the Father. It is finished.
Another affirmation is the shedding forth of the Holy Spirit on the church of the living God. Before Jesus left, he said to wait for the promise of the Father. What if those 120 had gathered in that upper room praying, "Oh, God, send the promise," and nothing had come? He would have been finished: just another wandering Hebrew rabbi, an intertestamental figure. Who knows what would have happened? Nothing. But on that day, 50 days after, there came the sound of the echo of a rushing mighty wind and cloven tongues of fire, and it was the affirmation of the truth of his statement: "It is finished."
WHAT DO WE DO NOW THAT IT IS FINISHED?
WHAT DO WE DO NOW THAT IT IS FINISHED?
PRAISE
PRAISE
Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. This doesn’t mean that Jesus is looking for payment but praise.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
PARTICIPATION
PARTICIPATION
Our gathering at this table is an abiding reminder. It is finished. Our participation is not a ritual but a reminder. A reminder of the pain, plan, and payment of our redemption. Communion is a weekly renewal of our commitment by pondering our position But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, and by proclaiming our possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
SCRIPTURE: