we're going to look at two scriptures
this morning. We'll start with in John chapter
19 verse 30. John chapter 19 verse 30. During the last week, this past
week, my cousin, who in my, especially in my senior
year of high school, was among my best friends. We spent a lot
of time together. I spent my weekends at his high
school watching, I was about to say watching their football
games, but I didn't go there for the football games. I went
there to see my cousin and his friends. And have fun with them,
but he posted a joke on Facebook. And the joke traded on the difference
in the meanings of the words finish and complete. Finish and complete. And it may surprise you that
I wrote a rather lengthy comment because, well I did the little
LOL thing because it was a funny joke, and I wasn't going to ignore
the joke, but in using those two words, finished and complete,
they made two scriptures come to mind. And I commented on what those
scriptures mean. the distinctions between finished
and complete, at least as they are found in the Greek language that the New
Testament was written in. And this message this morning
is simply taking the comment I made and expanding it so that
we can understand it better, because understanding the meaning
of those words as they are used in the context of the gospel
is very powerful. Very powerful in our hearts. In my study, whenever I'm studying,
that is whenever I'm studying the scriptures for the purpose
of preaching, teaching, whatever, I generally, one of the first
things I do is look things up in the original language, or
languages. There's actually three of them
in the Bible. And I'm not what you would call an expert in them,
but I know enough about them that I can use the helps available
on the internet. It makes it so much easier. I
used to do it with hardback books, but that takes a lot more time
than what you can do with the internet now. And I search things
out, and I like to do what they call word studies, in which you
find, when you're using the original
languages to do it, you find out what's the original word
behind the word in the translation that we understand. You find
the original word, then you go and find everywhere else that
word is found. See how it's used in the scriptures.
Because you see, words have their essential definition. And then
in different contexts, they have different shades of meaning,
uses. The work of translation is not
an easy one. There's rarely an exact correspondence between
one language and another in the meaning of a word. For example, one of the words
that we're going to be looking at is the word taleo. And there's words in our English
language that are derived from that word. But there isn't a
single English word that will capture everything that that
word means and nothing more. And so translators, they have
to do some work in trying to figure out, in this context,
just what does this word mean, imply, and what would be the
best way to express that in English? Words have distinctions. In the
scriptures we are referring, there are two different words,
one for finished and another for complete. However, if you
were to read Luke's account of the transfiguration, where it
says that Moses and Elijah spoke to the Lord Jesus about the death
that he should accomplish in Jerusalem. Now the first scripture
we're going to be looking at, John 19, verse 30, is where the
Lord says, it is finished. And that word? Finished can mean
accomplished in that sort. But when they said on the Mount
of Transfiguration, speaking of the death he should accomplish,
it's actually the word we're going to look at in Colossians
chapter 2, verse 10, where it says, we are complete in Christ. So you can see that between these
two words, there's some overlap in their meaning. You can see how accomplishing
something amounts to fulfilling it. And you can also see how,
as the word in Colossians signifies, filling something up, and that's
the word used on the Mount of Transfiguration, well, the Lord
filled up the death that he should die. So in that context, the
two words have some overlap. But we're gonna look at their
basic and essential meaning and how they are used in these particular
circumstances. It is finished and you are complete
in him. Two distinct words and yet they're
related. The word for finish means essentially
the word the Lord uttered here. Now, I don't know exactly what
word he said, because it's not likely he was speaking Greek.
He was speaking probably Aramaic, which was the common language
of that region. But when the New Testament was
written, it was written in Greek. And the Holy Spirit inspired
John to use this Greek word as a representation of what our
Lord said. And it conveys the meaning here
of reaching the goal. And I said the word is, the root
word is teleo. And we get words like telephone,
telegraph, a telepath. All these come from that word.
And what is it, what's it indicating? Well, when you're on the telephone,
you're making your voice reach the goal of the other end, you
know, whoever's on the other end, going from here to there. And so when our Lord said, it
is finished, and in Greek that's all just one word, it is finished. What he is saying is the goal,
the goal has been reached. Paul said in Acts chapter 20,
he said, my life means nothing to me. other than to finish the
course that has been laid out for me. Same word, finish the
course. And in 1 Timothy 4, 7, using
the same word, he says to Timothy, I have finished my course. And what did he mean by that?
