What exactly was finished at the cross of Jesus? Stay tuned for Renewing Your Mind, Weekend Edition. Welcome to this weekend edition of Renewing Your Mind with author and teacher Dr. R.C. Sproul. Dr. Sproul is also the Senior Minister of Preaching and Teaching at St. Andrews, a Reformed congregation in Sanford, Florida. Although Jesus' work on the cross is considered His passive obedience to the Father, He was still active in the sense that He communicated with those around Him. His words are commonly referred to as the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross. John's Gospel records a few of them, one of them being sixth, saying, It is finished. But what exactly is it? What was finished that day Jesus hung on the cross? Today on Renewing Your Mind, as we continue our way through the Gospel of John, Dr. Sproul will teach us the significance of Jesus' crucifixion. Here is Dr. Sproul. Well, we've been working our way through the Gospel of John. And this morning we come to John's narrative of the crucifixion of Christ, and I will be reading that narrative in its entirety in chapter 19 of John's gospel beginning at verse 17. And he bearing his cross went out to a place called the place of a skull. which is called in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified Him and two others with Him, one on either side and Jesus in the center. Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. And then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Therefore, the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the King of the Jews. But he said, I am the King of the Jews. Pilate answered, what I have written I have written. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said, therefore, among themselves, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be. that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. Therefore the soldiers did these things. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. And a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on his lip, and put it to his mouth. And so when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. Therefore, because it was the preparation day that the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, but that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, that they might be taken away. And the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with them. When they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth so that you may believe. For these things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, not one of his bones shall be broken. And again another Scripture says, they shall look upon him whom they pierced. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear. He begins in verse 17 by saying that Jesus, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of the Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. When it says in the text that Christ was bearing His cross, we might visualize, as some artistic renditions have been in the past, Jesus struggling down the road, bearing the complete cross on His shoulders. That's not the way it happened. That's not the way it was. It was customary for the Roman treatment of prisoners who were to be executed by crucifixion to prepare the vertical beam of the cross at the crucifixion site before the actual execution would take place. So before Jesus makes his way from the Praetorian outside the gates of Jerusalem to the place of the skull at Golgotha, the vertical piece had already been implanted in the ground. And what would happen was that the prisoners would then be given the cross piece, the crossbar, and it was their task to hoist it on their shoulders and carry it to the place of execution. Now, on many occasions, they were not able to accomplish the task. depending on the severity of the scourging that they had received immediately before moving out to the execution site. And we do know from the other Gospels that Jesus carried this crossbeam out to the city gates, but then he collapsed. in a state of complete exhaustion, and one passerby, Simon of Cyrene, was commanded by the soldiers to pick up the crossbeam of Jesus and take it to the hill of execution. And once there, then the prisoner would be placed flat on the ground on top of the crossbeam, and his arms would either be tied or nailed to the crossbeam. In the case of Jesus, he was nailed to the crossbeam. We don't know whether it was through the hands or through the wrists. That remains a questionable point in the history. the prisoner, in this case Jesus, would be hoisted up on the vertical beam, and the cross beam would then be attached to that vertical beam, usually through nails. And in addition to that, a tiny platform towards the bottom of the vertical piece would be affixed to the vertical beam as a place for the feet of the prisoner to be secured. And then the feet were either tied or nailed to the vertical piece of the cross. Now, the reason for that little platform at the bottom of the cross was so that the feet could exercise pressure and give the body an opportunity to raise the diaphragm and breathe during the act of crucifixion, and that may seem at first glance as an aspect of mercy given to the executed person. On the contrary, it was done to prolong the torture, because prisoners dying by this method would basically involuntarily gasp for breath, and if that breath were not possible to gain, then they would die much quicker, usually by asphyxiation. And so this was attached to the cross of Jesus at