"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, IT IS FINISHED: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost" (John 19:30)
When our Lord hung in agonies and blood on the cursed tree, He cried with a loud voice, "IT IS FINISHED." One would think that such a statement made by the very Son of God would carry a reasonable weight. Yet, there are those who proclaim that the work is not truly finished unless they give their nod of faith which miraculously makes the work really effectual. Setting aside that such thinking is utterly foolish, consider, for a moment, the arrogant presumption of such an incredible notion. Apply this convoluted musing to any other finished work. Go to a contractor after he has finished a building and is getting ready to turn the key...stand before him, and in your most audacious voice, say, "Wait a minute, it is not finished unless I believe it is finished!" Go to the composer who has spent his life in pursuit of the classic score. After he has signed his masterpiece and the conductor is about to wave his baton...stand up in the audience and cry in your pompous voice, "I have something to say about this so-called symphony. It is not finished until I believe it is finished!" It's laughable, isn't it? No one in his right mind would do such a patently stupid thing! How utterly foolish. How much more conceited is anyone who, in the most haughty moment of dementia, thinks that anything they believe or do can make the finished work of Almighty God "unfinished" by their lack of affirmative assent.
Finished means finished! Done means done! Our Lord really, freely, fully and forever redeemed His elect by His substitutionary sacrifice on Calvary's tree. "By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified"(Hebrews 10:14). "By His own blood He entered once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us"(Hebrews 9:12). "But now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26). -by Pastor Tim James
