It Is Finished

It Is Finished:

Giving Thanks to God for Everything He Fulfilled at the Cross

Have you ever watched a new movie, where you started 10 minutes before the end?

Many years ago, I was introduced to Back to the Future in this way. My friends were watching this movie and I joined them at point where Doc Brown crashed through garbage cans, warned Marty and his girlfriend about their future children, and drove to a place where “we don’t need roads.”

If you only know the last ten minutes of Back to the Future, you won’t understand the significance of the DeLorean, the date (November 5, 1955), the speed (88 miles per hour), or the electricity (1.21 Gigawatts) that makes the final scene possible. Nor will you understand the flux capacitor and its cruciform power to rewrite history. All of these details are revealed over the course of the movie, and only in watching the movie from beginning to end can you make sense of its ending.

Something similar happens when we open our Bibles and behold the man hung upon a Roman cross. While many well-intentioned evangelists point to Christ’s cross as the center piece of our faith and the way of salvation, it is an event in history that only makes sense when you begin in the beginning. That Christ was buried in a garden tomb does more than give us an historical referent; it tells us that Christ’s death is going to bring about a new creation. For it was in a garden where Adam sinned and brought death to the world. And now, raised from a garden tomb, Jesus as the new Adam has introduced a new way of life.

In this vein, the biblical storyline is necessary for understanding why the Son of God had to die on a tree (see Deut. 21:22–23), be buried in a tomb (see Isa. 53:9), and raised to life on the third day (see e.g., Hos. 6:1–2). Indeed, even if we know that Christ did not stay dead—that he rose from the grave, walked the earth teaching his disciples for forty days, and ascended to heaven, where he now sits in glory—we cannot make sense of the cross. Or at least, our interest in Christ’s death and resurrection leads us to ask: But what does it mean?

The way to understand Christ’s cross is to place that central event of human history in the timeline of God’s redemptive story. That timeline begins in creation, proceeds through the fall of mankind into sin, and picks up countless promises of grace and types of salvation throughout the Old Testament. In fact, to be most precise, God’s plan for Christ’s cross did not begin in space and time; it began before God spoke light into the darkness (Gen. 1:3). As Peter says in his first sermon (Acts 2:23) and his first epistle (1 Peter 1:20), the cross of Christ was the centerpiece of God’s eternal plan for the salvation of his people.

In Scripture, therefore, the cross is the climactic work of God to redeem sinners and rescue the dying. Indeed, while Jesus now reigns in glory, and his victorious resurrection gives assurance that all those who trust in him will have eternal life, it is vital to understand what Christ did on the cross and what it means when Christ said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Remarkably, as Dr. Piotrowski has observed before, the beloved apostle goes out of his way to show how Christ’s death fulfilled all that was written in the Old Testament. In order, John records in his Gospel that the soldiers dividing his clothes fulfills Scripture (19:24; see Ps. 22:18). Next, with respect to Jesus’s own purpose for dying, John says that he requested sour wine in order to fulfill Scripture (19:28; see Ps. 69:21). And finally, after he breathed his last, John reports that Jesus bones were unbroken, which also fulfilled Scripture. By these acts, John shows us that Jesus was the true Passover lamb and the pierced messiah from whom streams of mercy would flow. Indeed, John 19:36–37 even quotes Exodus 12:46 and Zechariah 12:10 to show how Jesus fulfilled these Old Testament scriptures.

For our sake today, if we want to know Christ and the meaning of his cross, it is necessary to spend time understanding how the apostles made sense of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Certainly, Paul until his conversion struggled to understand how a crucified man could be Israel’s messiah. Deuteronomy 21:22–23 says that anyone hung on a tree was accursed by God. So how could Jesus be the One?

As Paul looked at Christ according to the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16), he saw Jesus as an imposter and a blasphemer. Little did he know that he was the blasphemer who opposed Christ by persecuting Christ’s church (1 Tim. 1:13). In God’s mercy, however, the risen Christ confronted and converted Paul on the Damascus Road (see Acts 9, 22, and 26). Thereafter, Paul spent fourteen years discerning how the Old Testament (cf. Gal. 2:1) could be reconciled with the death of Christ on the cross.

The result of Paul’s cogitation, along with Jesus’s revelation to Paul, was the glorious news that on the cross Jesus did not die for his own sins, but ours! Or as Paul puts it in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Such was the way the Spirit worked in Paul and in the minds of the other apostles.

As one Old Testament scholar has put it, “I like the New Testament, because it reminds so much of the Old Testament.” Indeed, the New Testament should remind us of the Old Testament, because every page of the New Testament (and often every paragraph) is filled with quotations, allusions, and echoes from the Old.

Such is the way that the Spirit has unified the Bible and the way in which the Spirit has born witness to Christ. Every word in the Old Testament comes from God. And Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), is known to us as we compare and contrast his life, death, and resurrection with all that came before him and all that was written about him (John 5:39).

This is the way we come to know Jesus. Or to say better, this is the way that God makes himself know to us. Those who have been made alive by the Spirit not only come to understand how Jesus fulfills all Scripture, but they also delight to know more of God’s Word, so that they can have a truer picture of their Savior and King.

To that end, I recently preached a series of sermons on the cross, looking at passages from all over the Bible. You are welcome to listen to those messages here. At the same time, this approach to Scripture, where all streams lead ultimately to Christ, is foundational for all that I teach in systematic theology. If you talk to any of the students at ITS who have taken one of the systematic courses, you will hear a resounding thankfulness for seeing how the whole Bible fits together. And wonderfully, this thankfulness does not go to the professors, but to the Spirit who inspired God’s Word and teaches God’s people how to read it.

Truly, as we come to this season of thanksgiving, we have countless reasons to give thanks. But one that stands above them all is the fact that Christ’s death and resurrection confirms and fulfills all the promises of God. Accordingly, as we come to thanksgiving this month, we should offer praise to God for the way that his Bible holds together and leads us to cross of Christ.

At the same time, as we begin to prepare for the next year, we should consider ways to grow in our knowledge of God’s Word and God’s Son. That might be picking up a book, auditing a class, or taking a class for credit that helps us to see how the whole Bible leads to Christ and how Christ fulfills the whole Bible. Indeed, if we only know the last 10 minutes of the story, we will not fully appreciate the work that God has done. But if we have a growing knowledge of the Bible, it will only enlarge our vision of Christ and our thanksgiving to him as well.

To that end, let us continue study the works of the Lord that we might more fully delight in them.

Soli Deo Gloria, ds

Dr. David Schrock is the Professor of Systematic Theology at Indianapolis Theological Seminary and pastor of Occoquan Bible Church (Woodbridge, Virginia). To read more posts by Dr. Schrock, visit his blog: Via Emmaus | Proclaiming Christ from all the Scriptures, in order to Make Disciples from all the Nations