“It is finished.” That’s the big idea of Good Friday: It is finished. Ok – what is finished? What exactly did Jesus Christ fully and finally accomplish that first Good Friday? What is finished? Tonight we will explore three answers to that question. What is finished? 1. The Father’s work 2. Our sin forgiven 3. God’s wrath removed.

THE FATHER’S WORK

Throughout the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus Christ made his mission on earth crystal clear. Jesus Christ came to fulfill his Father’s will and accomplish his Father’s work with perfect and complete obedience.

John 4:34 – “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
John 6:38 – “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
John 17:4-5 – “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took on flesh and dwelt among us in order to do His Father’s will and accomplish His Father’s work. But Good Friday teaches us that Jesus Christ did not fully and finally fulfill His Father’s will or finish His Father’s work with complete obedience until he breathed his last and died on the cross for us. When Jesus said, “it is finished,” he was saying, “all the work the Father has given me to do, I have completed with perfect obedience.” 

Now, why is that so significant? Why is it so significant that when Jesus said “it is finished,” he meant that He completed His Father’s will and work with perfect obedience and righteousness? It’s significant because it means that when Jesus died on the cross for us, His perfect record of obedience, his, if you will, resume of righteously completing His Father’s work was imputed to our record, and our resume of sin was imputed to Him. Theologians call this “double imputation.” At the cross, all of our sin is imputed to Jesus Christ and all of his righteousness is imputed to us. If you’ve trusted in Christ, it’s as if you had perfectly completed the Father’s will. On the cross Jesus finished the Father’s work and all of that work is credited to us. What does this mean for us? The Heidelberg Catechism captures the practicality of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us beautifully: Although my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, have never kept any of them, and am still inclined to all evil, yet God, without any merit of my own, out of mere grace, imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ. He grants these to me as if I had never had nor committed any sin, and as if I myself had accomplished all the obedience which Christ has rendered for me, if only I accept this gift with a believing heart. Jesus finished the Father’s work, accomplished his will, and, because of the cross, His obedience is credited to us! “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” The Father’s work is finished. Secondly…

OUR SIN FORGIVEN

Though it’s an often overlooked detail, the location of our Lord’s death helps us see that his death accomplished the forgiveness of our sins. The location matters. A few years ago when the musical Hamilton was popular, our son Soren really got into the soundtrack and, since he loves history, learned a lot about Alexander Hamilton. The location where Hamilton was mortally wounded reveals the significance of his death. He was mortally wounded in Weehawken, NJ.; a well known dueling ground. The location was a dueling ground, revealing that Hamilton’s death was not a result of natural causes but a dueling bullet fueled by personal and political animus. The location revealed the significance. In a similar way, the location of the Lord Jesus Christ’s death reveals that His death accomplished the forgiveness of our sins. 

Where did Jesus die? Just a few verses before the ones we are exploring tonight, John recorded this detail in John 19:16-17 – So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. Golgotha (in Latin, Calvary), was a small hill outside of Jerusalem’s first and second city walls. Our Lord was crucified outside the city. Why is that location significant? Because in the Old Testament, the animals that were sacrificed in the tabernacle or temple, inside Jerusalem, for the forgiveness of sins, were then burned outside the city. In the Old Testament book of Leviticus we read, “And the bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be carried outside the camp. Their skin and their flesh and their dung shall be burned up with fire…For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the LORD from all your sins” (Leviticus 16:27).” When the Gospel author, John, emphasizes that Jesus Christ carried his cross outside the city and that it was outside the city where he said, “it is finished,” and gave up his spirit in death, John was revealing that Jesus Christ’s death fulfilled every animal sacrifice that was ever offered for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus’ death outside the city signifies that Jesus Christ died as a sacrifice, as a sin offering to cleanse us from and forgive us for our sins. He died as our sin-removing substitute. The location reveals the significance. Jesus Christ was not simply crucified like a debased criminal. He was killed outside the camp as a sacrifice to cleanse us from our sins. The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews makes the significance of the location crystal clear. Hebrews 13:11-12 – For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. [12] So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

When Jesus said, “it is finished,” it was as if he was saying, “The final sacrifice for sins has been offered. My Father’s work is accomplished and your sins are forgiven.” Jesus is the final sacrifice for the forgiveness sins. The very first sacrifice for sins actually took place in the Garden of Eden. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree, except one, lest they die physically and spiritually. However, after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God did not kill them and consign them to Hell forever. Do you know why? God offered a sacrifice. He killed animals instead of Adam and Eve. Then God clothed Adam and Eve in animal skins, covering their sin. But the blood of animals never actually took away sin. The animals that died in the garden pointed forward to Jesus Christ and his sacrifice as our substitute to take away our sins. And the location of his death reveals the significance. Jesus is the final sacrifice, offered outside the camp, to sanctify us by his own blood. If you trust in Jesus Christ as your only hope in life and in death, then your sins are removed from you as far as the east is from the west. The all-remembering God remembers them no more. The Father’s work is finished and our sin forgiven is finished. Finally…

