finished. He had, as Daniel foretold, " finished transgression, made an end of sin, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness." (Dan, ix. 24.) After thirty-three years, since the day when He was born in Bethlehem, He had done all, paid all, performed all, suflPered all that was needful to save sinners, and satisfy the justice of God. He had fought the battle and won it, and in two days would give proof of it by rising again.
(6) Our Lord meant that God's determinate counsel and fore- will concerning His death was now accomplished and finished. All that had been appointed from all eternity that He should suffer. He had now suffered.
(c) Our Lord meant that He had finished the work of keeping God's holy law. He had kept it to the uttermost, as our head and representative, and Satan had found nothing in Him. He had magnified the law and made it honorable, by doing per- fectly all its requirements. " Woe unto us," says Burkitt, " if Christ had left but one farthing of our debt unpaid. We must have lain in hell insolvent to all eternity."
{d) Our Lord meant that He had finished the types and figures of the ceremonial law. He had at length offered up the perfect sacrifice, of which eveiy Mosaic sacrifice was a type and sym- bol and there remained no more need of offerings for sin. The old covenant was finished.
{e) Our Lord meant that He had finished and fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, At length, as the Seed of the woman, he had bruised, the serpent's head, and accomplish- ed the work which Messiah was engaged by covenant to come and perform.
(/) Finally, our Lord meant that His sufferings were finish- ed. Like His Apostle, He had " finished His course," His long life of pain and contradiction from sinners, and above all His intense sufferiugs, as bearer of our sins on Gethsemane and Calvary, were at last at an end. The storm was over, and the worst was passed. The cup of suffering was at last drained to the very dregs.
Thoughts such as these come to my own mind, when I read the solemn phrase, " It is finished." But I am far from saying that the phrase does not contain a great deal more. In inter- preting such a saying, I am deeply conscious that there is an inexhaustible fulness in our Lord's words, I am sure we are more likely to make too little of them than to make too much.
Luther remarks, " In this word, ' It is finished,' will I com- fort myself. I am forced to confess that all my finishing of the will of God is imperfect, piecemeal work, while yet the law urges on me that not so much as one tittle of it must remain unaccomplislifid, Christ is the end of the law. What it re- quires, Christ has performed."