A Debt Marked Paid

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[0:00] It's amazing how much power is found in those three small words. And actually, in the original Greek, it's just one, tetelestai. It was just a single word spoken from a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem.

[0:22] Who needs to pay attention to the words of a criminal, one who's dying such an embarrassing, humiliating death? And yet, it may be the most consequential word ever uttered in human history. Today, on Good Friday, we stand at the foot of that cross and ask, what did Jesus mean when he cried out, it is finished?

[0:49] To understand the weight of this word, we need to take a look back at history. But, back into the dusty streets of first century Jerusalem, into the Roman courts, into the Jewish temple, and into the hearts of the disciples who watched their Lord die.

[1:10] Crucifixion was not an invention of the Romans, but they perfected it as an instrument of terror and public shame. Cicero called it the most cruel and hideous of tortures. It was reserved for slaves, for rebels, and for those that Rome wished to humiliate most thoroughly.

[1:35] A Roman citizen could not by law be crucified, because it was simply beneath their dignity. The cross was meant to say, this person is less than nothing. Jesus was crucified on a hill, called Golgotha. An Aramaic word meaning, the place of the skull.

[2:00] Just outside Jerusalem's city walls, along a main road, and this was intentional. Roman executions were public spectacles. They were designed to warn people against rebellion or disobedience, and to be as humiliating as possible. The very location told the watching crowd what Rome itself thought of Jesus of Nazareth.

[2:26] Above his head, Pontius Pilate had a sign nailed in three languages, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, reading, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Even in mockery, God was inscribing a truth to the whole world that all could read.

[2:50] John 19 says, Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It said, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. What they meant for humiliation, there was truth hidden inside. And then we come to the word itself, tetelestai. In Jesus' day, this word carried meanings that his first listeners would have understood immediately. First, in the world of common knowledge, it was written across paid receipts. When a debt was settled in full, the creditor would stamp the document with this word. It meant paid in full. Nothing more is owed. The account is closed.

[3:40] When Jesus cried out tetelestai, every person in that crowd who had ever seen a marketplace transaction understood. A debt has been paid. And so, the word, in the world of the Jewish temple, tetelestai echoed the language of sacrifice.

[4:01] For centuries, Israel's worship centered on the sacrificial system. Lambs and bulls and doves were offered to atone for sin. On the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies with the blood of a sacrifice, covering the sins of the people for another year. It was a cycle that had no end.

[4:28] Until now. Jesus, the Lamb of God, was making the final, complete, never to be repeated sacrifice. Hebrews 7.27 says, He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily. He did this once, for all, when he offered up himself.

[4:54] And then, in the world of art and craftsmanship, tetelestai was said, when a work was fully completed. When a sculptor set down his chisel, and declared his masterpiece done. The work of redemption that began in the Garden of Eden, that ran through every covenant and prophecy and sacrifice across thousands of years, it was finished.

[5:23] The masterpiece was done. But what exactly was finished on that cross? Well, first the suffering. We can take that at face value. The suffering was finished. Jesus had endured the arrest in Gethsemane, the mockery before the Sanhedrin, the flogging at Pilate's hands, the crown of thorns, hours on the cross. The physical agony was real and complete. But more than physical, the spiritual darkness of bearing humanity's sin was finished. The one who cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Had walked through the valley of ultimate desolation, and he had come through. The suffering had been accomplished, and had achieved its purpose.

[6:22] Second, the law was finished. Not abolished, but fulfilled. Paul writes in Romans that Christ is the end of the law for the righteousness to everyone who believes. That's Romans 10.4. Every moral demand on the law placed upon humanity, every commandment we have broken, every standard we have failed, every sin we have fallen short of, Jesus fulfilled them all.

[6:52] Where Adam failed, where Israel failed, where each of us fails daily, Jesus succeeded perfectly. And then he absorbed the penalty for all that failure. The law's verdict against us was executed on him. Finally, the power of sin and death received its final blow.

[7:20] And this is what makes Good Friday, of all days, ultimately good. It looked for all the world like defeat. His disciples denied him. The religious authorities were satisfied. Rome had done its work. Death appeared to have won. But beneath the surface of that dark afternoon, something cosmic was happening. That the world couldn't understand yet. Sin's power to separate us from God forever was being broken.

[7:56] As the writer of Hebrews says, Jesus partook of flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil. And Colossians 2.15 says, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by treason. And they were triumphing over them.

[8:20] John tells us that when Jesus breathed his last, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. That phrase, gave up his spirit, is deliberate. Jesus did not have his life taken from him. He surrendered it. Even in death, he was in control.

[8:42] Matthew adds a significant detail. At the moment of Jesus' death, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That curtain was a thick barrier. It was approximately four inches thick and 60 feet tall, separating the holy of holies from the rest of the temple. It separated the presence of God from the people of God. Only the high priest could pass through it, and only once a year, and only with sacrificial blood.

[9:24] And now it was torn from top to bottom, meaning that no human hands could have ripped it from below, but that God himself tore it from above. The way the Father was now open to the people, not through a human high priest with animal blood, but through Jesus Christ, our great high priest with his own blood. The moment he said, it is finished, God threw open that door.

[9:55] Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near. That's Hebrews 10, 19. So what does tetelestai mean for us, sitting here, this Good Friday evening?

[10:15] It means our debt has been paid. Whatever sin weighs on our consciousness, the private shame that you carry, the failures you replay at night, the person you've hurt, the God you've ignored, the debt for all of it was nailed to that cross.

[10:35] In Colossians, Paul says, having forgiven all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with all its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. My name was on that record. Your name was on that record. And it was nailed to the cross and marked paid in full.

[11:03] Tetelestai. It means you don't have to finish what Jesus already completed. One of the great temptations of humanity is to believe we must earn our way to God by being good enough, religious enough, repentant enough.

[11:22] But it is finished. Tetelestai shatters that illusion. The work is done. You cannot add to a finished work. You can only receive it. It means that what looks like the darkest Friday in history is in truth the hinge of all human hope. The Roman soldiers thought they were executing a criminal. The Jewish leaders thought they were getting rid of a troublemaker.

[11:54] The disciples thought the dream was over. But God was finishing the greatest rescue operation in the history of the world. John tells us that after Jesus said, it is finished, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

[12:12] There's something in that image that I want to leave with you. He bowed his head as if in the posture of rest. As if laying down the weight he had carried from before the foundation of the world. The work was done. He could rest.

[12:33] On this Good Friday, we are invited to do the same. To bow our heads before the finished work of Christ. Not to add to it. Not to improve on it. Not to earn it. Simply to receive it. Simply to worship. It is finished. The debt is paid. The curtain is torn. The grave is next. And we know what happens after that. But today, we linger here at the cross. In gratitude and in awe because it was for us that he said it. It was our debt that was canceled. It was our sin that drove those nails. And it is our salvation that was secured in that one final triumphant work.