Well, there was a job given me to do. I've gotten it done. And that's basically what our Lord
meant when he said, it is finished. I have finished my course. I
am done. And then the word in Colossians
2 that we'll get to in a few minutes means to, it's translated
complete, but it means to be filled up. Filled up. No room for any more. Filled up. And these words don't only have
a connection in language, they have a connection in theology
as well, because it is because Christ is finished
that we are complete in Him. Now the words don't mean exactly
the same thing. But our completedness in Christ
has come as a result of him having finished his work. Because if he hadn't finished,
we wouldn't be complete. If he hadn't achieved the goal, we wouldn't be full. Truth is,
we'd be empty. It is finished. Now the vital
question, and we look here at verse 19, excuse me, verse 30
of John 19. When he, that is Jesus, had received
the drink, Jesus said, it is finished. With that, he bowed his head. and gave up
his spirit. Now, I don't know who may have heard
him say that. There is a scripture that says
he cried out something with a loud voice. We don't know if this
is his particular utterance, that he cried out with a loud
voice. We don't know If it was something said under his breath,
remember he was at the very last stages of the dying process. And it may have been a word mostly
to himself. I suppose It was loud enough
for John to hear, unless of course the Holy Spirit just told him
that that's what Jesus said at the last moment of his natural
life. We do know that John was there. He was right there beside the
Lord's mother. So maybe he heard the Lord say these words. But
while we cannot be certain as to how many people heard them,
They may be the most important words ever spoken on earth. I doubt anyone in Rome or any
of the Romans there, if they heard it, thought it meant anything
of significance. It wasn't recorded. In fact,
so insignificant to Rome were the crucifixions carried out
that day just outside the city of Jerusalem, there is no surviving
record of them other than what's found here in the scriptures. The names of the thieves we do
not know, and were it not for the fact that the man on the
middle cross was none other than God made flesh, we never would
have known his name either. Were it not for the significance
of those words, it is finished. All of this would be unknown
to us, because to the world, it looked like nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary.
A man gets caught up in the political war that goes on between various
power factions. He gets caught up in that because
he's made one side angry, and that one side kind of twists
the arm of the other side up behind their back and makes them
carry out an execution. Pilate didn't think it was just.
Pilate didn't think it was right. But the Jews kind of had him
in a bind because the Lord had affirmed that he believed himself
to be king of the Jews, and that was a treasonous statement against
Rome. Though, just like most people today, Pilate thought
his claim was silly. Because he said, there's nothing
worthy of being crucified. So what if he says he's the king
of the Jews? This look like a king to you? So to the eye of the flesh, all
it looked like was that our Lord Jesus got caught up in the war
between the Jews and the Romans because they hated each other,
and he became a pawn in their game. Of course, we know that's
not the case. We realize that the Romans and
the Jews were pawns in the hands of God to bring about what happened
that day. But our Lord declared from that
cross Not I'm done for, not I did the
best I could, not it doesn't look like things are
working out the way they were supposed to. He said, if I can
paraphrase, I have finished my course. I accomplished. Most preachers look at this and
if you say, well, when the Lord said it is finished, what was
it that was finished? And some would say, right then,
all salvation was finished. Well, I know what they mean when
they say that, and I agree with what they mean, but it's an inaccurate
statement. And since I'm a man, I like to
be accurate with my words. And I think that it's important
that we try to be accurate in the way we state things. Salvation's
a very broad topic. Salvation encompasses everything
that God does in taking or bringing a sinner from a state of sin,
guilt, corruption, and death and bringing them into a state
of being just like the Lord Jesus Christ, faultless and full of
joy. Now that's salvation. And it
won't be finished in the sense of the word that our Lord used
here. It won't be finished until we are in God's presence, faultless,
full of joy, made to be just like Christ. Now, not even the scriptures
always try to speak with such precision, because Paul will
talk about believers having been saved as
though it is a completed action, when all he is referring to is
that point in time when God revealed himself and his truth to them
and they believed the gospel. But that's a common language
thing where you, as they say, put the whole for a part of it.
That's the part in our life that happens. the part of salvation
that actually occurs within our conscious existence in time and
space. So he just used the word saved.
