John 19:30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. Looking at it — I. IN CONNECTION WITH HIMSELF, we may notice — 1. The wonderful composure it indicates. Dying men have often spoken composedly, but this has generally been when they have had no in. tense bodily suffering to distract them, and all quiet within their souls. But Jesus is dying in a storm. His bodily frame is sinking with agony, and as for His soul, none but Himself can form an idea of the waves and the billows that are going over it. Yet where are His thoughts? He is described in the verses preceding as calmly reviewing the predictions concerning Him, and finding one of them yet unfulfilled, providing for the fulfilment of it. What an honour is here put on Holy Scripture! And this mental composure appears yet more wonderful, when we contrast it with the agitation He manifested only a few hours before in the apprehension of His sufferings in Gethsemane. One of the most wonderful things attending His sufferings, is the amazing power of suffering He discovered under them. And where did this power come from? From His Father. And for what end? To enable Him to bear the weight of misery now laid on Him; but also that His Father might show forth in Him the boundless power of His strengthening grace. And this strength has never been withdrawn from Him. He calls it His grace, and He delights in sending it forth to the weak and suffering. He who bore with calmness the misery of the cross could bear up a whole miserable world would that world but cast itself on Him. 2. The language is that of joy also. Here is — (1) Great suffering over. The strength given to our Lord on the cross did not render Him insensible of the burden He bore there. This is not the nature of Divine grace. It enables the soul to endure suffering, but it adds to, rather than diminishes, its sensibility under it. His joy is like that you may have witnessed when the long tried Christian has been told on the bed of sickness that the hour of His release is come. (2) A great evil removed. Our Lord's sufferings were to expiate once for ever the transgressions of His people. When, therefore, Jesus sees this accomplished by Himself; we can. not wonder that even in a dying moment joy springs up in Him that must have utterance. It is like the joy a father feels who, after years of toil, has just paid down the sire that is to ransom his captive children; or like the joy of another father who has plunged into a raging sea to save his child. (3) A great work accomplished. Our Lord had not only to expiate sin for His people, He had to work out for them a complete righteousness in which they are to appear at the last before the bar of God. 3. But here is triumph also. Picture to yourselves a general maintaining an important post. He cannot move to drive away his foe, but there he is obliged to remain and sustain all his reiterated attacks. And these are renewed so often and so fiercely, that they become at last exceedingly trying to him. "I can never be beaten," he says. "My troops will never yield. But oh, that the hour were come, when I might put forth my strength, and by one blow crush that enemy." The hour does come, he strikes the blow; and as he sees his astonished foes fleeing before him, with what a mixture of joy and triumph can we imagine him shouting, "It is over; I have finished it!" There is a picture of Jesus as He is described in this text. II. AS ADDRESSING HIS FATHER IN IT. In this light the exclamation before us takes the character of a faithful servant's language, claiming from a faithful master his well-earned recompense. The blessed Jesus is often spoken of in Scripture as His Father's servant. He seemed to take pleasure in speaking so of Himself. Now, then, when the appointed work is done, the final victory won, all the glorious purposes for which He left the heavens performed, we see Him looking up to His Father with an appeal to His Father's faithfulness and munificence. His resurrection, heavenly exaltation and joy, the diffusion and triumphs of His gospel, the salvation of His Church, the establishment of His kingdom, all enter His thoughts, and in one word He reminds His Father that they must be His, for He has paid the price of them. "I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me." III. But there is a third party concerned in this text — OURSELVES. He muttered it in man's hearing; His Holy Spirit has recorded it in His Word. We may be sure, therefore, that He intended it for man. It speaks to us the language of — 1. Joyful congratulation. Angels came down from heaven to bid the earth rejoice when this Saviour began His work on it; He seems to have uttered this cry to congratulate His Church again now He has completed it. "And has He left nothing for us to do?" Yes, but only to seek, accept, and enjoy the salvation He has completed. 2. Of invitation. What is your soul's desire? "I want pardon," you say. "It is finished," this sentence says, and all you have to do is to go and say, "Lord, give it me." And do you want a perfect righteousness in which you may stand with humble fearlessness before a holy God? "It is finished," this dying Saviour says again. Or is it the grace of a Holy Spirit that you want to teach you, to comfort you, to strengthen you, to sanctify and guide you? Again the same voice says, "It is finished." (C. Bradley, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. |
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