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Thread: It is finished

  1. #1
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    It is finished

    "It is finished".

    That is what Jesus said after he had received the sour wine and then he gave up his spirit and died. So what was it that was finished ?

    "Atonement, salvation, the veil in the holy of holies was rent in two, the path to God was clear". That is what some claim.

    No, it was not. I don't see any account of disciples watching this spectacle on Calvary and declaring that "Salvation is finished, we believe. Thank you God that if we die now we will not be held in custody in the bosom of Abraham in Hades but rather we will enter heaven straight away". I don't see anywhere that Jesus told them to do so once he had uttered those words or when he had died physically, either. Salvation wasn't finished until it was possible for people to obtain salvation. To obtain the kind of salvation that would send them straight to heaven if they died the next moment.

    John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

    Was it possible for someone to be born again when Jesus had said "It is finished" and the veil had rent in two ? Nope. So where can we find the first example of someone being born again in the Bible ? In the chapter of the gospel of John that follows the one where he says "it is finished" :

    John 20:22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit."

    That happened on the day of his resurrection. There were a number of things that happened before that could happen. First he had to actually die physically, which happened after he said "it is finished". Then he had to remain three days in Hades. Then he had to resurrect from the dead, which happened in the morning. His resurrection wasn't sufficient to issue the new birth however, as we can see from the resurrection account found earlier in the chapter :

    John 20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ”

    Salvation wasn't completed because Jesus had just resurrected from the dead and was hanging around his former grave. He didn't breathe the Holy Spirit on Mary Magdalene. There was one more component left before atonement and salvation was finished. He had to ascend to the Father and present himself and his blood in the temple of God in heaven. That was when God the Father declared that he was well pleased with Jesus' sacrifice and then he issued the Holy Spirit for the new birth. Which the disciples received as he visited them in the evening, after having completed atonement and salvation.

    Jesus' final ascension came 40 days later but that was because he had to do several more things that had to do with instituting the Church, clothing the disciples with power and explaining the message of the resurrection and the great commission further. But atonement and salvation were finished once he had resurrected from the grave and ascended to the Father.

    So what was finished when he cried "it is finished", since salvation still required his physical death, his three days in Hades, his resurrection and his ascension ? His Earthly ministry, the one that began when he was baptized in the river Jordan and the Holy Spirit descended on him in the shape of a dove. That was the first thing that he did, receiving the sour wine was the last thing that he did during that ministry.

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    Let's have a look at what should have happened if atonement really was finished at the moment when Jesus died physically. What does he have to do next, based on the finished atonement on the cross ?

    First he has to rescue the OT saints by preaching the message of his death on the cross so that they may believe and enter heaven. That should take less than one hour. Now he has to go to the Father and present himself in heaven. Since he allegedly dies the death of a truly righteous man, one who is as righteous in the eyes of God as we who are born again will ever be, it should be no problem for him to simply enter heaven at will after having rescued the OT saints. He doesn't have to wait for his resurrection to do that. There is also no point in hanging out in Hades for any longer than it takes to preach to the OT saints so he should resurrect from the grave again within an hour.

    "But the prophecies say three days" some will say. Yes but they don't do so for no reason. The reason was that it actually took three days to accomplish what Jesus had to accomplish in Hades rather than the one hour maximum that it took to preach to the OT saints.

    Now that Jesus has resurrected from the grave one hour after dying on the cross, or alternatively, as soon as they had placed his dead body in the grave then left, all he has to do is find the disciples and tell them to believe in the sufficiency of his atonement on the cross.

    If you think about it, the sufficiency of the atonement on the cross would actually imply that Jesus doesn't have to resurrect from the grave at all. Since he, as I talked about, now has free access to heaven without being resurrected first, he can simply enter heaven then later reveal himself to the disciples and preach to them the gospel of his death and the sufficiency of the atonement on the cross.

    Does this resemble the actual gospel ? Not much. But it is where the logic of how people employ "it is finished" actually leads.

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    Senior Member Colonel's Avatar
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    Why did Jesus have to stay in Hades for three days ? The first sermon on the message of the resurrection held by the apostle Peter on Pentecost explains that :

    Acts 2:22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—
    23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
    24 whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.'

    It was not possible that Jesus should be held by the (labor) pains of death, therefore God loosed those pains by raising him from the dead. But what does that mean ? The labor pains of death did hold him for a while so what it means is that they couldn't hold him indefinitely. When three days had passed, the labor pains of death were no longer able to hold him. Why were they no longer able to hold him ? Because Jesus had by now died fully to sin (Romans 6) and had thereby conquered death, from the position of death. God was pleased and accordingly, he resurrected him from the grave.

    1 Cor 15:14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
    15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise.
    16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen.
    17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!

    Read verse 17 carefully. There was no atonement finished on the cross whether before or at the moment when Jesus had died. People were still in their sins for the simple reason that Christ had not yet risen and they would have been no matter what message had been preached to them and no matter what they had done to get out of their sins at that point in time. The resurrection of Christ is absolutely essential for atonement, without it there is no salvation, in fact there is no Christianity at all.

