It Is Finished

Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

John 19:28-30 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. ³⁰ When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

INTRODUCTION

All by itself, the headline, “Man killed in the Middle East,” is sad, but not particularly newsworthy. If you were to add the word “Innocent” to it (Innocent man killed in the Middle East), that certainly ups the interest level. Now if we add another clarifying clause, “Innocent man killed in the Middle East, saving a school full of children,” we’re on another level entirely. In the first case, the headline is tragic and tragically common. In the last case, the headline is tragic, rare, and exceedingly honorable.

But what if we were to take it to another level still? What if the headline was, “Perfectly innocent, eternal, God-man killed in the Middle East, saving a school full of children from their sins and reconciling them to God, and all according to the plan of God, revealed to the world in many ways over many centuries.

As I mentioned last Sunday, there is a great deal of theology wrapped up in the crucifixion of Jesus. What does that mean? It means that Jesus’ death on the cross is not like the first example, but the fourth. It means that Jesus’ death on the cross was anything but a simple story of another in a very long line of men killed by the Roman empire. It means that our passage is more than a mere historical event. It is jam packed with spiritual significance.

In order to help you see the spiritual significance and rich theology of the crucifixion, in order to help you to see a fuller measure of the amazing grace of God in it, in order to fuel greater obedience and worship, I mean to zoom out quite a bit from this passage before focusing back in on it.

Practically speaking, we’re going to begin by briefly considering the four interpretive (hopefully somewhat familiar) questions we need to ask every time we come to a passage in the Bible. Then, second, we’re going to look more closely at the third interpretive question. And finally, third, we’re going to examine our passage in light of each of those things.

In all of that we’ll see that the big idea of this passage is that Jesus died to accomplish the centerpiece of God’s eternal plan of redemption.. And the main takeaway is to be amazed by the magnitude of the sovereign grace of God such that obedience and worship flow with increasing freeness.

FOUR INTERPRETIVE QUESTIONS AND THE CROSS

For years, we’ve tried to help you all understand that there are four questions we need to ask every time we read a passage in the Bible. Grace, it’s critical for all of us to understand that our confidence in our understanding of the passage ought to be directly related to the fullness with which we are able to answer those questions of the passage. This is always the case, but it is especially the case for passages as significant as ours.

What Was the Author’s Original Intent?

The first question we need to ask of any passage is what the author’s original intent was when he wrote it? Or, in other words, we need to ask what the author was trying to communicate to his first readers? What did he want them to understand from his words?

This shouldn’t be controversial. When you write a letter to someone, it means what you meant it to mean. Of course, it is a good idea to give thought to how they might interpret it, but the key to the letter is what you intended when you wrote it. That should be the main focus of whoever reads it.

In the most basic terms, John’s primary intent in our passage for today is to communicate the facts that (1) Jesus was crucified, (2) It was the fulfillment of prophecy, and (3) It brought to completion something of great significance. If we don’t start here, we will inevitably end up understanding and applying it wrongly.

How Does this Passage Fit in the Larger Story of the Book it’s in?

The second question we need to ask is how the author’s intent in any given passage fits into his larger purpose of the book it is in. Every biblical author wrote to accomplish a particular aim and we need to know what that is, so that we can understand how each passage helps accomplish that.

As we’ve seen many times already, John explicitly tells us the larger purpose of his Gospel, “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). In other words, John was very intentional in selecting which aspects of Jesus’ life and ministry he recorded in his Gospel; namely, those which were most likely to cause his readers to believe that Jesus is the long-promised Christ, so that his readers might have fullness of eternal life.

Again, in the most straight-forward terms, our passage for this morning fits within the larger story of John in that it is one of the two primary pieces of evidence John has to offer concerning the Christness of Jesus (the other being the resurrection). In that way, our passage is at the very center of the larger story of John’s Gospel.

How Does this Passage Fit in the Larger Story of the Whole Bible?

The third question we need to ask every time we read a passage is how it fits into the whole story of the Bible. I’m exceedingly glad to tell any of you who don’t already know it: The Bible is made up of a bunch of individual books, all written for particular purposes, by particular authors, and to particular people (last question), but by God’s design, they collectively tell one grand story (the biggest story, as one author calls it).

There are many story lines in the Bible, but only one main story. If we are to truly understand any individual passage in the Bible, we must be careful to not only focus on the author’s original meaning and its place in the book that contains it, but also where it fits in—how it contributes to—that one main story of the whole Bible.

Answering that question is a key component of what we call biblical theology. That’s where we’re going to turn to next (after looking at the fourth interpretive question), so we’ll come back to what it means for our passage later.

How Does this Passage Apply to the Church Today?

