Title: The Fulfilled Cross
Sixth of the seven virtual sayings: “It is finished”
1. Introduction: When He said “It is finished”
- Considering that the seventh word (Father, into your hands I entrust my soul) is a personal confession, it can be said that the sixth word is actually the last word Jesus spoke on the cross. These words of Jesus are the only words that have never been repeated in your life. There were many remarkable events in the life of Jesus (such as passing away to Galilee after Satan's temptation, feeding many people with five fish in the wilderness of Bethsaida, raising Lazarus from the dead, etc.). But even after doing so many things, Jesus never said, “It is finished.” However, at this moment when he was crucified as if he had been abandoned by God, he is saying that he has finished it.
2. Body
1) For the restoration of the broken creation
- Because of Adam and Eve's sin, the whole world was filled with sin, and all the original beauty that revealed the fullness of God's divinity was destroyed. The splendid glory that dwelled in man also returned to God. However, God has given two graces to human beings who have no choice but to live under the curse of sin in this world broken by sin. First, he reserved the death of the body to give them an opportunity to return to God. Second, he promised the Messiah who would save them from their desperate state.
- It is true that God loves man very much, but he cannot love sin in man. However, although human beings have the ability to sin, they do not have the ability to save themselves from sin. Therefore, God allowed the sacrifices offered through the sacrificial system to take away the sins of the sacrificers and allow them to see God temporarily. Through this, man came to understand God's terrible judgment on sin and God's love for pardoning sinful self by imputing their sins to animals.
- But these sacrifices alone were not enough, and they were illustrative of that the Messiah would come and die for sinners. Jesus was born under the law and died as a sin offering before God, bearing all our sins according to the requirements of the law. Although God loved his son very much and cherished him terribly, he loved the humans in this world so much more than his own son that he sent his son to this earth.
2) Christians, those who have the heart of Christ
- Christ hung on the cross as a sacrifice to bear the sins of those who would be saved. We see the sufferings of the Lord on the cross stained with blood. Jesus shed and died for us, even the last drop of blood and water. We cannot even imagine the pain Jesus must have felt when He, who is God Himself and life itself, who lived in excellent communion with God, was cursed by God.
- Christians must have the heart of Jesus. As much as the heart of Jesus lives and works, we live as Christians. The Christian life is about having an accurate awareness of yourself throughout your life and living a life that conforms to that perception. There is always a sense of debt of love in the heart of a person who has truly become a child of God. Faith is the confession that you are a sinner and that you became a child of God because Jesus Christ died on the cross, and that you have no one to depend on but Him. The more we have faith, the more we think it is unfair that the Lord died for someone like me. Since Jesus died for a sinner like me, I will now live in tears as to how I will bear His love.
3) Those who slipped from grace
- We are people who know the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and confess that we have been redeemed by His blood. So, he wanted to crucify the dirty sins he had committed in the past, become a neat and loving child of God, and live a new life like a person whose sins have been forgiven. But now there are too many around us who have slipped in that grace.
- When the tears for Christ stop in our eyes, and when we come down from the cross where we were crucified with Christ and walk into a sin worse and worse than our previous sins, we are defiling the members around us. What good can we expect while we live on this earth without daily crucifixion? If God is not in our hearts, how can we be happy by enjoying a little more in the world?
- To come out on Sunday without praying for a week and still want to receive grace is not to expect God, but to the preacher. We must examine our own conduct and crucify the life of self-indulgence and arrogance of faith. Otherwise, salvation will not happen just because you go to a chapel where the gospel is resounding. We need to look back at the cross of Christ to see how arrogant our religious life is.
- Jesus accomplished all the work of salvation on the cross. Therefore, the reason we are no longer able to follow that path is not because what Jesus accomplished is not enough, but because we have chosen it ourselves. Even when we were more filthy sinners than we are now, God redeemed us by the blood of Jesus Christ and made us His children without any merit. For us as saved believers, the cross of Christ is the cross of forgiveness and the cross of cleansing. We all need to be washed clean with that blood again and become saints who live like children of God. 2004-04-04