Mission accomplished

When Jesus was dying on the cross, two “famous last words” with deep, but obscure meaning.

The first is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15.34). To understand this properly we need to know that it is actually a quotation from the first verse of the prophetic Psalm 22, in which the sufferings of the Messiah are predicted. Centuries before crucifixion was invented, this psalm made the astonishing prophetic statement, “they have pierced my hands and my feet” (v16). 

One may then ask: did the Father abandon his obedient Son on the cross? It is of the essence of hell to be forsaken by God, excluded from the warm experience of his loving presence. Is that what Jesus felt on the cross?

His cry of dereliction came when “he bore our sins in his body” on the cross (1 Peter 2.24), accomplishing the atoning sacrifice necessary so that God’s forgiveness could be granted freely and in accordance with absolute justice. Jesus’ cry expresses the Saviour’s anguish as he voluntarily took on himself, out of love for us, the full weight of the hell that we deserve for our transgressions, so as to save us from it.

The eternal punishment of hell that sinful humans incur was condensed on the infinite, divine Son of God – and that provoked his anguished cry. His supreme sacrifice, endured out of compassion for lost humanity, was the way of granting salvation to the likes of me and you. This was the greatest act of love in all the history of the world!

The second mysterious cry was Jesus’ last: “It is finished!” (John 19.30). This also was not a shout of despair but a victorious cry of accomplishment. Jesus had previously affirmed that his aim was “to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4.34). It was his saving work that needed to be “finished”. In John 17.4, he prayed in anticipation on the eve of his death, “Father… I have finished the work that you gave me to do”. Finally, having made the perfect and unique atonement by giving his life “as a ransom for all” (Mark 10.45), shedding his blood “for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26.28), he spent his last breath proclaiming that his mission was accomplished.

So Jesus died, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3.18). He was “the Lamb of God” introduced by John the Baptist, “who takes away the sin of the world” (John1.29).  He was the perfect human fulfilment of the Old Testament animal sacrifices offered previously which were never effective, but rather prophetically didactic, looking forward to the coming of Christ who “was sacrificed once to bear the sins of many people” (Hebrews 9.28). Now no more is needed. “All is finished”.

We owe our salvation to Jesus: he was the only sinless person who could offer his life in the place of sinners. As the divine Son of God, his human sacrifice had value far beyond that of a mere man dying in the place of another. His death had infinite value to atone for the sins of a vast multitude.

As his mission and sacrifice have been so perfectly accomplished at the cross, God, on that basis, offers full and free forgiveness, by grace, to all who repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Clive Every-Clayton