Doves On Distant Oaks

I often hear people talk, or write, about the mission of Jesus. They say that Jesus was a good teacher, may have even performed miracles and healed people; He’s even someone they look up to and want to emulate. But … thats all. They don’t believe he had any other mission to fulfill during his 33-odd years while alive.

There is a specific word that Jesus spoke from the cross that refutes this belief. That word is tetelestai. It's often translated as "it is finished" and can be found in the following verse:


This word is primarily used at the close of business transactions. After documents were signed, pens put down, and hands shaken in agreement, it was finished … tetelestai. Yet, what endless profoundness it contained when spoken by our Lord and Savior from the cross. Our sin was paid in full. No debt remained. It was finished!

Charles Simeon, Anglican cleric and author, said of the word:


For a single word to carry such weight means it was more than just the end of a person’s life. I hardly think Jesus would use a word used to sign business dealing when their life was over. When someone simply dies, there is no agreement on anything, no arrangements specified … no “deal” made. And it couldn’t have meant Jesus' work on earth was completed.

Certainly there was more knowledge He could have passed on—more teaching to be done. Without question there were more people He could have healed and more miracles He could have performed. If He had finished that work on the cross, then those things would have been needed no longer. Yet, the world remains full of sickness and in need of everyday miracles. There is still so much more we need to learn.

No, the reason Christ stepped down from heaven was to carry our sin to the cross. The reason He came to earth was to remove our debt to God, to end enmity and return amity between God and mankind.

It was mankind who broke their relationship with God though Adam and Eve’s sin. Ever since, we had sunk lower and lower into iniquity, as Isaiah clearly writes:


Is it any wonder why God’s wrath needed to be satisfied. In one hand He held the power of destruction, while with the other he held it back with mercy. That is the meaning behind “for God so loved the world that He sent His only son.” God loved us so much that He had to send His son to reconcile the enmity between Himself and all mankind.

The Greek word for this is katallage, which means “reconciliation.” The Apostle Paul uses this word when he writes:


All those other things Jesus did in his lifetime—the teaching, the healing, the miracles—were signposts that pointed to the cross. That's why He said, "It is finished" on the cross, because He had completed what He had come to do by dying for our sins.

No words can express just how grateful we must be for that.





Keywords: Peace, Reconciliation


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