INTRODUCTION
At the foot of Mount McKinley, a skeleton was found seated on the root of a tree. Just above was a finger carved in the bark, pointing down to the skeleton. Beside the finger were these words: “The end of the trail.” They told the tragic story of one who set out to climb the lofty mountain but whose strength had failed. The mountaineer died with his purpose unrealized.
Is this what Jesus was saying when He cried, “It is finished” (John 19:30) and uttered the Sixth Word from the Cross? As He hung on the nails, was this the finish to a life whose holiest hopes ended in utter failure? Was He finally admitting that He had gone to the limit and won nothing but shame and death? Was this expression the last sign of an ebbing life, as if He were saying, “It is all over; this long agony of pain and suffering is done at last”?
No! It was not a cry of defeat, but a shout of victory. Jesus’ suffering and His work were finishing at the same time. He had a great work to accomplish, and He suffered greatly in the process of accomplishing it. Now both have been brought to a successful close, and this is what the Sixth Word expresses. Therefore, it is first the worker’s cry of achievement, and secondly the sufferer’s cry of relief.
I. THE WORKER’S CRY OF ACHIEVEMENT
Two scenes converged when Jesus cried, “It is finished.” Ellen G. White vividly describes the dramatic scene: “The priests were officiating in the temple. It was the hour of the evening sacrifice. The lamb representing Christ had been brought to be slain . . . the priest stood with lifted knife.” Suddenly, “the earth trembles and quakes . . . With a rending noise the inner veil of the temple is torn from top to bottom by an unseen hand . . . The priest is about to slay the victim; but the knife drops from his nerveless hand, and the lamb escapes. Type has met antitype in the death of God’s Son. The great sacrifice has been made.”1 Jesus now uttered what in the original is one single word: “It is accomplished.”
This was not an utterance of thanksgiving that His suffering was over and finished; rather, it was that His life from the time of His birth to the time of His death had faithfully achieved what He was sent to do.
Three times in history God uses that same word: once, in Genesis, to describe the achievement of completing creation on the sixth day; also in the Apocalypse, when all creation would be done away with and a new heaven and earth would be made. And between these two extremes of the beginning and the accomplished end is the link of the Sixth Word from the Cross. Jesus, in the state of His greatest humiliation, seeing all prophecies fulfilled, all foreshadowings realized, and all things done which were needful for the Redemption of man, uttered a cry of joy: “It is achieved.”
This dying word carries us back to the first word from His lips that has been preserved for us: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Even at the age of twelve, He already knew there was a special work entrusted to Him. In the types, shadows, rites, and institutions, in law and prophets of the Old Testament, He saw hints and foreshadowings of His life. He knew what He had to do when He said, “But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” (Luke 12:50). In a rapt moment, at the well of Sychar, after His interview with the Samaritan woman, when His disciples proffered Him food, He put it away from Him, saying, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about” (John 4:32). And He added, “My food . . . is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (v. 34).
What was this work of Jesus? It was a work for God, and it was a work for men with God. “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4), He would say; or, “Therefore doth my Father love Me, because I do always those things which please Him.” This was His task, to glorify God on the earth—to make known the Father to men.
His was bringing men back to God, and He had to remove the obstacles that stood in the way. He had to roll away the stone from the sepulcher in which humanity was entombed. He had done so. And when He said, “It is finished,” He was saying to all mankind, “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut” (Rev 3:8).
II. THE SUFFERER’S CRY OF RELIEF
It is remarkable that not a single type, from the turtledove to the temple, was not fulfilled in Him. No historic foretelling—from Abraham who offered his son as a sacrifice, to Jonah in the belly of the whale for three days—was not in Him fulfilled: the prophecy of Zechariah that He should make entrance into Jerusalem on an ass in humility; the prophecy of David that He should be betrayed by one of His own companions; the prophecy of Zechariah that He should be sold for thirty pieces of silver, and that this price should afterwards be used to buy a field of blood. His sufferings were foretold—in astonishing detail. Isaiah prophesied that He would be barbarously treated, scourged, and put to death, crucified between two thieves, and that He would pray for His enemies. David foretold that they would give Him vinegar to drink, divide His garments among them, and that He would be a Lamb to be slain. All these wonder hieroglyphics would have been left unexplained had not the Son of God on His Cross looked back on all the sheep and goats and bullocks that were offered in sacrifice and said, “It is achieved.”
That Sixth Word from the cross was a cry of relief. As in Creation, on the seventh day, after the heavens and the earth were finished, God rested from all the work that He had done, so now, the Savior on the Cross, having taught as a Teacher, governed as a King, and sanctified as Priest, can enter His rest. There would be no second Savior, no new way of salvation, no other name under heaven by which men might be saved. Men had been bought and paid for. A new David arose to slay the Goliath of evil, not with five stones but with five wounds—hideous scars on hands, feet, and side, and the battle was fought not with armor glistening under a noonday sun but with flesh torn away so the bones could be numbered. It was with the relief of the strong that Jesus uttered the song of triumph that His work and suffering were complete.
CONCLUSION
On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus had told His disciples that He would be delivered to the Gentiles, would be mocked and spat upon, and would be scourged and put to death. In the garden, when Peter lifted his sword, Christ asked if He should not drink the cup that the Father had given Him. Now the work that the Father had given Him was finished. The Father had sent the Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and by the eternal Spirit He was conceived in Mary’s womb. All this came to pass that He might suffer on the cross. Thus reparation involved the whole Trinity. What was achieved was redemption, as Peter later would say, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Pet 1:18–19).
So, believer, rejoice! Your redemption is achieved. All that was necessary to break down the barriers between you and God has been done. AMEN.
1 Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, 756–757.
Rex D. Edwards is a former vice president for religious studies at Griggs University
