Chapter 25: His Death—It Is Finished

We come now to the cross itself—the center of all history, the place toward which every chapter of this book has been moving. And to see its meaning, let us begin where the Bible so often begins: in the garden of Eden, with the first Adam asleep.

The Deep Sleep and the Opened Side

After God had formed Adam, no suitable companion was found for him among all the creatures. So God did something wonderful:

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man (Genesis 2:21–22).

God put Adam into a deep sleep, opened his side, took from it, and from what He took He built a bride—and then brought her to the man, who received her as “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” Hold that picture in your mind, for thousands of years later it would happen again, in an infinitely greater way.

For Jesus is called the last Adam, and the parallels are not accidents—they are the design of God written across the whole of Scripture:

The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit… The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven… And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Corinthians 15:45–49).

The first Adam was made from the earth; the last Adam is the Lord from heaven. The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam is a life-giving spirit. Through the first Adam, sin and death entered the world; through the last Adam, righteousness and life. And now watch the two “deep sleeps” come together.

On the first Adam, God caused a deep sleep to fall, opened his side, and from it built his bride. On the last Adam, the sleep of death fell upon the cross; a soldier’s spear opened His side; and from that opened side flowed blood and water—and from it God is building His bride, the church, the sons and daughters of God:

But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water (John 19:33–34).

Do you see it? The wounded side of the first Adam brought forth a bride to share his life; the wounded side of the last Adam brought forth the church, His bride, born from His blood and cleansed by that same blood. What God pictured in Eden, He fulfilled at Calvary. The deep sleep of Christ’s death was the divine surgery by which the bride of the Son was formed.²⁷⁵

Slain Before the Foundation of the World

Let us remind ourselves who this is upon the cross. Jesus is truly man and truly God—the Word who became flesh, by whom all things were created, and in whom all things hold together (Colossians 1:16–17). Through Jesus the man, the hidden attributes of God are revealed—attributes that were in Him from before the foundation of the world. And one of those attributes is Saviour. Now, for an attribute to be displayed, there must be an occasion for it: to reveal Himself as Saviour, there had to be the lost; to reveal Himself as the Lamb slain, there had to be a cross. His saving love did not begin at Calvary—it was eternal in the heart of God—but at Calvary it was unveiled for all to see. No wonder the Scriptures speak of Him as slain before the world was ever made:

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you (1 Peter 1:20).

The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was (John 17:5).

The cross was no accident of history, no tragic derailment of God’s plan. It was the plan—settled in the counsel of God before the first star was flung into space. The Lamb was, in the mind and purpose of God, slain from the foundation of the world; Calvary was the moment that eternal purpose stepped into time.²⁷⁷

His Precious Blood

What did that shed blood accomplish? The New Testament piles up the great words of our salvation. His blood brought redemption—we were bought back out of slavery; justification—we were declared righteous before God; and reconciliation—the broken relationship was healed:

Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold… but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18–19).

His blood is called precious—more precious than silver or gold, more precious than anything in creation—because it is the blood of God’s own Son, the one currency in the universe able to purchase a soul. “Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).

It Is Finished

And so we come to His final words from the cross—three of the most triumphant words ever spoken:

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst… When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost (John 19:28–30).

“It is finished.” In the original language it is a single word—tetelestai—and it was not the whimper of a defeated man but the shout of a victor. It was the word written across a bill when the debt was paid in full: Paid. It was the word a servant spoke when a task was perfectly completed. Jesus did not say, “I am finished,” as though He were merely dying. He said, “It is finished”—the work is done, the price is paid, the ransom is complete, the Scriptures are fulfilled, the way to God is open. There is nothing left for anyone to add. Salvation is not something we achieve; it is something He accomplished, and finished, on the cross.²⁸⁰

Through His death on the cross, and the resurrection that followed, we have received a threefold inheritance:

• Redemption—deliverance from sin and its eternal punishment.

• Justification—being made righteous before God through Christ Jesus, by grace and not by works.

• Adoption—being received as the sons and daughters of God.

“For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God” (Romans 6:10). “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). He died for our sins once for all. He died that we might live. Through the shedding of His blood, His death, and His resurrection, we are reconciled to God and made righteous in His sight.

Laid in a Borrowed Tomb

His body was not left on the cross nor cast aside. A secret disciple found his courage at the very moment the bold disciples had fled:

Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor… came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus… And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre (Mark 15:43–46).

So the Lamb was slain, and the Son of God was laid to rest in a tomb hewn from the rock, with a stone rolled across the door. To all human appearance it was the end. But it was not the end. It was the stillness before the greatest morning the world would ever know. For His body would rest in that tomb, but His Spirit had further to go—as the next chapter will show.