Probably no other scripture has been more misunderstood than the one that Jesus uttered on the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). If it was finished, he certainly did not suffer after he died “in his soul and body”, because then he would have been tormented in hell.
When He said it was finished! He meant He had finished suffering the wages of sin on our behalf. And fulfilled the covenant of “the Law” and set it aside and done away with it.
His still had to be raised from the dead, and receive a glorified body becoming the second man of a different species than the first Adam, and then ascend into the holy of holies and offer his blood, then he could sit down at the right hand of the Father after his coronation as king of kings, being granted all authority not only on earth, “which he already had in his earthly ministry because he was he last Adam”, but receive all authority in heaven and all the heavenly realms, then he could sit down and anticipately wait for all his enemies to be put under his feet, including those in the heavenly places.
But you ask, what did He mean then by “It is finished”?
He 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 main Covenants in the Word, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. There are also the Edenic, adamic, Noahic, Davidic, Palestinian and everlasting Covenants that I will teach on in the future.
God cut a covenant with Abraham.
Why do we use the phrase “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 solemnized by blood-letting.
Henry Morton 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 David Livingstone 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. In a deeper sense it was a marriage contract. https://glorytogodministries.site/blog/the-ten-commandments/
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 atonement, 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 Abrahamic 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.
We have seen 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 we are not redeemed.
If righteousness is only reckoned to us, then eternal life and the new creation are only reckoned to us.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3, it says He died for our sins:
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:21–26)
This shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christ was actually our substitute, that He 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.
He not only had made our redemption and our righteousness a legal fact, but He made it possible for God to recreate us, to impart his seed into our spirit, take us into His family, honor us as sons and daughters on legal grounds.
When on the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished,” was not in regard to dealing with the sin problem, the redemption problem, and disarming Satan, as Paul tells us in Hebrews 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 must 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.