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What Is It?

A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. —John 19:29-30

“It is finished”—one could argue these to be among the most profound three words strung together in the Bible. Given the fact it was Jesus who uttered them, they carry an all-surpassing tone, a forever finality permanently proclaimed to all creation, both seen and unseen. Something called “it” has happened with an unchangeable completion changing everything for all time. So, what is the “it” that was so important as to rise up from deep inside the Son of God and find voice amid His final breaths?

“It is finished” was more than an endpoint of Jesus’ incarnation; it was the coda marking the successful conclusion of a Messianic mission focused on one great purpose. Early in His ministry as they awaited the Samaritan villagers of Sychar, Jesus told His disciples, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”1 And only hours before His death, Jesus prayed to His Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”2 This focus on finishing bookended Jesus’ earthly ministry and, no doubt, filled the pages in between. The “it” Jesus finished was His Father’s work, but again, what specifically was this work now completed?

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews continues the narrative now unseen yet no less historical. “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”3 What was the “it” Jesus finished upon giving up His spirit? Purification. “Tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin,”4 He atoned for our sins. Writes the author, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him.”5 His mission was to become our perfect sacrifice through a life of obedience and the faith from which obedience comes.6 He did what He set out to do, and now it is finished. We have been become in Christ what we could never become through our own efforts—purified. It is final, for it is finished. May we flourish in our freedom.

Father, thank You for loving us so much that You sent Your Son. Jesus, thank You for finishing Your Father’s work. Spirit, fill us that we will rest in sufficiency of Christ, the perfect sacrifice for our sins. In Him, we are pure. Amen.

1 John 4:34
2 John 17:4
3 Hebrews 1:3
4 Hebrews 4:15 NASB
5 Hebrews 5:8-9 NASB
6 Romans 1:5

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Real Grace

“There are ditches on both sides of the road,” the pastor would occasionally warn, and over time I’ve seen his proverb apply to many life situations. In last week’s post, “People Like Us,” we saw one such ditch in the story of the woman caught in adultery: our tendency to judge the moral failures of “some people,” even though temptations are allurements to which “sometimes we all” succumb. So it was that in one sentence—“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her”1—Jesus guided the hearts of her accusers away from the ditch of condemnation and onto the road of contrition. He thus guides us still today.

Yet it is easy for us to overcorrect from the trench of one extreme and lurch toward that which awaits us on the other side. “Judge not, that you be not judged,”2 we say, quoting Jesus from His Sermon on the Mount, but if we misunderstand such grace, we can find ourselves in an equally dangerous place—condoning sin. This is by no means a new temptation, for Isaiah warns us against it: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”3 And upon hearing of early believers careening toward the misappropriation of grace, Paul wrote to the early church, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”4 Sin is not OK.

Grace, like freedom, is not the permission to do what we want, but the power to do what we ought. Grace leads us to forgiveness, yes, but equally to repentance—turning away from sin. Grace moves us to follow Him who granted it to us in the first place. It calls us to trust God, then also to obey Him. So after sending the woman’s accusers away, Jesus asked her, “Has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord,” she replied. “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”5 She had received the precious gift of real grace—forgiveness from the guilt of sin and the redirection away from its power. May we live in such grace, as well.

Father, we praise You for Your lavish grace, and we thank You for it. Lead us away from the sin for which You have forgiven us, that in the joy of Your love, we would go and sin no more. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 John 8:7 ESV
2 Matthew 7:1 ESV
3 Isaiah 5:20 ESV
4 Romans 6:1-2
5 John 8: 10-11 ESV

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People Like Us

“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”1—Jesus, to a woman’s accusers

We glean from the pages of Scripture much theology on the precious gift of grace, but the story of the woman caught in adultery is grace in action. Somehow catching her in the act of adultery, the Pharisees and teachers of the law brought her before Jesus, hoping to trick Him and perhaps kill two birds with one stone. His response to them was epic, confounding even—turning back on them the law by which they accused the woman, and in the process extending grace to both. We relate to the woman, for our sin places us equally in need of grace, and we run to Jesus where it is found. Such assurance! What relief! We will learn more from this woman in next week’s post, but for now let’s gain a life lesson from her antagonists.

How many times have you heard or said this: “Some people [insert a specific sin tendency here]”? In so doing, we speak of others as though looking down on them from a higher perch on a tree of righteousness. Wouldn’t it be humbler and more accurate to say, “Sometimes we all [insert a moral shortcoming here],” acknowledging in our speech what we know in our hearts—that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”?2 After all, who among us doesn’t sin? And if we all sin, why point only to that of “some people”? Have we forgotten the grace we received when we were otherwise helpless? Or what about this pronouncement: “I blame [so and so]”? Why so proudly condemn others when we have undeservedly received pardon?

Paul wrote that God “reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.”3 Our message is not one of accusation, but that of reconciliation through the grace that is ours in Christ Jesus. Then may I suggest that, when tempted to look down on those who are as vulnerable as we are, we remember both the power of temptation and the relief of grace? We’re in this together, so as we have received grace, let us ever extend it to people like us.

Father, thank You for precious grace. Where would we be without it? Fill us with Your Spirit, that we would extend compassion and understanding to all who journey this life with us. Bless us to be beacons of hope and proclaimers of mercy to people like us. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 John 8:7 ESV
2 Romans 6:23
3 2 Corinthians 5:18