Finally, and only finally, can we answer the question of what the passage we’re studying has to do with the Church today. Another way to phrase the question is: How do Christians rightly apply this passage in our present context? Sometimes we do so in exactly the same way as the first readers and sometimes we need to apply it differently, but we always need to apply it, and we always need to be careful to apply it as God would have us.

For instance, my favorite, Deuteronomy 14:21 says, “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” Throughout the time of the Mosaic covenant, it meant exactly that. God’s people were literally prohibited from boiling baby goats in the milk produced by their mothers. That was a pagan fertility ritual and God forbade His people from practicing it.

I’ve never known anyone who was even mildly tempted to do that today, and I can’t think of any legitimate alternative reason someone would want to, but the principle still stands. God alone is the one who opens and closes wombs, and His people must not believe or act in ways that deny that. More broadly speaking, an important application of this passage for the church today is that we should never put our ultimate trust in anyone or anything else to do what God alone can do—give life, heal, forgive, restore, protect, etc.

This too we’ll come back to at the end for our passage in relation to John 19:28-30.

What was the author’s original intent? How does that help accomplish his larger purpose in writing what he wrote? How does that contribute to the big storyline of the whole Bible? And how, then, should we apply the passage today? We need to answer all four question and in that order.

With that, as I mentioned at the beginning, let’s zoom way out and consider the third question more closely.

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND THE CROSS

The first and second interpretive questions are based on the fact that there is genuine diversity in every book of the Bible. That is, once again, each book of the Bible was written by a particular author, at a particular time, to a particular people, and for a particular purpose. At the same time, the third interpretive question is based on the fact that there is genuine unity in all of the books of the Bible. That is, all of the diverse biblical books combined tell one grand story. Broadly speaking, studying the diversity of each passage is called exegesis. Studying the unity of all the passages is called biblical theology.

A danger in carefully studying the diversity of scripture, is that it can swallow up our sense of the unity of scripture. The more we focus on the genuine uniqueness of each author, context, purpose, book, paragraph, sentence, and word, the harder it can be to see the unifying whole. Likewise, a danger in carefully studying the unity of scripture, is that it can swallow up our sense of scripture’s diversity. The more we focus on the big story, the less the author’s original intent in any passage seems to matter.

Good students of the Bible accept both the glory of the unity and diversity of God’s Word and refuse to allow either to swallow or overwhelm the other. To rightly understand any individual passage, we need to see it in light of the whole, and a right understanding of the whole story can only come from proper interpretation of individual books and passages.

In order to help you grasp the fullness of the significance of Jesus’ final words, “It is finished,” we need to get our heads around when it started, how it got there, and where it’s going. In other words, to make the most sense of our passage, we need to answer the third interpretative question for it. That is, we need to do a bit of biblical theology. But in order to answer the question of how John 19:28-30 fits into the overall storyline of the Bible, we need to know the overall storyline of the Bible.

There are other ways to explain it, but broadly speaking, the Bible’s story consists of four main scenes: Creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Let’s consider each before returning to our text, as a part of the means of best understanding and applying our text.

Creation

The first scene in the overall story of the Bible begins at the very beginning, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). A bit later we are told that all that God made was “very good” (1:31). The beginning of the big story told by the 66 books of the Bible collectively is God’s creation of the universe and all that is in it.

We will never be able to make real sense of any passage in the Bible or any aspect of our lives apart from this. The fact that God is the holy creator, sustainer, and king of all that exists is the foundation of all reality. It is the sypher that unlocks the mystery of every big question in life.

It is because God is uniquely these things that He has the unique authority to assign meaning and purpose to all things, including all mankind. It is only because God is uniquely these things that gender, marriage, and justice are real, unalterable things. It’s the only reason that lying, stealing, and murder are objectively wrong. And it’s the only reason that we have real meaning, purpose, and value as human beings.

At the same time, it is because God alone is these things that He alone determines the rewards for living consistently with them and consequences for failing to do so. No matter how confidently we proclaim otherwise, the opening scene of the story of the Bible tells us that God is God and we are not.

In the beginning God dwelt with man and man with God in perfect order, harmony, provision, and fellowship.

The Genesis/creation story was clearly ringing in John’s ears as he wrote his Gospel. As you probably recall, John purposefully began his Gospel with the words of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Making sense of our passage for this morning includes the understanding that the Jesus who was being crucified in John 19:28-30 was with God at creation, because He is God, and that creation was made through Him and exists for Him.

In other words, a huge part of the significance of our passage concerns the fact that Jesus was no ordinary man. His was allowing His own creation to murder Him with His own creation. But why? That leads to the next scene.

