Good Friday 2017: What Was Finished?

One of Jesus' most famous sayings was the three-word phrase, "It is finished" (John 19:30). But what did He mean? There was so much more yet to come! The answer is that He finished paying for the sins of the Lord's people.  

His self-sacrifice happened once (Hebrews 7:27, 9:26-28). His blood/death sanctified His people in the sight of God (Hebrews 10:10). He didn't make purification potentially possible. Christ actually accomplished purification on behalf of the many (Hebrews 1:3).

"It is finished" means the bread and the wine of the Lord's Table do not change into Christ's flesh and blood. Such a magical change of Communion elements is unneeded. Christ, by dying one time, accomplished everything He needed to accomplish, all at one time, in one place, on the cross.  This is why Christian churches should never have a cross with Christ still hanging on it.

"It is finished" also means that Christ's death was a payment. According to my bank, we will pay off our mortgage in 2027. But if I had sufficient money, I could pay off my mortgage today. If I did that, then my mortgage debt would be objectively finished.

This is what Jesus accomplished when He died. He paid the sin-debt for the many (Heb. 9:28), past, present, and future. To say that Christ died so that worshipers could be energized by grace, so that they may keep the commandments, so that they may enter Paradise (or maybe a nicer district of purgatory) when they die, is salvation by works, which the Bible rejects.  

I ask: How many legalistic Christians are still trying to mail in moral mortgage checks to God, on a debt they no longer owe? How many Christians worry about the possibility of their own future unbelief, when Christ already paid their debt of that sin?

It -- the payment for our sins -- is finished.