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Jesus' words from the cross,
"It is finished," tell us that sinners who
believe on Him are not saved on the installment
plan! The debt is "paid in full."
Redemption and Forgiveness
Through His
suffering and death on the cross, Jesus Christ
accomplished
“redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of sins” —
"Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places in Christ,
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love,
having predestined us to adoption as sons by
Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good
pleasure of His will, to the
praise of the glory of His grace, by which He
made us accepted in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the
riches of His grace" (Ephesians 1:3-7)
As Matthew
Henry put it in his commentary on this passage,
there is "no
remission without redemption. It was by reason
of sin that we were captivated, and we cannot be
released from our captivity but by the remission
of our sins. This redemption we have in Christ,
and this remission through His blood. The guilt
and the stain of sin could not be otherwise
removed than by the blood of Jesus. All our
spiritual blessings flow down to us in that
stream."
God's Holy Law Satisfied
Redemption
and forgiveness are possible because on the
cross, Jesus satisfied the requirements of God's
holy Law on sinners' behalf, dying the death we
deserved. Jesus Himself said,
"Do not think that I
came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did
not come to destroy but to fulfill"
(Matthew 5:17). And the Apostle Paul under
divine inspiration tell us that "Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4).
God's Wrath Propitiated, Sinners Justified and
Saved from Wrath
Because Jesus was the one perfect
sacrifice for sin, satisfying the Law
completely, through His suffering and death He
was able to propitiate — that is, appease — the
wrath of God on sinners' behalf once and for
all.
"But now the
righteousness of God apart from the law is
revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the
Prophets, even the
righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus
Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there
is no difference; for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God set forth as a propitiation
by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His
righteousness, because in His forbearance God
had passed over the sins that were previously
committed, to demonstrate at
the present time His righteousness, that He
might be just and the justifier of the one who
has faith in Jesus. Where is
boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of
works? No, but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is
justified [declared 'not guilty' before
God] by faith apart from the deeds of
the law." (Romans 3:21-28)
"And He Himself is the
propitiation [the appeasement]
for our sins, and not for ours only but also for
the whole world." (1 John 2:2)
"In this is love, not
that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
(1 John 4:10)
"Much more then,
having now been justified by His blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through Him." (Romans
5:9)
"Paid In Full"
Jesus words from the cross, "It
is finished," (John 19:30) were not words of
weakness or resignation. They were words of
triumph. The phrase is a single word in the
original text of the Bible — tetelestai,
which means, “It is accomplished” or “It is
complete.” John says that Jesus uttered these
words "knowing that all things were now
accomplished" (verse 28).
Tetelestai
can also be translated, “Paid in
full.” Archaeologists have found many ancient
business documents from the Greek and Roman
world of that time, such as invoices and
receipts for various kinds of things, and they
are marked with this word, “tetelestai” —
“paid in full.”
Dear friends, considering the
kinds of false teachings about salvation that
are circulating even in Evangelical churches
today, we need to get hold of this great fact
once again. The Lord Jesus Christ did not go to
the cross to make a down-payment for our
redemption. He did not go to the cross to make a
sacrifice that would be only partially
sufficient, so that we could add our own
righteousness to it, in order to stand on the
Day of Judgment. We are not redeemed from our
sins on the installment plan.
We cannot pay the debt! We have
nothing to offer! And we don’t need to pay the
debt — not one tiny
part of it! Jesus paid it all! “It is
finished!”
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