It is Finished
30 Days in John - day 26
In contrast to Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the crucifixion in “The Passion of the Christ,” the New Testament writers are restrained in the way they describe the event. Their restraint isn’t a matter of queasiness about the brutality of Jesus’ suffering. Instead, it is their conscience effort to keep the focus on the meaning of His death.
John is clear about that. He tells us in the next chapter that he could have said much more, but he chose certain things to write so that we “might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing [we might] have life in his name.” (John 20:29)
So, when John tells us that the last word that Jesus spoke before His death was, “It is finished,” he wasn’t just conveying historical/biographical information. He was telling us something meaningful.
While in English, we read it in three words, it was only one in Greek – Tetelestai.
What did Jesus mean when He spoke that word?
In Jesus’ day, tetelestai could have been used in several different ways. A servant might have used it to say they had completed the task assigned to them by their master. After examining a sacrificial animal, a priest might use to to indicate the sacrifice was acceptable.
Tetelestai could have also been used by an artist or writer to indicate they had completed their painting or manuscript. Most notably, a merchant would say tetelestai when a debt had been paid or a transaction was completed. It would have been equivalent to saying, “the price has been paid.”
John leaves it to us to understand how Jesus meant it when He spoke it before He “bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” But it doesn’t seem implausible to think that all of those nuances of meaning are tied to Jesus’ final word.
For, when Jesus died he finished the redemptive work the Father sent Him to do. He was the perfect Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. His death was the masterstroke of the artistry or God and the climatic moment in the story of God. Most of all, it was the moment when the debt of sin we owed was wiped clean because Jesus paid it all.
Thank God, it is finished for all who believe in Jesus.
