Doves On Distant Oaks

Tetelestai

I often hear people talk, or write, about the mission of Jesus. They say that Jesus was a good teacher, may have even performed miracles and healed people; He’s even someone they look up to and want to emulate. But … thats all. They don’t believe he had any other mission to fulfill during his 33-odd years while alive.

There is a specific word that Jesus spoke from the cross that refutes this belief. That word is tetelestai. It's often translated as "it is finished" and can be found in the following verse:

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. (John 19:30}

This word is primarily used at the close of business transactions. After documents were signed, pens put down, and hands shaken in agreement, it was finished … tetelestai. Yet, what endless profoundness it contained when spoken by our Lord and Savior from the cross. Our sin was paid in full. No debt remained. It was finished!

Charles Simeon, Anglican cleric and author, said of the word:

Since the foundation of the world there never was a single word uttered, in which such diversified and important matter was contained. Every word indeed that proceeded from our Saviour’s lips deserves the most attentive consideration: but TETELESTAI eclipses all. To do justice to it, is beyond the ability of men or angels: its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, are absolutely unsearchable.

For a single word to carry such weight means it was more than just the end of a person’s life. I hardly think Jesus would use a word used to sign business dealing when their life was over. When someone simply dies, there is no agreement on anything, no arrangements specified … no “deal” made. And it couldn’t have meant Jesus' work on earth was completed.

Certainly there was more knowledge He could have passed on—more teaching to be done. Without question there were more people He could have healed and more miracles He could have performed. If He had finished that work on the cross, then those things would have been needed no longer. Yet, the world remains full of sickness and in need of everyday miracles. There is still so much more we need to learn.

No, the reason Christ stepped down from heaven was to carry our sin to the cross. The reason He came to earth was to remove our debt to God, to end enmity and return amity between God and mankind.

It was mankind who broke their relationship with God though Adam and Eve’s sin. Ever since, we had sunk lower and lower into iniquity, as Isaiah clearly writes:

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with bloodshed, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity. No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. (Isaiah 59:2-4)

Is it any wonder why God’s wrath needed to be satisfied. In one hand He held the power of destruction, while with the other he held it back with mercy. That is the meaning behind “for God so loved the world that He sent His only son.” God loved us so much that He had to send His son to reconcile the enmity between Himself and all mankind.

The Greek word for this is katallage, which means “reconciliation.” The Apostle Paul uses this word when he writes:

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

All those other things Jesus did in his lifetime—the teaching, the healing, the miracles—were signposts that pointed to the cross. That's why He said, "It is finished" on the cross, because He had completed what He had come to do by dying for our sins.

No words can express just how grateful we must be for that.

For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

–- Romans 5:10-11

Keywords: Peace, Reconciliation

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