God bless you in the name of Jesus Christ who always did what pleased his Father (John 8:29).
John 19:30:
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
After Jesus received the vinegar, he knew his mission was finished. He had accomplished what God had asked him to do, and therefore declared, “It is finished.” The first recorded words of Jesus found in Luke 2:49, where Jesus’ response to his parents’ expression of concern was to tell them, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” His last recorded words in scripture before he says, “into thy hands I commend my spirit” and he dies are: “It is finished.” All the time between those two accounts, we find Jesus actively pursuing the things of his Father. He was always about his Father’s business.
Jesus maintained his focus throughout his ministry. He always did his Father’s will. Early in his ministry he told his disciples, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34). He finished everything God had asked of him daily. Toward the end of his ministry just before he was taken in the garden Jesus prayed to his Father saying, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4). Jesus had been faithful to perform all that God had asked of him to that point.
Jesus endured agony and suffering to fulfill the Word of God. He took our place. He was our substitute for sin. He paid the price of his innocent blood to redeem you and me. It was not the rope tied around his midriff or the nails driven through his hands and feet that kept him on that cross. Rather, it was his uncompromising and relentless love for his Father and His Word. He delighted to do God’s will (Psalms 40:8), and for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2). He could have walked away from the cross if he wanted, with twelve legions of angels at his command.
Jesus kept hanging on the cross because he loved us. They did not take his life that day. He so loved us that he gave himself for us. Through every moment of his agonizing death God was with him providing him strength and comfort. The joy that was set before him included his knowledge that he was fulfilling his Father’s plan of salvation that would pay the price for the sin of all mankind.
The close of John’s Gospel gives an awesome sense of finality.
John 19:28-30:
After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished [teleō], that the scripture might be fulfilled [teleioō], saith, I thirst. 29 Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished [teleō]: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
“Were accomplished,” “might be fulfilled” and “is finished” are derived from the same Greek root, telos, which means “end.” It is primarily a termination point, then by extension Thayer says it means, the end to which all things relate, the aim, the purpose. The first and the last of these are the related verb teleō, “to bring to a close, to finish, to end, to complete an activity or process.” Generally, when involving the notion of time, it means “to perform the last act which completes a process, to accomplish, to fulfill.” Teleō in both verse 28 and 30 is tetelestai, the perfect tense. It signifies a past action, the effect of which continues into the present. The perfect describes an action that was fully completed and has present day consequences. If it were the aorst tense, it would simply mean “the work is done.” The work was not only finished that day that Jesus spoke it, but it is still a finished reality today. Jesus fully completed his work with the ongoing effects that you and I still benefit from it today. It has been finished and is still finished and its effects are still present today.
Ralph Wilson referencing, Moulton and Milligan, notes that in the last couple of centuries scholars have found thousands of papyrus scraps with Greek writing on them. Many of these are mundane commercial documents in which tetelestai is found. Moulton and Milligan pored over many of these receipts and contracts to better understand New Testament Greek. They observed that receipts are often introduced by the phrase tetelestai, usually written in an abbreviated manner indicating that the bill had been paid in full. The obligation has been completed. The debt has been paid off. Tetelestai ― it is finished. (J.H. Moulton and G. Milligan, Vocabulary of the Greek Text: Illustrated edition the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources (Eerdmans, 1957), p. 630, under teleō.)
Unless Jesus had a purpose, a mission to complete, the words, “It is finished” would have had little meaning. He wasn’t speaking of his earthly life that was finished, he would be back after the resurrection for 40 days. Jesus was speaking of what the Father had asked him to do to redeem mankind. His focus, discipline, and obedience brought him to the end of his journey. Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death (Philippians 2:8). He was willing to suffer to achieve God’s purpose. He didn’t give up just because things were difficult.
Paul, at the end of his life was able to say the same. Its presence in God’s Word meant that he wrote it by revelation. By God’s mercy and grace, perhaps we too can echo those words and finish our course, too, having kept the faith.
II Timothy 4:6:
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished [teleō] my course, I have kept the faith: 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
At the end, Jesus asked for a drink. After receiving that drink, he mustered his strength and declared “It is finished!” He had fulfilled the Word and will of God and had accomplished our redemption. All his life he had been about his Father’s business, and finally he had finished it. Hallelujah!