“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost,” John 19:30.

WHAT WAS ‘FINISHED’? - 2

We continue the theme we began yesterday. The Lord Jesus came to “work the works of him that sent” (John 9:4) ‘Him’ — His ‘Father’.

“I do always those things that please him,” John 8:29. We can be sure that the Saviour did not leave anything undone.

1. He removed completely and eternally our sins. He was the ‘sin bearer’. Leviticus 16:7-10. Here is a goat that dies at the altar and another which was released into the wilderness, a scapegoat. We still use the term today. It is used of ‘a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others.’

The Saviour is pictured as dying as a sacrifice for sin and also His carrying away our sins, just like the goat in the wilderness.

“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,” Isa 43:25. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee,”Isa 44:22. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree . . . by whose stripes ye were healed,” 1 Pet 2:24.

2. He defeated the devil. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil,” 1 John 3:8. First prophecy of the cross - “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” Genesis 3:15.

Enmity seen many times.

* Murder of Abel, 1 John 3:12.

* Herod’s killing of infants, Matt 2:16.

* Storm, Matt 8:24 (Eph 2:2, Job 1:18).

* Gethsemane, Matt 26:29.

* Cross, Hebs 2:14.

The Lord Jesus did just that, He has overthrown the devil, 1 John 3:8, James 4:7.

Final damnation - Rev 20:10.

We are like the woman in Luke 13:11-13, 16. Bowed and crippled but wonderfully delivered from the devil’s bondage.