But he also talked about the fact that he is saving us and
that he shall save us. Why? Well, I'm glad to report
to you, all of you who believe and would say you have been saved,
I'm very glad to report to you, though, this isn't all there
is to salvation. There's more to come. God is
going to do more saving because we shall not have been thoroughly
saved until we are like Christ. So what was finished when the
Lord said, it is finished? Well, look a couple of chapters
back at John chapter 17. Verse four. Now we find the same word here,
the same Greek word, though they translated it complete this time. But it's the same Greek word,
and the few scriptures we're going to look at, all of them
involve this Greek word teleo, the one he uttered from the cross.
I have brought you glory." Now this is the Lord Jesus praying
to the Father. He says, I've brought you glory on earth by
completing, finishing the work you gave me to do. Now I realize
it'd be a couple of chapters later, a few hours later, after
this prayer in John 17, when our Lord would actually say,
it is finished. But he was speaking you know,
praying the night before, evidently, the night just before he was
betrayed and arrested and whatnot, or during that night. And he's
speaking from the viewpoint that all of this is done. He said,
you sent me here, I've completed it, even though this last thing
was yet to do. But we can say this, when our
Lord said from the cross, it is finished, what had been finished? everything the father gave him
to do. Now what an honor is bestowed
upon the Lord that the word finished could be written over everything
his father gave him to do. No one else can make that claim. I've often wrestled in my own
mind, have I really done what my father sent me to do? I say wrestle over it. The wrestling
is over how to accept the fact that I haven't. Now I realize
that I will accomplish everything God and his sovereign purpose
determined for me to accomplish. I'm not talking about that. But
he sent me here to preach the gospel. He sent me here to be
the pastor of this congregation. And I have done that, except
I cannot say that I've done it perfectly. I've been distracted. I've got taken side by other
things. Maybe other things I should have
just said no. I don't have time for that, don't
have energy for that, don't have attention for that. I'm supposed
to be doing this. Now, in a kind of rough way,
If the time of my death draws near, and I'm aware of it, I
might be able to say, I've finished my course, somewhat like Paul
did, in as much as I can say, well, I was sent to preach the
gospel, and I've got that done, because he said, I've finished
my course, I've kept the faith. Now, I did do that, I believe.
I'm preaching to you the same thing I preached when I first
started here. I haven't changed. Well, I've changed, but the message
hasn't changed. But no, I cannot say it is finished
like Christ could say. It's finished. It's finished. I can think of many things that
could have been done better. I can think of many things that
shouldn't have been done at all. In my ministry, there was nothing
like that in Christ's From his conception in the womb of his
mother, Mary, until he uttered these words, everything he did
was in perfect, complete accomplishment of the work that his father gave
him to do. He did that and nothing else. And nothing of what he was sent
to do was left undone. That's remarkable. Nobody else
can say that. The law was finished. Look over
at Romans chapter 10. He finished the law. Now by the law we mean the old
covenant. That law slash covenant by which
God entered into a covenantal relationship with the natural
descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Paul writes in verse 4 of
Romans 10, Christ is the end. Now, of course, here it's in
a noun form rather than a verb form. So we would say the word
is telos instead of teleo. But same basic meaning. Christ
is the goal of the law. He is the end point
to which the law was pointing. The law had a purpose. That's
why Paul said, the law is good if a man uses the law lawfully. Well, what's the lawful use of
the law? To point to Christ. That's what it was put there
for. In Galatians, most English translations say that the law
was our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, to bring us to
Christ. Strictly speaking, it says, the
law was our governor. If you can imagine, normally
you don't see that in a masculine form. They would say a governess,
someone that's hired to take care of young people. But back
then, they hired those. And the word actually is, we
get our English pedagogue from it, and it talks about a child
leader. And someone put over children in the household to
raise them, to teach them, to watch over them, keep them out
of trouble, that kind of thing. That was their job. A nanny,
for lack of a better word. The law was our nanny. And it
doesn't say our nanny to bring us to Christ. It says it was
our nanny unto Christ. Meaning the Jew was put under
the law, put under the watch care of the law until Christ. It was to hold that nation together
because the promise had been made that Messiah would come
through the seed of Abraham. So for that to happen, that seed's
got to survive. That is, that lineage must survive
