It Is Finished

The cry before He died “It is finished!” (John 19:30) is not the last gasp of a defeated man. Matthew 27:50, Mark 15:37, and Luke 23:46 do not record what He said but join as one to say that He cried out with a loud voice, which was a miracle considering His sufferings and the crushing of the lungs caused by crucifixion. 

The phrase “It is finished” was used in at least two ways in the days of the New Testament. In Roman warfare, the general would be positioned on a high elevation so that he could watch the battle taking place below him. From where he stood he could see when the battle had been won, while a foot soldier in the thick of the battle would not know it. When he could see that the enemy had been routed, he would shout the same phrase Jesus cried—“It is finished”—and every foot soldier would know that the battle had been won.

But the phrase has also been found written across the bottom of statements of account in ancient Greece answering to our “paid in full.” Jesus emerged from the spiritual death He died as us and shouted through the smoke of battle that the battle had been won and the sin of man had been canceled, paid in full.

He had been through the hell of bearing our sins in His body on the cross and out of that darkness had cried, “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?” but then it was accomplished and in full, conscious fellowship with His Father He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ Having said this, He breathed His last” (Luke 23:46).

- Malcolm Smith