There never was nor shall there ever be a being of such grandeur and majesty on this planet as was Jesus Christ!! What a thrill it must have been to have “heard, to have seen with our eyes, to have looked upon, and our hands have handled Him, even the Word of Life.” 1 John 1:1 Man could never have appreciated Him for what He DID while in this tabernacle, how could man be expected to have appreciated Him for what He did DO?? As He was far beyond our reasoning and understanding, just how far was what God the Father gave Him to do beyond our reach of reason? Who could have conceived such a plan? Who could have counseled God in making His plan perfected in His Son? To intimate that we understand Deity is just a big a joke we do not understand man!! For man to put himself in God’s place and say God would have acted in just this or that fashion is man taking too much on himself. The glories of eternity will never be long enough to satisfy the explanation deserved for each step He took that led Him to proclaim: “It is finished.” Kept in the hallowed halls of Heaven is the total message intended and haughty is the man or men who think themselves wise enough to completely understand all this meant. We do not even know to whom this message was intended!!
What was finished? The plan was brought to completion that garnered salvation for the Church of Christ while there was NO plan for the rest of the human race! Looking at the word finished we see a familiar word in the Greek, teleo. For many of us this word reminds us of 1 Corinthians 13:10. Here, in 1 Corinthians 13:10, the actual word is teleios which is the perfect (adult, full-age, full-grown) from teleo. Telos is neuter gender, talking about a thing, not a person and usually defines the end, goal, limit at which a person or thing ceases to be, what he or it was up to that point or at which previous activities ceased. It does not mean the termination of what went before-the goal has been reached! It never denotes the end of time, a termination in or for itself. Based on the definition of the word, one would think Christ is speaking about Genesis 3:15- to Satan!! That it was said with a “loud voice” indicates it to be an announcement that came from a being in full strength, not in the weakness of human frailty. The voice of dying men is one of the first things that fails; with a panting breath and a faltering tongue, a few broken words are hardly spoken, and more hardly heard. Christ, just before He expired, spoke like a man in his full strength. This would indicate that His life was not forced from Him, but was freely delivered!! The earthly audience did not comprehend what He meant nor did they give it the significance deserved.
Creation got the message! The upheaval is described as “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;” Matthew 27:51 At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, the veil was rent by an invisible power; that veil which parted the holy place and the most holy- indicating that the mysteries of the Old Covenant could now be revealed. . Jesus had before said, at His triumphal entry into Jerusalem: “if the children should cease to cry Hosanna, the stones would immediately cry out”; and now they were in unison busting their ear drums!! Jesus Christ is that Rock; and the rending of these rocks, signified the rending of that Rock that we may be hid, as Moses in the cleft of the rock at Horeb. As Moses was allowed to see the glory of the Lord pass by, we see the glory of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. When we celebrate the memorial of Christ death, our hard and rocky hearts must be rent–that heart is harder than a rock that will not yield, that will not melt, where Jesus Christ is evidently set forth before us, crucified!! AGAIN, TO BE SIN-FREE!!