Fall

Tragically, the state of perfect order, harmony, provision, and fellowship didn’t last long. In the Garden, there was one rule and one consequence for breaking that rule, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).

The second scene of the Bible’s story begins in the third chapter of the first book of the Bible. By that point, the first people broke the only command. Succumbing to the temptation of the devil, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and suffered its consequences (immediate spiritual death and eventual physical death). This has been called “The Fall”. In addition to the death promised, they were filled with shame and blame and their corruption spread to all creation (Genesis 3:16-19).

We see the effects of the fall throughout the entire Bible. Mankind is simply unable, in his fallen state, to obey or enjoy God as he ought to. This plays itself out over and over and over, sometimes in small, hard-to-notice ways and sometimes in shocking, horrific ways.

This is why life is hard and tornados happen and people lie, cheat, steal, and kill. We are born into corruption and, left to ourselves, we will remain corrupted.

Another key to fitting our passage into its proper place in the grand story, then, is in recognizing that this is the most shocking and horrific expressions of the Fall throughout all human history. It is the pinnacle of the sinfulness of sin and the evilness of evil. It doesn’t get worse than this and its roots trace all the way back to Genesis 3.

The simple fact of the matter is that the biggest story moves quickly from the creation of the world to the fall of the world. And the greatest significance in the fall is that it left the world in a helpless state. Without some kind of intervention, without some kind of redemption, all was left in condemnation, disorder, disharmony, and death. Worse still, there was nothing in all of creation that could provide sufficient intervention or redemption.

Redemption

Interestingly, the third scene of the greatest story begins even more quickly than the second. What’s more, as we’ll see shortly, the fourth and final scene occupies very little space in the Bible as well.

More concretely, the first scene, creation, gets the first two chapters in the Bible (Genesis 1-2). As we just saw, the effects of the fall are everywhere in the Bible, and yet the second scene, gets a mere half a chapter (Genesis 3:1-14) before the first promise of redemption comes. And while there are hints of the fourth scene scattered throughout the Bible as well, it is only covered directly in the two chapters of the Bible (Revelation 21-22).

The significance of this is in the fact that the vast majority of the Bible describes the third scene: God’s gradually unfolding plan of redemption.

Just moments after the Fall, God promised not to leave mankind in his state of helpless condemnation. God promised intervention and redemption. To the devil and the sin he brought, God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

From that moment on, God’s plan of redemption was increasingly promised, clarified and carried out. A fuller look at the biblical theology of redemption would examine the sacrifices and the temple, the prophets, priests, and kings, the law and the covenants, and the Church—for all of those things point to a greater redemption that was to come.

Jesus is the offspring God promised to send to crush the devil, sin, and death. He is the one sacrifice for all and the dwelling place of God. He is the one true Prophet, Priest, and King. He is the fulfillment of God’s law and covenant promises. He is the head of the Church. And He is the greater redemption that was to come.

Access to Jesus’ redemption came not through obedience—which is really good news in light of the fact that non-fallen Adam and Eve couldn’t keep one command—but through trust.

By the time he wrote his Gospel, John understood, believed, and was trusting in all of that and was writing to help his readers do the same. And all of that is at the very heart of why John wrote 19:28-30. He was explaining that contrary to what everyone expected, Jesus would accomplish the promised redemption not by conquering as a military leader, but by dying on a cross. He would crush His enemies not by killing them, but by letting them kill Him. He would execute justice, not by squeezing the price of sin out of sinful man, but by offering His life as a ransom for the sin of mankind.

All of that was happening in the events described in John 19:28-30 and understanding that is key to appreciating the facts that God planned it and Jesus finished it.

More significantly still, we learn from Ephesians 1:4 that God’s plan of redemption was established even before creation. That’s what makes John’s repeated emphasis on Jesus fulfilling God’s promises so significant. They were eternal promises, revealed gradually to mankind over time.

Can you see why understanding the whole story of the Bible is critical if we are to even begin to plumb the depths of the significance of our passage? Without it, at best, we have a man willing to endure injustice for the sake of others. It wouldn’t be clear at all how anyone would benefit from His death. And it certainly wouldn’t be clear what form any benefit would take or that it was a part of God’s eternal plan to save the world.

But when we see it within it’s proper place in the greatest story, our passage bursts with significance, glory, blessing, hope, and love.

Restoration

The final scene in God’s Greatest Story is the restoration of all things. If the first three scenes focus primarily on where we’ve been, the final scene focuses primarily on where we’re going.

We see in awesome detail in Revelation 21-22 that Jesus not only died to take away the sins of the world, but also to undo all of the effects of sin forever. He came to restore all that sin has broken for all who trust in Him.

