Word of Salvation – Vol. 25 No. 18 – January 1979

 

A Cry Of Triumph

 

Sermon by Rev. P. C. Tuit, B.RE., M.Div. on John 19:30

Scripture readings: Isaiah 53, John 19:17-37

 

Congregation of Jesus Christ,

In our message today, we will deal with one of the words which Jesus spoke on the cross. As you will know, there were seven words, so-called, which Jesus spoke on the cross.

The first one was a prayer for those who crucified Him. In this prayer He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

The second word was directed to one of the men who was crucified with Him. To that one thief on the cross Jesus said, “Today you. will be with Me in Paradise.”

His third word was an expression of concern for His mother. He pointed Mary to the Apostle John and said, “Woman, look, your son,” and to John, “Look, your mother.”

In His fourth word Jesus expressed the agony of God’s wrath on sin upon Him when He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

In the fifth word we hear the One Who has said of Himself that He: was the source of living water cry out, “I thirst!” Then, in the sixth word, we have His cry of victory when He shouted, “It is completed, it is finished!”

In His final word on the cross, Jesus commended Himself to God, His Father, when He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”

It is with the sixth word that we are concerned today. It is Jesus’ cry of victory, Jesus’ cry of triumph. Of Jesus’ cry of triumph we will note:

1. It was spoken in a context of seemingly defeat,

2. This cry was a cry of fulfilment, and

3. This cry had a liberating meaning.

It is finished! It is completed!

This was Jesus’ cry upon the cross. It was His cry of triumph. It was His statement of victory. It signified the completion of His mission on earth. However, perhaps never before was a cry of victory uttered in such hopeless and defeating circumstances.

How could Jesus cry out in triumph?

Here He was, hanging on a cross. He was hanging in the midst of two thieves and murderers, one of whom was cursing Him to His face.

Triumph on a cross? Was this possible?

Capital punishment was very common in the days of Jesus.

The death penalty would be given for a great variety of crimes. However, the death penalty by means of a cross was reserved by the Romans only for slaves and rebels. It was looked upon as the most disgraceful and most horrible way to die. A Roman citizen could only be put to death by means of the sword. He could not be crucified.

The Jews also despised anyone hanging on a cross. The Jewish method of capital punishment was death by means of stoning. However, in certain cases the dead body of the stoned criminal would be hung on a tree. In the law it was written: “Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.”

Thus Jesus shouted His cry of triumph while dying a death so disgraceful that it was despised by Jews and Romans alike. Jesus uttered His cry of triumph while dying one of the most horrible deaths possible. The penalty of crucifixion combined everything that the most cruel tormentor could think of. Slowly but surely, while suffering excruciating pains, life was taken out of the victim drop by drop.

It was also a lonely cry of victory that Jesus uttered, congregation. Only five days before, a great crowd of people had shouted victory for Him. Thousands had hailed Him as the Son of David, the King of Israel, the blessed One Who comes in the Name of the Lord.

On the cross, when Jesus uttered His cry of victory, there was no one on earth that joined Him. The people who had first shouted, “Hosannah!” to Him had cried, “Crucify, crucify Him!” Yes, even His disciples, the ones who had been with Him for three years, who knew so much about Him and the things of His Kingdom, did not join in His cry of victory. All of them had run away for fear that they also would be incriminated. Those who were standing by the cross could only see utter defeat, the end of Jesus; His mission a failure.

Congregation, we said earlier that perhaps never before had a cry of triumph been uttered in such hopeless circumstances. Did Jesus have any basis to say that His work was finished? Did He have any solid ground to base His victory on? Could He say this? He Who was dying a bitter and shameful death on the cross, forsaken even by His disciples?

Yes, congregation, Jesus did have reason to cry out in triumph, “It is finished, My work is completed!” Even though, humanly speaking, all was lost. This becomes evident when we see that His cry of triumph was a cry of fulfilment.

The famous medical doctor, scholar, musician and humanitarian, Dr. Albert Schweizer, has written a book entitled, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus”. In this book he views Jesus’ death on the cross as the end of everything. According to Albert Schweizer this crucifixion was not supposed to happen, it was not planned this way. He, then, sees the mission of Jesus as a failure.

However, this is not the picture the Bible gives us, congregation. The Bible shows us very clearly that the crucifixion was part and parcel of God’s plan. Yes, we can even say that Jesus was born to die.

If ever anyone was born to die, it was Jesus. The shadow of the cross could already be seen in the manger. During His youth, Jesus could hear the thunder of Calvary rumbling along the horizon of His life.

The cross was not an accident.

The crucifixion was not an event on which Jesus had not counted. It did not take Him by surprise. The Gospels make it clear that all the events of Jesus’ life led to Golgotha. Jesus Himself spoke of this when He spoke about ‘His hour’.

The hour is now come that the Son of Man will be delivered up. He calls Himself the Good Shepherd Who lays down His life for His sheep. John writes in Chapter 3 that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.

The Gospels make it very clear that Jesus was completely conscious of the fact that He had to die. Yes, the Bible presents it in such a way that Christ’s life was not taken, rather, Christ gave Himself. Before His hour had come no one could touch Him, but now in His hour He could cry, “It is finished!”

Many times the Gospels say about certain events that these things must happen. These are the Divine ‘musts’ in the Bible. Behind these Divine ‘musts’, we find God’s plan for our salvation.

