Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

In Acts, we see a Christianity that is unknown to the modern. It is a conquering, vibrant force where demoniacs are delivered, the lame are healed, and spiritualists rally together to burn their books and incantations. The Word records the Jewish leaders calling the new Christians “upsetters of the whole world.” The first 300 years of Christianity saw very much the same. Healing and miracles were accompanied by extraordinary testimonies of believers who joyously sang hymns to God while being burned alive. Today preachers call for that same kind of consecration and cry out to God for Him to extend His hand, but they do not preach the same gospel. The early Christians’ doctrine centered squarely on the resurrection and a living, vibrant Jesus. Today’s theologians advance a weak, introspective Cross-centered theology.

Much of what we have lost can be attributed to the misguided rendering of John 19:30. That is where Jesus, hanging on the Cross, shouts out, “It is finished!” Modern preachers have decided that this statement means that His mission was finished. Here’s what they say:

The word means ‘to complete,’ ‘to bring to perfection.’ Jesus had fully done the work God the Father sent him to do. (William Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek at 224)

The large-scale outworking of this can be seen in John’s deliberate sequence of “signs.” Though this is controversial, I believe that John intends his readers to follow a sequence of seven signs, with the water-into-wine story at Cana as the first and the crucifixion the seventh. On the cross Jesus finishes the work the father has given him to do (17.4), ending with the shout of triumph (tetelestai, ‘it is accomplished,’ 19.30), corresponding to the completion of creation itself. (Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God at 440)

When Jesus said, ‘It is finished,’ He meant it. He meant that there could be nothing added to what He had done. The same thing is true of salvation. Jesus finished it on the cross. All you have to do is have faith in His finished work. You can’t add anything to it. (John MacArthur, Crucifixion and Resurrection, Tape GC 1575)

And when the moment of his death was near, Jesus cried out, ‘It is finished,’ and bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:30). By this he meant more than “my life is over.” He meant, “I have fully accomplished the redeeming work my Father sent me to do.” (John Piper, The Unparalleled Passion of Jesus Christ, January 1, 1995)

In John 19:30 Jesus said, ‘It is finished!’ He did not say, ‘It has just begun!’ The Greek word used in the original text is tetelestai, which means ‘It is paid; the debt has been paid in full.’ The finality of Jesus’ accomplishment upon the cross is made crystal clear by the tearing of the temple curtain that veiled God’s earthly sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, from man, thus signifying that access to God had been restored at that precise moment” (Mark 15:38; cf. Hebrews 9:1-14;
10:19-22). (Hank Hanegraaff, Christianity in Crisis at 162)

Mounce holds, “This one word summary of Jesus’ life and death is perhaps the single most important statement in all Scripture.” Paradoxically, it does become the paramount statement in Scripture, but only because of the wrong meaning Mounce applies to it.

Oddly, none of these men, save Hanegrraff, present one iota of scriptural evidentiary support for Jesus’s intended meaning of this all-important statement. Hanegrraff’s evidence flutters off like a bird when one sees that the disciples were absolutely flummoxed by Jesus’s death and not a single person was born again at Hanegrraaff’s “precise moment.” The reason none of these men can put forth scriptural evidence to support this granddaddy of scriptures is because Jesus was not speaking of His own mission.

The Word, itself, demonstrates that if Jesus had just shed His blood and died on the Cross, no one would be saved. In 1 Corinthians 15 we read:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised; and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is in vain; ye are yet in your sins. (1 Cor. 15: 13, 14, 17)

Also Jesus, Himself, said in Luke 13:32 that He was perfected on the third day, not Good Friday. Demoting Jesus’s mission to simply His death on the Cross is not only unscriptural, it renders Him a victim instead of the argegos, the supreme commander hero that the Word paints Him to be.

So, what exactly did He mean when He said, “It is finished”? It was not the end of His mission, but it was the end of the Old Covenant. In future posts, we will see that our Hero’s mission included becoming our High Priest and carrying His own blood into the Heavenly Holies on the third day in order to obtain an eternal redemption for us.

The Resurrection and the Blood - Part 2