“Tetelestai” doesn’t translate simply, we have to make a phrase out of it – “It is finished.” But still some of its power is lost in the translation. In the Greek it implies that something has come to an end, it has been completed, perfected, accomplished in the full and that something has consequences that will endure on and on… Tetelestai, the most powerful single word of all of Jesus ministry. It was also his last word. It was the word that turned this apparent tragedy into a scene of Victory that shook the earth, split rocks, changed history, raised saints from the dead and tore away the temple curtain that kept people out of the Holy of Holies. Tetelestai is the most powerful word in history. Even more powerful than the words of creation in Genesis chapter 1 where God spoke and the universe came into existence. This word could not simply be spoken. The son of God had to die to speak it.
~Rev Bill Versteeg
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
~Romans 6:23
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
~1 Peter 3:18
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
~Revelation 20:14
It is most surely true beloved.
It is finished.
He did it.
Jesus kicked death in the teeth and smashed its head to set us free from our sins, from ourselves and from the narrow throat of time.
This writer is sensing the echoes of that Pronunciation across time and eternity tonight. In this last gasp of our Beloved – before becoming the Firstborn of many brethren – screamed it through the fabric of all creation. IT IS FINISHED.
And it is.
In the temporal moment of the speaking of His great work for us, time barely held its grasp on the three dimensions it governs. Light and gravity and the grave could not do their job. People were escaping their coffins, light wavered, and the great barrier erected between the near Presence of G_d and creation was torn asunder. This barrier was no little curtain, but a mammoth work of fabric put together by master craftsman over many decades – and it simply burst apart as the Love of G_d for His people poured out through the wounds of His beloved Son.
And this work does not, insofar as we understand time, continue. Rather it is a work that is done – with its impact being trans-temporal – bridging all concepts of time and eternity. And this is the great wonder of it all. We have but to enter the Rest He has made for us through the brutal work He has done on our behalf.
It is finished beloved. Completely, totally, absolutely and profoundly done.
Will you join me? Rest in His work tonight!
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
~ John 3:16
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