this time. Now we're told that Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and it was there, written in three languages, the language of the Jews, Hebrew, the common currency of Koine Greek in that day that had come about as a result of the conquest of Alexander the Great and his process of Hellenization, and thirdly, in the Latin, which was the language of the soldiers, who, of course, were Romans. And on this sign, The charge was printed, and that was customary as well for Roman crucifixions, that whatever charge a person had that caused them to be executed was published at the scene of the execution by being tacked to the cross. And so Pilate writes as the charge against Jesus that he is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Well, that greatly upset the Jewish authorities because they didn't believe that he was the king of the Jews. And so they protest this, the Pilate, and they say, please change the wording of the charge and make it say this, he said he was the king of the Jews. Pollitt by this time had had it with the Jewish authorities, as we've seen in the previous weeks. And he simply dismissed their protests with the imperious words, what I have written, I have written. Sounds like Yul Brynner in The King and I. So let it be said, so let it be done. It's the law of the Medes and the Persians. I'm not changing what I have said, so live with it. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part and also the tunic. So if we look carefully at this and at the normal garb of a prisoner on that occasion, he would have five different pieces of clothing. And the undergarment, the seamless garment, was the tunic. And the other four garments were distributed among the four soldiers. But because this garment, the tunic, was a one-piece garment and significantly valuable, they didn't want to lessen its value by cutting it into four pieces, but rather they decided to gamble through the casting of lots, winner take all, at least of the tunic. Now there are a couple things I do want to just comment on in passing here. Prisoners who were executed by crucifixion in the Roman arena were executed naked. And that goes back to an ancient process by which the worst form of humiliation that could be imposed upon an enemy was to strip that enemy naked. And it would frequently take place if the Romans, for example, were victorious in battle, they would take the officers of the conquered army and parade them down the street bare naked. to reduce them to total shame and humiliation. And so if you can bear it, in all probability, the Son of God was made a public spectacle in the shame of nakedness following the ancient custom. But we notice in verse 24, they said, let's not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Now, please understand that John is not saying here that the Roman soldiers got together and they said, look, we better gamble for his garments because it says somewhere in the Old Testament that those garments are going to be gambled away and they'll cast lots for him, and we've got to make sure that the Scripture gets fulfilled in every dimension. No, this is John's editorial comment. that unintentionally, when they go through this act of gambling for the garments of Christ, they are, unknowns to themselves and in an involuntary way, fulfilling the precise details of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the death of the Messiah. And John is so jealous to make his reader understand that what happens here on the cross is not an accident of history, it's not fortuitous, but it has come to pass through the invisible hand of a sovereign providence. Then he changes his perspective for a moment and says in verse 25, now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, watching the execution. And when Jesus looks down from the cross, he sees his mother in the crowd. You remember when we looked at this painting over here in terms of the presentation of the infant Jesus to the temple at the time of Simeon, and the prophetess Anna, and the prophecy, we see this man dressed with a helmet in the back who is lurking over the baby, and that depicts Satan. And remember in that prophetic moment on the day of presentation that it was said to Mary, that a sword would pierce her soul, speaking about the anguish she would endure in the future death of her son. So here the mother is watching her son, who had been promised be the Messiah of Israel, the very Son of God, watching Him in this shame, in this suffering, in this humiliation, and she's transfixed by the vision, and Jesus now looks at her, and He speaks to her from the cross. And we read also in the text that the beloved disciple was there, and that we know almost certainly refers to John, the writer of this gospel, the youngest of the twelve. And Jesus looks at his mother, and he looks at John, and he says to his mother, woman, behold your son. And then to John, son. Behold your mother. In other words, Jesus is not saying to his mother, mother, look at me. Rather, he's saying to her, look at John. Woman, behold your son, John. John, behold your mother. Because one of the last things that Jesus does before he dies is to look after the care of his widowed mother. And presumably his brothers are not even present in Jerusalem at this time, and so he commends his mother to the care of John. And we are told that Mary then goes and lives in John's house. And so in loving terms he says to Mary, woman behold your son, and commits her to John's care. From that hour the