The Ending That Doesn’t End
--John 19:25-30
“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport! The thrill of victory . . . and the agony of defeat! The human drama of athletic competition! This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports [--http://ask.yahoo.com/20060213.html]!” These are the celebrated words of Jim McKay that introduced ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” every weekend from 1961 to 1998, including the coverage of twelve Olympic Games [--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McKay].
Vinko Bogataj became ABC’s icon for the “Agony of Defeat.” As a Yugoslavian he was competing at the World Ski Flying Championships on March 21, 1970, in Oberstdorf, West Germany. As Vinko began his third jump, the snow was quite heavy. Half way through the jump, he sensed the weather conditions had made the ramp too fast. He tried to compensate by lowering his center of gravity and terminating the jump, but he utterly “lost his balance, rocketed out of control off the end of the ramp, tumbled and flipped wildly, and crashed through a flimsy retaining fence before a crowd of frightened sport fans in coming to a grinding halt.” Miraculously he sustained only a minor concussion, but from that moment he became ABC’s poster boy for “the agony of defeat [--http://en.wilipdeia.org/wiki/Vinko_Bogataj]. Jesus’ exclamation, “It Is Finished” proclaims the “triumph of victory, not the agony of defeat.”
This testimony of Jesus is a single word in Greek—“tetelestai!” Tetelestai is impacted with meaning. Basically it implies “to achieve, fulfill, execute, succeed, bring to an end.” It conveys the message of realizing something that has long been desired, promised, or predicted. Tetelestai is an affirmation and testimony that what has been promised and prophesied is now achieved, realized, and carried out. In shouting, “Tetelestai,” Jesus is proclaiming that all God’s promises to redeem His people from sin have now been fulfilled. It is one thing for a person to make a promise; it is something else to fulfill that promise. Tetelestai is Jesus affirmation, “I have fulfilled all My promises, I have met all My obligations to the fullest.”
“Tetelestai—IT IS FINISHED!” P. T. L!!! Hallelujah!!! Amen!!! Tetelestai in antiquity is specifically applied to sacrifices. Are you familiar with Apocalyptic literature? Apocalyptic simply refers to literature that is prophetic and deals with the end times and return of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament The Book of Revelation is Apocalyptic. In the Old Testament the Book of Daniel, much of Ezekiel, Isaiah 56-66, and Zechariah 9-14 are Apocalyptic. In such Jewish Apocalyptic prophecies Tetelestai means “The Last Time.”
In shouting, “It Is Finished” Jesus affirms His death on the cross is the very last sacrifice ever to be made for sin. Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, and Luke 23:45 all record that at the moment Jesus shouts, “It is finished,” the veil of the Temple was “torn in two.” Matthew’s account is explicit in Chapter 27, verses 50 and 51: “Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.” No longer would a human priest be needed to go into the Holy of Holies and make a yearly sacrifice as atonement for sin. Jesus is God’s Perfect Atonement. “IT IS FINISHED!”
Atonement is the means by which we as sinners are reconciled to our holy God. The word itself is not found in the Greek New Testament but abounds in the Old Testament. To atone is to “make payment for sins or crime.” In Hebrew the world means to “cover over.” In the Old Testament the sacrifices of bulls and goats were only a temporary covering of sin, but in the death of Jesus Christ, our sins are completely taken away.” The Bible says in Hebrews 10:3-4, “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”
Old Testament sacrifices had to be continually repeated over and over time and again to “cover over sin,” but the blood of Jesus takes away our sin forever. John the Baptizer pointed his disciples to Jesus in John 1:29, “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’” I John 1:7 bears witness that “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” What Old Testament sacrifices could only cover over, the blood of Jesus completely cleanses and takes away. In the death of God the Son, our Perfect Sacrifice, “It Is Finished.” The Supreme Sacrifice has been made once and for all, never to be repeated again.
Psalm 103:12 assures us that the atonement Jesus won for our forgiveness is total and complete:
“As far as the east is from the west,
So far he removes our transgressions from us.”
Rudyard Kipling reminds us in his poem “Ballad of East and West”:
“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat.”
Although North and South eventually meet; East and West never do. If I start out on a continuous journey going north, when I get to the North Pole and continue my journey I am going south, that is, until I get to the South Pole, and I begin heading north once more. If I start out going east toward the United Kingdom and keep traveling, I keep going east, all the way to Australia, Hawaii, and eventually back to Kankakee. I am always headed east. Likewise, if I start from Kankakee and head west to Hawaii, Australia, and eventually back to the United Kingdom, I am always headed west. When Jesus finished the work of atoning for our sins, he made it possible for our sins to be as far removed from us as the East is from the West which never meet! IT IS FINISHED, Jesus succeeded in removing from the slate what the blood of bulls and goats could only “cover over.”
TETELESTAI has a secondary meaning that provides us with added assurance that the sacrifice of Jesus is final and complete! The Greek word also means “paid in full.” In New Testament times, when a debtor paid off a debt, that individual was given a receipt marked “Tetelestai” or “Paid in Full.” That would bring such joy and relief that many would run through the streets shouting, “Tetelestai, tetelestai, My debt is paid in full.” In their Greek-English lexicon, Moulton and Milligan affirm: “The connection between receipts and what Christ accomplished would have been quite clear to John’s Greek-speaking readers; it would be unmistakable that Jesus Christ had died to pay for their sins [p. 630].” P. T. L., our debt has been paid in full by Jesus Christ.
On the cross Jesus paid the debt for your sin and mine in full. Jesus explains His mission for our salvation in Mark 10:45, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Paul testifies in I Timothy 2:5-6: “For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, Himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all—this was attested at the right time.”
Jesus suffered for us all by becoming our ransom, by paying our debt. Because “IT IS FINISHED,” God our Heavenly Father can forgive all who repent and believe in Jesus as their personal Saviour and Lord. God is just, He must punish sin! Exodus 34:7 declares that “God will by no means clear the guilty.” John testifies in John 1:11-13, “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” Only those who accept Jesus as their personal Saviour and Lord become God’s children and have their sin removed by the blood of Jesus.
Jesus paid the debt for your sin and mine on the cross. Have you received His gift of salvation and become a “child of God, born not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God?”
Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was a young, Anglican clergyman in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1929 he wrote his compelling poem “Indifference” with Birmingham, England, as its setting. Often times it has even gone by the title “When Jesus came to Birmingham.” It is often paraphrased with one’s own city inserted in the text in place of Birmingham. Today, I invite you to hear his convictive lyrics in a personal way as “When Jesus came to Kankakee”:
“When Jesus came to Golgotha they hanged Him on a tree,
They drave great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.
“When Jesus came to Kankakee they simply passed Him by,
They never hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.
“Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,”
And still it rained the wintry rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary.”
[Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, “Indifferenc" in Rhymes
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929): 43.]
“Tetelestai; IT IS FINISHED.” Jesus paid the penalty for your sin in full at Calvary. One way or other the debt for sin has to be paid. Jesus Christ has paid it for you at Calvary if you have been born again, but if you die without being born again by the Holy Spirit, you personally will have to pay that debt for all eternity, because “God will by no means clear the guilty.” Have you become His child? Have you been born of God? If not, Jesus calls you to turn to Him and trust Him as your personal Saviour and Lord, and let Him cancel the debt of sin for you. Don’t continue to simply be indifferent and pass Him by.