The Gospel writers also make it plain that these things happen that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. And they were thinking here, of course, of the Old Testament Scriptures. Even seemingly insignificant things connected with the crucifixion did occur that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

The soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ garments. John comments on this. This was to fulfil the Scriptures. He quotes Psalm 22, saying: “They parted My garments among them and for My clothing they cast lots.”

Then in verse 28 of John 19 we read: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil Scripture) ‘I thirst’.” This is also a reference from Psalm 22.

The crucifixion was no accident. Jesus’ cry of triumph, “It is finished”, was no cry of futility. It truly was a cry of triumph because all that had been written about Him was now fulfilled. The Bible speaks about Jesus as the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world. Here on Calvary this came to actual fulfilment. To this cry of Jesus, “It is finished”, the whole of history had been moving. For this cry a sin-cursed creation had been waiting. In this cry the Old Testament believers had already put their hope and trust.

Jesus’ cry, “It is finished!” was God’s answer and fulfilment of Genesis 3:15, where we find the first preaching of the Good News.

In Genesis 3:15 God promised Adam and Eve that the children of Eve would crush the head of Satan. At the cross this came to fulfil- ment..

Jesus cry “It is finished” was the Divine ‘Amen’ to the first preaching of the Good News.

After Genesis 3:15 many more things were said about the One Who would crush the head of Satan. But it all came to fulfilment in Jesus’ death on the cross and He brought this to expression with the words, “It is finished”. It was the fulfilment of God’s eternal plan for the salvation of His people.

The road Jesus had to go to finish all things was a difficult one. It was a road of pain, sorrow and suffering; His whole life was a life of suffering. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was despised and rejected. Yet, all He did was for us. He was the Lamb of God that bore God’s wrath for our sin. He did this His whole life long and especially on the cross. He did this for us, Yes, it was for us that He cried “It is finished!”

“It is finished!” These words were said in seemingly dire and hopeless circumstances. Yet, they marked the fulfilment of the Scriptures and the focal point of human history. They were full of meaning; a redemptive meaning.

Jesus died with the cry of victory on His lips. His cry was not the cry of a defeated one. Nor was it a sigh of patient resignation. Christ’s “It is finished!” was the triumphant recognition that He had now fully accomplished the work that He came to do. On the cross Jesus had borne the wrath of God against sin. On the cross Jesus did what was predicted already in Genesis 3:15. There, upon that cross, He crushed the head of Satan and set His people free from the dominion and power of the devil.

Jesus, on the cross, paid the price for our sin. This we must never forget when we talk about the cross. We sometimes are so preoccupied with the cross itself and with Jesus’ physical sufferings that we forget the deeper reality behind the cross. The Church of God has perhaps suffered more than it realises by pictures of Christ’s crucifixion or by very honest and well-intended sermons trying to describe the physical suffering of Christ. We should not deny the reality of Jesus’ physical suffering, but His physical suffering was nothing compared to the suffering caused by sin.

This comes out in great intensity in His cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Yes, the Son of God, at this moment, was forsaken by His own Father. How is this possible? The only answer that begins to solve this enigma is the truth that the sheer holiness of God cannot bear to look upon sin with favour. God cannot do anything else but detach Himself from His Son because on the cross the Son is being made sin. Sin was punished in the person of Jesus Christ. He was made sin for us.

We say in the Apostles’ Creed that Christ descended into hell. We sometimes speak about hell on earth. Yet, hell on earth happened only once. That was when Christ suffered on the cross. It was on the cross that Christ experienced the reality and pain of hell which is separation from God. All this happened to atone for our sin upon the cross. Christ carried the total weight of God’s wrath against all the sins of God’s people. The cross is the revelation of the justice and mercy of God Who so loved the world that He gave us His Son. Yet for Christ upon the cross there was no mercy, only justice so that for us there might be grace abounding.

It was the sacrificial death of Christ upon the cross that atoned for the sins of God’s people.. It was the death of Christ that reconciled God with His people again. His sacrifice was the ransom price that was necessary.

All this is behind Christ’s triumphant cry: “It is finished!” Yes, His work is completed. Redemption has been purchased. God’s wrath against sin is appeased. Salvation has been accomplished. With the cross as His pulpit, Christ proclaims “It is finished!”, meaning: debt paid in full, Divine justice is fully satisfied, the way to God is open.

Peter writes in his epistle, “Christ Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.” Yes, congregation, here we find the beautiful liberating meaning behind Christ’s triumphant cry, “It is finished!” He died for us. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that made us whole. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

We call the day that Christ died Good Friday. Isaiah must already have sensed the real significance of this when he wrote that it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; it was His will. Only His death could bridge the gap caused by sin. Because of Christ’s death, God could deal with sinners again.

It is finished, debts are paid in full, justice is fully satisfied. It is no wonder that the Gospel is called the word of the cross. No wonder Paul was determined to preach nothing but Christ crucified.

We read in 2Corinthians 5, “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Paul could say this because “for our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

And it is in true faith that the believer may now join in with Christ in His cry of triumph. Because of Christ’s death the believer can say, “There is therefore now no condemnation for these who are in Christ Jesus.” There is no condemnation because Christ, on the cross, was condemned in the believer’s place. And now we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because of Christ’s sacrifice the believer may even, in the most dire circumstances of life, say, “If God is for us, who is against us? He Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, will He not also give us all things with Him? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, shall tribulation or distress, or persecution of famine, or nakedness or peril or sword? No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved on us!”

What should our response be, congregation?

This perhaps is best expressed in this song:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small.
Love, so amazing, so Divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all!

AMEN.