disciple took her to his own. And after this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, again that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. And a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there. It's the kind of wine that the soldiers used. And they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it probably on his stock, and reached it up to him and put it to his mouth to assuage his thirst. Now again, it's obvious that any victim of crucifixion hanging on the cross in the middle of the day's sun in Palestine would get thirsty in a hurry. And Jesus cries out in His human nature of His thirstiness. And we are told here again, this is fulfilling the Old Testament prophecy of the suffering servant of Israel whose tongue will cleave to the roof of his mouth in his thirstiness. And Jesus cries out, I thirst. And then what is most significant, I think, is this. When Jesus received the sour wine, his thirst had been assuaged. He said, it is finished. Tetelestai. It's a form of the Greek that indicates an action that has been totally completed. It comes from the verb form of the Greek word telos, which is a very important word in history of Greek thought. People look for the telos in things such as Aristotle's entelechy. It is the word that means end or goal in person. Every time I read this, I think of an experience I had when I was a senior in college. When I was a freshman in college, I couldn't take what was called bonehead biology, biology 101, because I had a conflict with another course. And so I wasn't able to get that graduate requirement out of the way until I was a senior. So I'm a senior in a class full of freshmen, and our biology teacher was a dear, sweet woman, really loved her. But on the first day of class, she made this comment. She said, we're going to be studying biology together, and this is a scientific enterprise, and we're not going to be interested in teleological matters. Rather, we're going to confine our study to descriptive matters, trying to learn how it is that things operate in the biological realm, and not ask questions about purpose. Now, I'm a senior philosophy major, and I about jumped out of my chair. I couldn't believe what she said there. I went up to her afterwards, and I said, Mrs. Frye, how can you rule teleology out of the scientific inquiry? How can you study anything and not be interested in its purpose or its significance? He said, well, we leave that to the philosophers. Anyway, I haven't gotten over that yet. But this is what Jesus is concerned with here, purpose. The telestai, teleology. The significance of his whole life now comes to this moment. And he says, it's finished. Not that his life is finished, but his mission is finished. His purpose has been accomplished. The reason for his existence has now finally been fulfilled, and he understands that. And also, this word is sometimes used in the commercial arena in the Greek world, when it's the stamp that is put on a purchase, if you buy it on installment, and the last payment has been made, and you see, paid in full, that's the word that is used to tell us that. I've done it all. I've drunk the cup to its dregs. And notice the next thing, he doesn't have to do anything more. We read, and bowing his head, he gave up the spirit. He said, nobody can take my life from me. But when his mission is accomplished, when the atonement is finished, Jesus decides when he's going to die. And he gives up the ghost and dies. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, Weekend Edition, with R.C. Sproul, as he takes us through the Gospel of John. What do you do when called to defend your faith? How well have you prepared yourself to converse with unbelievers who live under the influence of unchristian worldviews? To equip believers to answer the false claims of postmodernism, naturalism, and our culture's other atheistic theories, we're offering the entire 14-part CD series, Contending for the Truth, for a donation of any amount today. Call our toll-free number to reserve your copy. Call 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 800-435-4343. Or visit rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind and the word offer.com. That web address is for this week's special offer only. The 14-part CD Contending for the Truth series was originally recorded at the Ligonier Ministries' 2007 National Conference as Drs. R.C. Sproul, Ravi Zacharias, Albert Moeller, John Piper, John MacArthur, and R.C. Sproul, Jr. assembled together to refute the claims made against the biblical worldview and to arm believers for the cogent presentation of Orthodox Christianity. Because of time constraints, the message you heard today was only half of the actual lecture, but the entire message is available with a complete series when you call. Again, the entire 14-part Contending for the Truth conference series on CD is available for a donation of any amount today. This is the last day for this offer. Call our toll-free number to get your copy of Contending for the Truth. Call 1-800-435-4343. Again, that's 1-800-435-4343. Or visit rymoffer.com. That's R-Y-M as in renewing your mind. And the word offer.com. We're out of time for this Weekend Edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thank you for being with us. Be sure to join us again next weekend as Dr. Sproul continues to take us through the Gospel of John. Until then, we invite you to join us on Facebook.com slash Ligonier. 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