THE LORD JESUS SAID IT IS FINISHED ON GOOD FRIDAY.

John 19: 30

A Good Friday Sermon by:

Rev. H.A. Bergsma

PUBLISHED BY THE

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE

OF THE

FREE REFORMED CHURCHES OF NORTH AMERICA.

(February 2008)
LITURGY:

Votum

Psalter 212

Scripture Reading: John 19: 16 30

Text: John 19: 30

Psalter 47: 1, 4, 7, 8, 9

Congregational Prayer

Offerings

Psalter 243: 1, 10, 11, 12

Sermon

Psalter 261

Thanksgiving Prayer

Psalter 203

Doxology: Psalter 431: 2

 Congregation of the Lord,

On this Good Friday we must place ourselves quietly, in our thoughts, around the cross of the
Lord Jesus, and listen carefully to what He has to say. It is a solemn time, and some solemn
words may be heard from the cross.

You must know that the Lord Jesus, while on the cross, said some profound things.
Some of His words were addressed to His Father in Heaven, such as Father, forgive them; for
they know not what they do.(Luke 23:34)
Some of His words were addressed to His mother on earth, such as Woman, behold thy son.
(John 19:26)
But He said something specifically to His people to His Church as well, and most specifically
the words of our text, It is finished.

Let us therefore consider this hour, with the help of the Word and the Holy Spirit the words of our
text by the following theme and headings
THE LORD JESUS SAID IT IS FINISHED ON GOOD FRIDAY
1. He Said This About His Own Suffering
2. He Said This Concerning The Work His Father Gave Him To Do
3. He Said This For The Comfort Of The Church

Congregation,
The Lord Jesus spoke the words of our text as the end of the crucifixion ordeal was drawing to a
close.
Right after those words, He would commend His spirit into the hands of His Father, bow His
head and lay down His life.
But those last words to His Church are very significant: It is finished.
They are not only the last words, but also lasting words for the Church.
They are to be memorable words for the Church, just like the last words of a dying relative can
often be memorable words.
It is finished with those words the Lord Jesus signalled the end of His suffering.
But allow me for a few moments to speak of what it was that made the Lord Jesus suffer so
much.
As you know, it had begun already early that Friday morning.
As a matter of fact, the Lord Jesus did not have much opportunity to sleep even.
The evening before He celebrated the Passover with His disciples, and at the same time instituted
the sacrament of the Lords Supper.
Then, He and His disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He, in much agony and
bloody sweat, prayed to His Father.
Shortly afterwards He was arrested by a band of armed men and dragged off to be court-
martialled by such men as Annas and Caiaphas and eventually, Pontius Pilate and King Herod.
By each of them in turn, the Lord Jesus was humiliated, mocked, and abused until the Jewish
mob, incited by their own leaders finally convinced Pontius Pilate to condemn the Lord Jesus to
death and not just any death, but the death of crucifixion.

Now, bear in mind, all of this took place already during the early morning hours of Good Friday.
At this point, with a sleepless night behind Him, and with His body beaten and scourged and cut
up and bleeding, the Lord Jesus was near to fainting.
But still, His cruel tormentors laid a heavy wooden cross on His back, and they marched Him out
of Jerusalem towards Golgotha.
There the crucifixion ordeal began for our Lord, and that, with severe intensity.
The Roman soldiers took Him, stripped Him of His clothes, fastened Him on the cross with
spikes through His hands and feet, and set the cross with its fastened Victim upright in a hole
previously dug.
There the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ hung, between heaven and earth an
object of shame and ridicule.

Crucifixion It was a most cruel and a sadistic way of putting anyone to death in that time.
The Romans were known for this kind of cruelty; they would reserve this sort of execution only
for the worst, non-Roman criminals around.
When they crucified someone, they did it with the intention to humiliate their victim and put him
to an open shame.
Crucifixion really, was therefore death by shame.
The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was, before anything else, agony through humiliation and death
by shame.
Along with it of course came the increasing physical pain.
The spikes, driven through His hands and His feet caused ripping wounds, burning with fever.

How the Lord must have suffered!

Perhaps Psalm 22 best captures, in prophetic terms, what He went through when He suffered like
that I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that
see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head. (v.6-7)
This describes the shame and the humiliation that the Lord Jesus suffered.

Then, the physical pain is prophetically described as well I am poured out like water, and all
my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My
strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought
me into the dust of death. (v.14-15)

Finally, to make it worse yet for the Lord Jesus, about noon, and eerie darkness fell across
Golgotha.
You will understand that this greatly intensified the Lords sufferings, because, added to the
shame and humiliation and the physical pain, He had to experience the pain of loneliness, and so
He endured the feeling and experience of utter abandonment and forsakenness.
This is when Gods wrath against our sin bore down on Him, as we can read for instance in Isaiah
53 verses 4, 5 and 10 (He was) stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities and, It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him; He hath put Him to grief.