until the seed comes. Once the seed comes, the need
for the nanny is gone. There's another reason, too,
that no need for the nanny now. Because as Paul points out in
Galatians, nannies are for children. And once Christ has come, brought
in all the reality that the law could only serve as a shadow
for, then they were grown up. When the Bible says that we are
sons, it's not talking about baby sons or toddler sons or
teenage sons, talking about full-grown sons. For it says we are sons, and
if sons, we are heirs. And back then, you weren't an
heir until you were grown up. Yeah, they would say he's an
heir, but if he doesn't survive until he reaches full age, he's
not going to get anything. But once you are grown, you are
officially adopted, which means you are recognized as an adult
son, and therefore an heir. Because back then, for the most
part, just the sons inherited things. That's the reason it's
worded that way. And so what it's saying of Christ,
when he said, it is finished, what's he saying? The law is
finished. It's done its work. It has preserved this people
until the seed of woman that was promised crushed the head
of the serpent. Because there on a cross is exactly
where Christ did that. It's finished. Now people would say something
like, well, then you think it's all right to go out and kill
people. No. I don't think that. We're talking about a covenant. And it's called the law because
this was a contractual covenant. It was not a covenant of promise. It was a covenant of contractual
obligations. And Christ fulfilled all the
contractual obligations. Therefore, the covenant, the
contract, comes to an end. That's why he could say, I didn't
come. to destroy the Lord, I came to
fulfill it. Now, it's not the same word there, but the meaning
is the same, the sense of it the same. I've come to bring
it to a conclusion, not by destroying it or just setting it aside,
by fulfilling it, by accomplishing it. Everything the law required,
both in performing righteousness and paying for sin, the Lord
Jesus Christ accomplished it. And seeing that everything that
the law demanded was fulfilled there, was accomplished there,
that means, just like any contract, once you've fulfilled the contract,
now you can still read it if you want, and there might be
some things to learn from it, but that contract is no longer
binding. Why? It's been finished. Here's another thing that was
finished. The suffering of wrath for sin. Sin demanded wrath. Sin provoked wrath, God's wrath,
and wrath must be expressed. God will does not exist in conflict. You and I, we've got competing
interests in our minds. We want things that, well, you
can't have both of them, you know. Someone says, saw this, I think
it was our oldest son put it up on Facebook. It's one of those
mean pictures, and it says, I like fitness, and I like tacos. Usually they don't go together.
The Lord has no such conflict within himself. If there is wrath
in him, he will express it. Now you and I get full of wrath
and most of the time it's appropriate we just hold it in because most
often our wrath isn't justified. God's wrath was justified. And
He will express it, and He did express it to the full in Calvary. Every bit of wrath engendered
by the sin that the Lord Jesus bore on Calvary, God poured out
on Him. So much so that the Lord said
in the Old Testament, and He said it, I believe, to Israel,
Again, we spiritualize that and apply it to God's spiritual people. He said, there is no wrath in
me. Why? Well, if you take a pitcher
and you pour it out, pour the contents out, it's empty, isn't
it? God took the pitcher of wrath.
He poured it out on Christ to the very last drop. No wrath in me. You think about that a minute.
He finished wrath. He finished death, which is the
result of wrath. We don't finish death. No one
but our Lord Jesus Christ ever finished death. You and I and
everyone who believes escapes death. And we escape death because
Christ died our death for us. Christ finished our death for
us. Those in hell are there forever,
whatever hell is, they are in that state forever. They are
forever dying because they never finish dying. Only Christ could say, I have finished death. Redemption and atonement were
finished. The bringing in of an everlasting
righteousness was finished. Daniel prophesied this. He said
that at a certain time that Messiah would do several things, and
one of them was he will bring in an everlasting righteousness. Sometimes we think we do something
righteous. How long does our righteousness
last? Well, it lasted right up until
the point we realized we did something righteous. And then
pride came in and ruined it all. So that it may accurately be
said, we never did anything righteous. Our Lord finished it. Every point of righteousness
required by God upon humans, Christ did it. Now look over at Colossians 2. This is one of the letters written to the church that was
dealing with an early form of what would later be known as
Gnosticism. And the Gnostics, I did some
research on that in preparation for this. It's intriguing, but
I won't spend much time on it. except to say that they believed
there was God, and then there was this group, or cloud, or
whatever it was, of some kind of spiritual beings around him.