We will be brought back to a perfect Garden in which we will once again dwell with God and man in perfect order, harmony, provision, and fellowship. But this time, with the added blessing of doing so in a way that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4); in a way that unlike the first Garden, will never end!

Again, John knew that. He wrote the book of Revelation as well as this Gospel. Restoration is part of what John meant by “by believing you may have life in His name.” It is part of what Jesus mean when He said that He came that His followers might “have life and have it to the full” (10:10). And John wrote our passage for this morning in order to describe the means by which God would accomplish all of this—the crucifixion of Jesus, paying the penalty of sin, and defeating death, for all who would believe.

There are few passages more directly tied to each aspect of the Bible’s grand story than John 19:28-30. I hope that by seeing all of that, you are in a better position to understand the significance of our passage and be amazed by the magnitude of the sovereign grace of God such that obedience and worship flow with increasing freeness.

JOHN 19:28-30 AND THE CROSS

All of that brings us back to our text and allows us to properly fit it into its proper biblical-theological place.

The big idea of this passage is that Jesus died to accomplish the centerpiece of God’s plan to save the world from the curse of sin and death that had reigned since the very first human beings.

To help you see that, I’ve tried to answer the four interpretative questions for the passage and fit it into its proper place in the larger story of the Bible as we’ve made our way through already. Here, I want to quickly and explicitly highlight the two biggest keys of this passage: the fulfillment and completion of God’s promises.

The Fulfillment of God’s Promises

We spent some time last week looking back at all the ways John pointed out how Jesus’ suffering and death were the fulfillment of God’s promises. You may remember that the main point of this is to help his readers see in no uncertain terms, that nothing happening to Jesus was a surprise or defeat. All of it took place according to God’s perfect knowledge and plan of victory. We find yet another in our passage this morning.

²⁸ After this, Jesus, … said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.

The fact that Jesus was thirsty and that He was given a drink, as simple as those things were, were also promised by God. Most likely, it is the fulfillment of Psalm 22:15, “my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws…” This would be a fairly obscure reference, of course, but John 19 is filled with references to Psalm 22. Last week we saw the fulfillment of 22:18 in the dividing up of Jesus’ clothing. The Psalm begins with the very language Jesus used on the cross according to Matthew and Mark, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s possible that it refers instead to Psalm 69:21, “for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” There’s clearly a tighter connection to the details of the text.

Perhaps John had both in mind or another one entirely. The main point, however, is that Jesus drinking sour wine on the cross was part of God’s plan of redemption. Rightly understood, then, it ought to be another source of hope and gratitude in the midst of an otherwise terrible scene.

The Completion of God’s Promises

The first key to grasping this passage in light of the whole is see that it is the fulfillment of another of God’s promises. The other key to this passage is that it is also the completion of God’s promises.

²⁸ … Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, … ³⁰ When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Jesus knew that “all was now finished” and said as much before giving up His spirit. But what did that mean? What was finished? Didn’t Jesus have to die to “finish” it all?

I love the simple way the simplest commentary I read (TNTC, 365, Kruse) answers this. I just can’t improve on it. What had Jesus finished at that point?

“In 10:18 Jesus insisted that no-one would take his life from him and that he would lay it down of his own accord, and here he did just that bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. He had finished the work he came to do. He had given his flesh for the life of the world (6:51), as the good shepherd he had laid down his life for the sheep (10:11, 14), he became the one man who died for the nation (11:50), he was the seed that had fallen into the ground, and would now produce many seeds (12:24), and he had shown the love greater than any other – he had laid down his life for his friends (15:13).”

Most significantly of all, though, is something Matthew and Mark make clearer than John. They record, as we just saw, Jesus’ words,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46)?

This was the moment in which Jesus finished drinking the last of the cup of the Father’s wrath. Every ounce of the Father’s fury was poured out on Jesus while He was still alive on the cross and that was now finished. Everything required to secure the complete and eternal redemption and restoration of mankind had been accomplished. Jesus had to be entirely forsaken by His Father and He finished that in our passage. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!

CONCLUSION

That’s a lot! But for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear, it is the best lot of all.

Once again, in all of that we’ll see that the big idea of this passage is that Jesus died to accomplish the centerpiece of God’s eternal plan of redemption. And the main takeaway for you and me now, for the Church today, is to be amazed by the magnitude of the sovereign grace of God, such that obedience and worship flow with increasing freeness. May it be so, Grace.

For those who did not know the big story of God, this looked like nothing but defeat. But for those who see it for what it really is, we are filled with wonder at the eternal and infinite glory of God revealed here. And in that we worship. And in that we gladly give ourselves to following the One who accomplished it all on our behalf. Again, by the grace of God, may it be so, Grace.