It is finished!

Months ago, I attempted to answer the question of God feeling pain, not our pain but pain when people speak evil of Him or take His name in vain. Perhaps the best way to describe what I’m thinking is by analogy. When the kid next door beat my son over the head with a Tonka truck, I did not feel any pain myself, but I winced for the pain suffered by my child. This is the pain of empathy and compassion.

When Jesus died on the cross for the sin of the world, His agony was both. That is, He suffered physically as a man regarding His own body, but also the great pain of God’s wrath upon our sin, a pain that we who believe in Christ do not have to suffer.

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ 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. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28–30)

His words, “It is finished” are an accounting term. When a debt was paid, these words were written across the bill or account. It was done, never to be charged or collected again. From my side of this event, this means that my debt of sin is paid, done, over with. All is written off because Jesus covered it on my behalf.

But what does it mean for Jesus? Does it indicate that His suffering for my sin, even the sin of the world, is finished, done, over with? The Bible says that for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. It also says that He died for sin once, a suffering never to be repeated.

From that, I’m thinking Jesus suffers no more, nor does the Father or the Spirit. We can “quench” the Spirit and “grieve” Him, yet these are more like the Tonka truck thing. He is affected by our pain and foolishness because of His compassion, not because it hurts Him personally.

I could be wrong on this. Tozer says that when the soldier drove his spear into the side of Jesus, he believes that was felt in heaven. Was it felt like the Son of Man felt it? Or was it felt like I felt the clunk of the truck? God felt pain when His Son became a man and died for us, but does He still feel it? Or is it ‘finished’ for Him also?

Sometimes when a person sins, they feel bad because they “hurt Jesus” but I’m thinking this is backwards. Instead, when I sin God feels bad because I am harming myself.

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Jesus, the more I know You, the more I realize that Your compassion and empathy are not bound by a personal reaction that is about Your own feelings. Instead, You felt my pain and sorrow and whatever else this means when You died on the cross and that became a done deal. However, this is more than my tiny brain can process. Show me how to think about it. I’m also interested in experiencing the same joy that You now enjoy because Your work is finished.

He refused to escape so we could be set free!

Last night we watched a TV show about an abduction; the person taken was able to defend herself with a dumbbell and escape. At bedtime, I read a few more chapters in a novel where the protagonist has nightmares and begins to remember being abducted as a child. She also escaped, but cannot remember how.

When Jesus was abducted in the Garden of Gethsemane, He did not escape. He could have called “legions of angels” but He choose not. He’d said to His Father, “Not my will, but thine be done” and meant every word. His captors took Him to the Roman governor for a trial of sorts and that didn’t go well either.

“So (Pilate) delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’” (John 19:16–19)

Crucifixion is an excruciating death. Why would anyone submit themselves to such horror, particularly someone who was innocent of all charges and could have simple walked away. But Jesus was not just anyone; He was and is the Son of God and He was on a mission. His assignment was to take the sin of the world upon Himself and pay the penalty sinners deserve — separation from God and death. He resisted any thoughts of overpowering His captors and any thoughts of escape. He endured the pain but also the shame of all our sin.

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ 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. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:28–30)

His assignment was finished. The price for sin was paid. God’s wrath on sin was satisfied.

“And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” (Isaiah 53:9–10)

When Isaiah wrote, ‘It was the will of Lord to crush him,’ he did not mean that the Father was delighted that His Son experienced such agony. It means that He had a plan. In another passage, God says, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” How then could the death of His sinless Son be pleasing unless the prophet meant that this horrid death made an infinite change to the wrath and justice of God?

The death of wicked men could not satisfy the justice of God, nor could their torments in an eternal hell. Even though we deserve to pay the wages of our sin, only the death of a sinless and perfect sacrifice would do. Jesus became sin for us and with His sacrifice, sinners are redeemed and justified. The spiritual state of millions has been altered because the Son obeyed the Father and died for you and me.

Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that was set before him He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2) Those who stood at Calvary’s cross saw the horror and agony, but God saw the result — and because of it and because of His incredible obedience, the Lord was satisfied.

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Jesus, these thoughts are somber and yet at the same fill me with great joy. Because You were willing and obedient, I have an eternal relationship with You, one in which You traded my sin for Your righteousness. I am forgiven and set free from the fear of death and judgment, and from the power of sin to destroy me. The Father was satisfied and You declared Your task as finished because my debt is paid!