"Finished" in What Way? (John 19:30)

Taken in isolation, John chapters 18 and 19 portray Jesus as finished off in a most unfortunate way.  When we add the chapters of Matthew 26 and 27, Mark 14 and 15, and Luke 22 and 23 to our reading list, our imaginations experience what our senses would have told us had we actually been in Jerusalem on the Friday we today call “Good.”  Had we been there in person we would not have said of the occasion, “This is good!”

Having been hauled away from the Garden of Gethsemane by the guards the night before, Jesus firstly faced Annas the Jewish High Priest and then the whole body of Jewish authorities.  At daybreak He was made to stand before Governor Pontius Pilate, then before Judean King Herod Antipas, and then back again to face Pilate and the gathering crowds who shouted of Jesus, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!”  Jesus was then mocked and beaten and then forced to carry His cross to the place of execution (a task someone else had to complete since He was too weak for the job).  Nailed to the cross at 9:00 am, He hung against the sky until he succumbed to death six hours later.  The Gospel accounts of the events of that day close with His removal from the cross and the subsequent burial of his body in a tomb.  Our eyes and ears would therefore have judged by these events that Jesus was finished off most thoroughly.

It is true that Christians use the word “finished” in the context of Jesus’ passion and death.  We use that word because Jesus Himself used it (John 19:30).  He, however, did not use that expression in a cry of despair, but as a statement of accomplishment.  The English translation is absolutely correct when it says, “It is finished.”  Grammatically it is “perfect” infinitive.  The “perfect” tense regards the act that is described as complete for all time.  The “infinitive” mood turns the action into a noun.  What all this means is that Jesus is not talking about Himself as finished.  Jesus is not saying, “I’ve had it with the world.”  Something else besides Jesus is finished.  What is actually finished as a result of Jesus’ death on the cross, is the condemnation the results from sin.  Jesus dealt with this matter fully when He died on the cross that day to pay for our sins.

The single Greek word covering the three English words “It is finished,” is tetelestai.  Archaeologists have encountered this word written across bills of sale that have been discovered from ancient times contemporaneous with the life of Jesus.  Monetary bills are not a new invention!  That word meant literally, “Paid in full” in the sense that the debt in question is removed.  Is that not good news to encounter in our own daily lives that this or that debt is finally ”paid in full?”  So the Apostle John uses the word tetelestai in order to convey the complete, fully finished, work of salvation accomplished on the cross.  It is as the Apostle Paul writes, Jesus “canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14), so that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1f).

It would be true that had the story of Jesus actually ended with His burial in the tomb, we would have to conclude that He was finished off that day.  But following behind chapter 19 comes John chapter 20.  Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.  It is not my purpose this day to lay out the case for His resurrection.  I will continue that matter in the days that follow as I have already begun it.  For today let us understand that on Good Friday Jesus Christ dealt with the sin of the world by His death on the cross.