J Philip Bible Readings

^"16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus, ¹⁷ and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. ¹⁸ There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. ¹⁹ Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” ²⁰ Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. ²¹ So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’, but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” ²² Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

²³ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, ²⁴ so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfil the Scripture which says,

So the soldiers did these things, ²⁵ but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” ²⁷ Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

²⁸ After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the Scripture), “I thirst.” ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. ³⁰ When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished”, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."

John 19:16-30

The third 'word' from the cross recorded by John is in 30. 'It is finished'. How are we to understand these words, they could be, and doubtless have been, interpreted variously, but we must seek to understand them in the context of the gospel as John has presented it. We may recall our Lord's words in the great intercessory prayer in 17:4, 'I have finished the work which thou gave me to do' - that was the spiritual principle stated, and here is the concrete outworking of that principle in the death of the cross. It cannot therefore be construed as a cry of distress or resignation, still less of failure; rather, it was a shout of triumph, and the Greek original probably bears this out far better than the English versions do, for it consists of only one word 'tetelestai', and rings out from the page of the Greek with a great note of victory. What then, was finished? The work of redemption was finished; the great task of bearing away the sin of the world was finished; the work of reconciliation and atonement was finished; sin was finished, and Satan was finished, as powers in the lives of men. The picture John gives is one of a great wrestling with sin and evil, and in this cry Jesus stands back, as it were, and says, 'It is done': Or, the picture of Jesus standing before a massive door, straining to open the lock: at last it springs open and He cries, 'It is done'.

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven and let us in.

Full atonement accomplished in the blood of the cross - His was a finished work!