Well now, this became the moment of deepest and of heaviest suffering for the Lord Jesus.
In the darkness of Golgotha, which lasted some three hours, He suffered beyond imagination, and
he suffered mentally, psychologically, physically and spiritually all at once.
In the darkness of Golgotha, our Lord and Saviour was utterly alone with His suffering.
This is when He cried in sheer horror of the moment My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me!
This is when hell and the forces of darkness rose out of the pits of evil to swallow the Son of God
alive on the cross, so to speak.
In those three hours of Golgothas darkness, My Lord Jesus Christ so our Catechism tells us
was plunged into inexpressible anguish, pains, terrors, and hellish agonies.
In those three hours of Golgothas darkness, the Lord Jesus, so we confess our faith, descended
into hell.
It is indescribable; it is inexpressible; it cannot possibly ever be put into words sufficiently what
the Lord Jesus our Saviour suffered.
But it should be to our spiritual benefit to meditate upon such suffering for a few moments, and
reflect on it silently and solemnly within ourselves the suffering of Jesus our Lord.
We have sung of it actually from Psalter 243 did you know that we were singing about the
Saviour?
He is reproached and spoiled of all,
His enemies upon Him fall;
His beauty is consumed away,
Forgotten is His Kingly sway.

Cut off in youth, His sacred name

Is covered now with deepest shame;
How long, O Lord, shall wrath abide?
Thy face forever wilt Thou hide?

Notice that there are some questions asked, and the answer to those two questions can be found in
the words of our text.
How long was it for Jesus?
Well, till the end of that three-hour darkness and about three oclock in the afternoon.
Was Jesus abandoned and forsaken forever?
No! The Church of the Lord does not need to be in doubt about this, because He has a specific
message for His Church, even at that very moment already It is finished!
The suffering of Jesus did come to an end because the Lord Jesus could announce firm
conviction, It is finished!
The Church of the Lord can be assured that no harm can come to her Lord and Saviour anymore
now, because in respect to His suffering, It is finished!
The Jews have done what they could; the Romans have done what they could; Annas, Caiaphas,
Pontius Pilate and Herod; hell and the devils have done what they could but they have done
their thing, and God the Father has done what was necessary and now it is over It is
finished!
Dear congregation of the Lord! This must also be part of any Good Friday Gospel message for
the Church of the Lord.

But there is more yet that is finished, and the Lord Jesus also wants His Church to know this
He Said This Concerning The Work His Father Gave him To Do, as we must see in the second
place.
The Lord Jesus has already expressed privately to His Father when He was at prayer with Him
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, as you can read of this in John 17:4.
But now the Church may know it too, even from the cross It is finished the work which
the Father gave His Son to do, It is finished!

What sort of work was this?

It can be called the work of atonement, and this word atonement is a word that sort of brings
all the work of the Lord Jesus Christ into one group, and as Professor John Murray once called it
a term that covers obedience, sacrifice, propitiation, reconciliation, and redemption.
According to my Theological Encyclopaedia, atonement means the bringing together in
mutual agreement, or the reconciliation through the vicarious suffering of One on behalf of the
other.
At this point you are perhaps still wondering what the word atonement means.
Let me therefore try to explain it in a somewhat simpler way.
Boys and girls! Do you know how to spell atonement?
It is very easy; it is made up of three little words
At One Ment. Atonement.
Atonement, so I am told, is actually an old English word that means at-onement.
In other words, it is the act of bringing someone at one with another.
Well then, this was the work the Father had given His Son, the Lord Jesus to do making
sinners at one with the Father again.

You know dont you, that by nature man is not at one with God the Father anymore.
The sin that started already with Adam and Eve has made a separation between God the Father
and man.
From the moment of mans sin at oneness with God the Father has become an impossibility for
man.
At oneness with God the Father does not come natural to man anymore.
Man is not at one with Gods will anymore.
Man is not at one with Gods ways anymore, because, as we are told in Isaiah 53:6 All we like
sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.
By nature, man has become a rebel, and as such man is not at one with God the Father anymore.

We can see this so clearly in the world.

The natural man is not at one with God; in fact, he does not even want to be at one with God.
Man prizes his independence and speaks of being his own boss.
Man prizes His selfishness and speaks of taking care of self first.
He prizes lost ness and has found a better way of saying it by not speaking about being lost, but
of having the spirit of freedom.
But it all still amounts to not being at one with God.

Obviously, this is a big concern with God the Father.

But Good Friday addresses this concern.
The Lord Jesus, by the will of His Father, came to do the work of atonement a work of
bringing sinners at one with God again.
This work was necessary and it needs to be understood as a personal necessity, because if you
do not become at one with God again, you will be in for a bad end.
Just remember those simple words of Psalter 203:5 To live apart from God is death.
This is what will be case for any who do not become at one with God.

