It is Finished

“IT IS FINISHED”

PERHAPS No one sentence from the lips of the Master has been more misunderstood than the one that he uttered on the cross-“It is finished.” Most of us have believed that He meant He had finished His Redemptive work, but that is not true. His work as a Substitute was just beginning and it was not consummated until His blood was accepted in the Supreme Court of the Universe, and He had sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High. But you ask, What did He mean then by “It is finished”?

It meant that He had fulfilled the Abrahamic Covenant, of which He, you remember, was a part. He was born of Abraham’s stock. He was circumcised as a child and came into the Abrahamic Covenant. He had grown up under the laws that governed the Israelite
people, who were children of the Covenant. There are only two real Covenants in the Word-the Old Covenant and the New-the Abrahamic Covenant and the New
Covenant in Christ.

God cut that first Covenant with Abraham. Why do we use the word “cut a covenant? Because the Hebrew word means to “cut a covenant.” Nearly all covenants made between men as recorded in the Scripture and as observed among primitive peoples, were solemnised by blood-letting. Stanley gives us graphic pictures of covenants that he cut with chieftains in the heart of Africa. When preliminaries had been finished, Stanley’s companion offered his wrist to the Priest, who made an incision.

The son of the Chief that was to be his representative, offered his wrist and blood was let.
Then the two wrists were rubbed together and each one tasted the blood of the other.
Now these two men became blood brothers. Stanley and that chieftain had become blood brothers by substitution. In Africa, Stanley and Livingston both confessed that they had never known of a covenant solemnized like this to be broken.

For a man to break it, sealed his own death warrant, for the tribe would not permit him to live and curse them. So the Abrahamic Covenant was the most sacred covenant
known to primitive peoples. Circumcision permitted them to come into the Covenant, for when a child was circumcised, the priest would touch that blood to his tongue and that child became a child of the Abrahamic Covenant. When Israel had crossed the Red Sea and gone into the wilderness, God gave them a Law-the Ten Commandments.

It was the Law of the Covenant. He gave them a priesthood because the Law was broken and it meant death to them. So with the priesthood came Atonement – a covering for that broken law, for the Hebrew word translated Atonement means “to cover.” Really, it has no other significance. Theologians have read all kinds of things into it, but it stands simply as a covering for Israel because they were spiritually dead. They have broken the Law and it meant death to them if it were not covered.

So when Jesus came, His first work was to fulfill that Abra¬hamic Covenant and set it aside.
Next, the Priesthood and the sacrifice and the Law were fulfilled and set aside.
The Book of Hebrews covers this ground very clearly. Romans and Galatians also prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus fulfilled that First Covenant, the Law, the Priesthood and the Sacrifices, so that when He hung on the cross He could say, “It is finished.”
The work that was not finished until He sat down at the right hand of the Father, was His work as a Substitute.

He had to die for the sins under the First Covenant, and He had to die for our sins, so His Substitution points both ways back to the inception of the Abrahamic Covenant, on to the Great White Throne Judgment. In other chapters in this book, we have shown you how we were Identified with Christ in His Substitution because He died as our Substitute.
He suffered as our Substitute. Our iniquities and our diseases were laid upon Him. He was made sin with our sin. Theologians tell us that they were “reckoned to Him.”

If they were only reckoned to Him, then Redemption is only reckoned to us and wee are not Redeemed. If Righteousness is only reckoned to us, then Eternal Life and the New Creation are only reckoned to us. In 1 Cor. 15:3 it says He died for our sins: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf: that
we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:21.)

“But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God sent forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God: for the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.” (Rom. 3:21-26.)

This shows beyond the shadow of a doubt that Christ was actually our Substitute, took our place, paid the penalty of the sins under the First Covenant and met the demands of justice for us so that the New Birth could become a legal fact. (I wish you would read my book, “The Father and His Family,” for there we clear up the problem of the legal side of the plan of Redemption as we cannot in this volume.) He not only had made our Redemption and our Righteousness a legal fact, but He made it possible for God to Recreate us, take us into His Family, and honour us as Sons and Daughters on legal grounds.

When Jesus said, “It is finished” on the cross, we can now understand very clearly that He had no reference whatever of dealing with the sin problem, the Redemption problem, and the putting to nought of Satan, as Paul tells us in Heb. 2:14. I want you to understand clearly that there are three phases of Christ’s work connected with our Redemption.
First, was His work that He wrought in His earth walk, dealing with the First Covenant and everything that pertained to it. Second, His Substitutionary work that began when He was
made sin on the cross and was consummated when He carried His blood into the Heavenly Holy of Holies and it was accepted there for us. And third, His ministry today at the right hand of the Majesty on High.

That ministry has to deal with the preservation and care of the Church. He is there as our great High Priest, as the Surety of the Covenant, as our Savior, as our Mediator, our Advocate, and our Lord.