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    Let's say that what Jesus accomplished on the cross up until and including his moment of death managed to eradicate our offenses in God's eyes and to render powers and principalities powerless to accuse us. Is that sufficient for salvation ?

    Gal 3:21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.

    Likewise, if what Jesus accomplished on the cross could have, in and of itself, given life, truly righteousness would have been by that act alone. It was not. The sufficiency of the cross (interpreted as dislocated from his three days in death and his subsequent resurrection) might in a very theoretical sense function as a foundation for the establishing of salvation by way of an eradication of offenses. But it has in no way any ability to produce life in the one believing in it. But why is that essential for salvation ?

    1 Cor 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption

    That's why the OT saints were held in custody in the bosom of Abraham in Hades, they were still merely creatures born of flesh and blood and they were incapable of inheriting the kingdom of God, however righteous they were by faith, even if it had been faith in the "atonement on the cross". They had to be born again, just as we have to be born again.

    1 Cor 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
    43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
    44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
    45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

    Jesus' body had to be sown in corruption, dishonor, weakness so that he could be raised in incorruption, glory and power. Thereby he became a life-giving spirit, capable of issuing salvation through the new birth where we die with him and are raised with him to new life.

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    The previous post leads to the following question about the "three days in Hades" part, the part that is the most contested one.

    Did those three days function as the last component of "the eradication of offenses" in addition to his time on the cross ?

    or

    Did those three days imply wrestling his way out of the hold death now had on him, meaning they paved the way for his resurrection ?

    There is no doubt in my mind that the answer to the latter question is "yes". But I'm not that sure about the answer to the former question.

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    According to John 4:34, Jesus said He came to do the will of the Father who sent Him, and to accomplish His work.
    When Jesus said upon the cross, "It is finished" He was saying, "I have finished the work which thou hast given Me to do (Jn 17:4).
    Also, Jesus finished fulfilling all of the Old Testament Prophecies.

    As we can read from Paul's writing's He continued to "preach Christ crucified" and the cross. Proof of this is that he was persecuted by those who found the
    cross offensive, stumbling block (1 Cor 1:23, Gal 5:11).
    Further more, Paul penned,
    For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel,
    not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void.
    For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us
    who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:17-18).
    Believers should understand there is great significance of the Cross of Christ as portrayed here in Scripture.
    Jesus main purpose and His main mission, that for which He really came, was the cross.
    He satisfied the demands of the broken Law, and totally and completely defeated Satan.
    If you put God First, you have Him at Last.

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    A crucifixion was the worst death penalty that the Roman empire had and was viewed as a great shame by the Jews when they were under that empire. It was the death of the hopelessly unrighteous and the Roman empire occasionally used it on Jewish dignitaries to shame them as much as possible. To die outside the city gates on Calvary, literally "the place of the skull", was the most humiliating form of death possible.

    Heb 13:11 For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp.
    12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.
    13 Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach

    It was the exact opposite of the death that the Jews typically envisioned for their Messiah. They envisioned a king who would lead them to victory over their enemies, who would reestablish a Jewish nation free of oppressors like under David and Solomon and who would die in peace and honor then go to rest in the bosom of Abraham in paradise, awaiting the future general resurrection.

    To those who did not understand the OT scriptures that declared that the Messiah had to suffer and die for the sins of the people, Jesus' death on the cross was a total disaster for a budding Messiah. He had been rejected utterly by the religious judges allegedly set up by God to judge matters of righteousness and had been given over to die at the hands of the Gentiles. As Jesus said himself, God had forsaken him - at least for the time being, and he died and descended into death. The only thing that could save him was that God would answer his prayers to save him from that death according to the prophecies. Which He did, on the third day. And that changed everything.

    So the cross is nothing without the resurrection. But the resurrection is also nothing without what lead up to it, the cross that sent Jesus into death.

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  13. #8
    Sounds like the simple straightforward answer is that the Cross and the Resurrection go hand in hand. I.e., they each played their part in the whole and can be regarded/celebrated/remembered as Scripturally defined.

    We dont need to pit them "against each other" as it were. At the same time we can address the unclear parts as such, as our "best understanding".

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan david View Post
    Sounds like the simple straightforward answer is that the Cross and the Resurrection go hand in hand. I.e., they each played their part in the whole and can be regarded/celebrated/remembered as Scripturally defined.

    We dont need to pit them "against each other" as it were. At the same time we can address the unclear parts as such, as our "best understanding".
    I think Jesus' death (and time in death) is best included as part of what the cross represents. God didn't undo his ordeal on the cross until He resurrected him and that resurrection was what turned the cross from apparent defeat into redemption for the world. Some say that he died a righteous man and that that ended the cross but how could that be ? Where does it say that God quit forsaking him after the moment of his death ? That wouldn't have sent him to the bosom of Abraham in paradise either. That was for people who had been imputed righteousness by faith but who weren't born again and couldn't be rescued entirely from Hades yet. It was a form of limbo. If Jesus had died a righteous man in God's eyes (after having been treated as if he were sin up until that point) then he wouldn't have descended to Hades at all, he would have gone straight to heaven.

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