GOD’S WRATH REMOVED

It’s not only the location of Jesus’ death that reveals its significance, it’s also the timing. The timing of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross reveals that what Jesus finished, what he accomplished on the cross, was nothing less than removing God’s holy and pure wrath toward sinners like us. The timing reveals the significance. 

Though the crucifixion of Jesus Christ doesn’t take place until John 19, beginning in John 13:1, everything begins rapidly moving toward Jesus’ death on the cross. And in John 13:1, John emphasizes the timing. John 13:1 – Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. This is not the only time that John emphasizes that Jesus’ passion took place during the Passover. John 18:38-39 – Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.  [39] But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” The timing of Jesus’ death is significant; it happened during the Jewish Passover feast. Our Lord came to Jerusalem not to celebrate the Passover, but to become our Passover. 1 Corinthians 5:7, Paul calls Him “Christ our Passover.”

What is the Passover? The very first Passover is recorded in Exodus chapter twelve. The setting for the Passover was Egypt. God’s people, the offspring of Abraham, had been slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years. God heard his people’s cry for relief and raised up Moses to set God’s people free. However, when Moses demanded that Pharoah free God’s people so that they could go out of Egypt and worship God, Pharaoh refused. So, God sent ten plagues and the last plague was the worst plague of all: death of the firstborn. Can you imagine?! My Soren, your firstborn, all of them. But this plague was different from the other nine because Israel wasn’t exempted from this one. The other plagues fell on Egypt, but this one on Egyptians and Hebrews. Why? Because both Hebrew and Egyptian alike, along with all of us, are sinners. And the One true God is holy and just. Because of God’s moral perfection, he hates sin and is full of pure, just, and holy wrath toward sinners. All the firstborn deserved to die because God is holy. We all deserve to die eternally because God is holy. However, God devised a way to maintain his holiness and also extend mercy to his people: a lamb as a substitute. God’s plan was for a lamb to die as a substitute for the Hebrew firstborn. Every Hebrew household was to take one-year old male lamb, examine it for four days to ensure it was a “spotless lamb,” and then on the fourteenth day of the month, which is when the angel was to kill every first born in the land, every Hebrew household was to kill the lamb and put the lambs blood on the doorposts of their house. When the death angel came to kill the firstborn, he would pass over the homes that were covered by the blood of the lamb. That’s where the name Passover comes from. So, let’s be clear, the Hebrew firstborn were not saved from God’s wrath because they were innocent or better than the Egyptian first born. No! They were saved because they were covered by the blood of the lamb. The lamb took the wrath so that the firstborn could go free. Salvation through substitution. 

This first Passover and its lamb is in the background when, in John 1:29, it says, The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…” This Passover and its lamb is in the background when John 13 tells us that Jesus’ final days and death took place during the Passover. And this Passover and its lamb are in view when Jesus said, “it is finished.” Have you ever wondered why Christians don’t celebrate the Passover? Because it has been fulfilled. Jesus Christ is the final Passover Lamb. He died as the propitiation for our sins, which means that Christ died in our place to absorb and remove the wrath of God that we deserve to experience forever. There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, the Passover Lamb. It is finished. God’s wrath stilled. Salvation through a substitute; the lamb.

CONCLUSION

Good Friday is good because Jesus said, “It is finished.” What did Jesus finish through his death on the cross? Jesus obediently fulfilled the Father’s will, so that His righteous resume can be imputed to you. Jesus died as a sin-sacrifice outside the camp so that your sins can be removed. Jesus was the passover lamb that can save you from the eternal wrath of God falling on you. That’s why we call it “Good Friday,” because “ it is finished.” 

However, that is only good news if it is applied to you. John Calvin wrote, “As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race will remain useless and of no value for us.” Is Christ still outside of you? If so, his death outside of the camp during the Passover will not benefit you. You are still in your sins and under God’s wrath. However, if you receive Jesus Christ as your only hope for forgiveness of sins and rescue from God’s wrath, if you confess him as your Lord, then you will be forgiven and free from condemnation. Trust in Christ and rejoice this Good Friday; your sin is forgiven. God’s wrath is silenced. Righteousness imputed. What a Savior.