I couldn't tell if the Gnostics thought these beings emanated
from God or whatever, but they were spiritual beings, and they
referred to these spiritual beings as the fullness. And their belief was that salvation
was something that happens within each person in which they experience
the fullness. It could be they were actually
thinking humans became part of this fullness. Now, to be honest
with you, it sounds a whole lot like the transcendentalism of
most Eastern religions. Sounds a lot like Buddhism. But
it actually was derived from Greek philosophy and the way
they saw the universe. And if you look at Colossians
chapter 2, verse 9, we read this, for in Christ all
the fullness of the deity lives in a bodily form. Now that was
a fatal blow to Gnosticism. Because what he just said to
them, this thing, that is what he said to the Colossians, he
says this thing they keep calling the fullness. Not only is it not a host of
spiritual beings kind of clouded around God. It is one person, a human being, someone in the
flesh. He's not a member of the fullness.
He is the fullness. Let's put it this way, he's also
saying the same kind of thing other writers said, such as in
Hebrews, where it says that he is the radiance of God's glory, like sun rays that shine out
from the sun, so the Lord Jesus Christ is the radiance of God's
glory into our reality. He's the express image of God. And so Paul is setting this up
here. He said that fullness they keep
talking about, the whole of it is Jesus Christ. It's not a bunch
of entities out there, it's one. One, amen. And by the way, when he
calls Christ the fullness, the word is pleroma. And then in verse 10
he says, and you have been given fullness. Now it's a verb form
here, but it's the same word, pleroma. If you wanted to translate it
really strictly, it says you've been completed. He says, in Christ
all the completeness, all the fullness of the deity lives in
a bodily form. And you've been given, or you've
been completed in him. Because you see, they thought
that this business of a mystical event in which somehow or another
you have transcended your physical existence, and now you're just
this fullness. They called that the gnosis from
which Gnostics come, and to them that gnosis was salvation. Paul
says, no. All the fullness of God is Christ. And you have been made full in
Him. That mystical experience they
keep telling you about doesn't exist. Doesn't exist in the way
they're talking about it. You already have it in Christ.
You are filled up in Christ. There's nothing lacking. Because
that's what this word means, to be made full, to fill something
up. And you and I, who are in Christ,
we have been filled, completed in Him. Despite the fact we're
still here in this sinful flesh, despite the fact that we wish
there was more to our present experience than we now have,
The truth is, we're complete. Human religion is made up of
incompleteness. Human religion always begins
with the insufficiency of Christ. He didn't finish. And because
he didn't finish, you're not complete. There's something yet lacking
that you must supply. The freewillism I was brought
up from, they would say, well, Jesus died, you know, and he
provided some things. But you've got to believe. Well, it's true, you won't be
saved apart from believing, but your believing does not add anything
to the work of Christ being finished, nor did your faith complete you. When we believe, we're not trying
to, you know, just top off our pot. to make it full. In faith, we
believe that through the finished work of Christ, we are completed. And there's nothing for us to
add. I don't care how big a pot is,
if it's full, what happens if you try to add something to it?
It just flows out. Paul gets a little stronger with
it. He says, you try to add something
to that pot, it'll empty the pot. He says, if you be circumcised,
Christ profits you nothing. That is, if you be circumcised
thinking that completes you, you'll be empty. You'll be empty. All glory. goes to our Lord Jesus,
because he and he alone could say, it is finished. And that gives us a warrant to be confident that
in the sight of God, we lack nothing. That is, we who believe. We lack
nothing. There is nothing more to come in this life that's going
to better prepare us for the next life other than Christ. And if people want to, as he
later points out, They can follow all the touch not, taste not,
handle not rules they want. They're not filling themselves
up. They're not topping off what Christ left unfilled. They're not perfecting, finishing,
filling what Christ didn't get done. They're merely following
a bunch of rules. You can sit cross-legged on the
floor, write a candle, and try to transcend your present experience. You can do that if you want.
But you'll be as empty-headed when you come back to your senses
as when you left. But if you are a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is not to your glory, it's to
His, isn't it? Because this is only true because He finished.
But if you are a believer, you're all filled up and it's not gonna leak out.
And all that will happen when you die or when the Lord returns
is that you'll be able to see more clearly what has been true
all along. So you needn't try to complete
yourselves or fill yourselves. It's already been done. It's been done. We are complete
because the Lord Jesus Christ finished. And any religion that leaves
the work of Christ in any way unfinished or you in any way
incomplete in him?