Well then, the Lord Jesus did this at-one-ment work by way of His sacrifice.
Remember! It was a sacrificial atoning-work that God the Father gave His Son to do.
By sacrifice, Jesus had to make the atonement in fact, by sacrificing Himself.
This is why He had to do all this suffering.
The atonement had to come not merely by death (if that was the case, then a stab-wound from a
sword would have done it) but the atonement had to come by a sacrificial death, and by this
sacrificial death Jesus brought man at one with God the Father again.

Also this could be declared to the Church, even from the cross, just moments before his death
It is finished!
With it, Jesus said, The work that my Father gave me to do is finished; the sacrificial atonement
is finished!
The work that was necessary to do, to make sinners at one with God the Father is finished; it is
perfectly finished.

Sometimes when we say that our work is finished, it will require some inspection if it really is so;
sometimes we finish our work carelessly; sometimes we have been in too much of a rush.
Boys and girls will sometimes say, Yes, I have my homework finished; I have finished my
Sunday School lesson; I have finished my Catechism work!
But parents know it well enough, that such finished work will require some inspection, if it is
really finished, and perhaps some touch-ups need to be made or some corrections, or some
improvements.

But the work that the Father gave His Son to do was perfectly and completely finished.
That sacrifice-atonement work required no touch-ups, no corrections, and no improvements.
It required no additional work from us or from anyone else.
The Lord Jesus said it emphatically to His Church It is finished!
Therefore let us be careful that our teaching and our preaching and our theology and our Bible
interpretations do not contradict those words of the Lord to His Church It is finished!

The Lord Jesus declared His suffering to be finished; He declared the work His Father gave Him
to do to be finished; and now lastly yet, He Declared It Is Finished For The Comfort Of The
Church.
Congregation! In the other Gospels, we are told that the Lord Jesus spoke those last words with a
loud voice. Now, this was a miraculous thing to do, hanging on a cross as He was.
In other words, His ability to declare in a loud voice It is finished was nothing less than a
victory cry that echoed across Golgothas heights on that Good Friday afternoon.
Let me try to prove this to you for a moment.

In the original Greek the Lords loud cry of It is finished is only one word: Tetelesthai which
literally means the goal has been reached!
The Apostle Paul later on speaks of running a race and obtaining a prize pressing toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)
Well, this is what the Lord Jesus did on the cross He ran the race; He pressed towards the
mark for the prize, and when He finished His suffering, and finished the work that His Father had
given Him to do, He exclaimed, as the winner in a race at the goal-line I have reached the
goal; Tetelesthai I have won! It is finished!

This is why Good Friday can be called Good Friday, congregation, because although the suffering
became the heaviest that day for the Son of God, it made Him a winner, a Victor that day.
This is meant for the comfort of the Church.
The goal has been reached; the Lord Jesus did it, and He finished it.

Good Friday! Is it a day of mourning?

Yes, but only for the enemies of the Lord; Satan suffered then and there the most decisive defeat.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, and not Satan, reached the goal.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, not Satan, could exclaim from Golgotha, It is finished.
Our Lord Jesus Christ won, and Satan lost, and our Saviour announced this to His Church even
before His death.

Good Friday! Is it a day of mourning?

It is certainly a solemn day, particularly for those who are still in their sins; for those who are at
odds and not at one with God the Father; for those, who do not believe that Jesus Christ and His
victory are worthwhile thinking about.
If you are still in such an un-spiritual condition, we pray that the Spirit of God would work the
sorrow of repentance in you.
We call you this hour to tell the Lord Jesus that it is not finished yet with you; tell Him that you
are not at one yet with God and that you still need His at-one-ment His atonement work in
your life; tell Him and do not hesitate do not slight this call, because the Lord Jesus alone
can help you.

But the Church must not miss out on the comfort on this Good Friday.
It is finished! and that is a special message to the Church.

My fellow believers! The suffering of the Lord Jesus has come to an end.
Think of it He did it for you!
His sacrificing atonement is finished.
This is why you can be at one with God again.
This should make you appreciate who the Lord Jesus is.
This should give you comfort and encouragement.
The Lord Jesus has run the race and won; He has reached the goal and obtained the victory.
This is why He could exclaim it It is finished!

But my fellow believers!

Your life is not yet over; your race is not yet finished.
Let me then exhort you with the Author of Hebrews 12:1-2
 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our
faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and
is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Look unto Him, my fellow believers!

Look unto Him, O Church of the Lord Jesus.
Look unto Him, because the work He has for you begun, shall by His grace be fully done
because the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Saviour, could once proclaim, It is finished!

Amen