“It is finished” (John 19:30)

When Jesus received the sour wine in answer to his cry, “I thirst”, the end of his earthly life had nearly come and the prolonged and bitter conflict against the forces of evil was all but over.  But the cry from the Cross, “It is finished”, which expressed that, was a cry not of relief but of triumph.

The word in the original Greek means, “It is accomplished, it is achieved”, and refers not so much to the close of his life as to the fulfilment of his life’s work.  He had come into this world to do his Father’s will and to destroy the power of Satan, and in that twofold task he had been wholly successful.  All that he had set out to do he had done.