Dear Christian friends:

I. Doesn't seem like anything is finished or built.

A. Jesus remains helpless & dies

B. The innocent Man dies the death of a criminal, the guilty go free, continue to live and are to receive forgiveness.

C. The faithful followers prove themselves unfaithful.

D. The outlaw, the enemy of God's commandments, now proves to be God's friend.

E. The mother's Son is taken away, but by that the Son of God is given to her.

Doesn't this seem foolish and contradictory? Destruction rather than completion?

Yes the cross is failure, collapse, and destruction and foolishness. Thank God that this is so. Because of that the misery of our human wisdom is finally ended. Because it is a failure, the failure of our life, unhappy despite short success is finally removed. Because an innocent Man dies on the cross, it is the greatest wisdom. Because God Himself submitted to the failure of the cross, it is everlasting completion.

John 19:28, "All was now accomplished" Not only Jesus' suffering, but also we; not only we but the whole world. Nothing remains to be added by man for the salvation of the world.

"All" must not be watered-down or weakened. It is hard to understand that word. Our sin is too great. We not only commit sins once-in-awhile but we are sinful and of ourselves can do no good.

Our sin has cast us away to be born and die ups and downs. If a man loves this life He's crazy. With man all creation fell. Trees, animals, planets, and stars all are sick and dying under the curse of sin.

This world is not now perfect how God made it. It is fast spinning to destruction.

As God was dishonored by us, so He was honored by Jesus' death. As a world was ruined by sin, so a new world was created and finished on the cross. Yes the results of Jesus' death on the cross go very far.

The complete sickness of body and soul of man and creation, has now been healed. The separation between God and man is now removed. God is again near, Sin no longer separates. The power of sin has ended.

Death no longer rules, we live the life eternal. Gone is the curse Man and creation are free. A new world is here. But is doesn't seem that way. We still die. We still have sickness, ups and downs. Where is the victory over sin. We daily are tempted and often fall. Where is the new Man in us?

Maybe we should only say it will be perfect soon. We hope it to be. How can we say, "All is accomplished?"

Paul did. He says, "We are justified." "In Christ all died" He even says we are risen. Paul knows very well that our sinful heart still fights against the spirit and that all creation waits for the final salvation and yet he says, "Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17) Contradictions? Yes! But still true. In Christ Paul is justified and risen. In Christ time is overcome; a new world has replaced the old.

All is accomplished on the cross, because Jesus finished the work God asked Him to do. By that Jesus united us, His own, with Himself forever. By taking our place on the cross Jesus put us in His place. By becoming forsaken of God, He brought us near to God. Our sin became His sin, that His righteousness could become our righteousness. Our death became His death that His life might become ours. What was ours became His, so what was His might become ours.

If we are really united with Him, then His future is our future. Then nothing can separate us from Him when He rises on the third day. His resurrection is also our resurrection. His new body is our new body. Nothing can separate us from Him when He ascends to the Father in heaven. We sit down with Him at God's right hand and we shall judge the world with Him when He comes again.

All this is in the future, and yet it is finished and is now. Because God's future is more sure and real than mans present. God's promises about the future is more real than human history.

If we believe, then God's future is now, and mans now is past. Yet we must fight the good fight of faith against sin and woe to us if we fail to fight! But if we believe in Jesus this battle is decided already and we know that we have already won, although the world is fast becoming more anti-God. We must wait for the Lord's return at the end of time. And woe to us if we no longer want to wait!

But if we believe we know that the Lord is among us and that He rules. All this is true because our present became his that His future might be ours. The visible world and time were judged once for all on the cross.

The new world is finished, no matter how much our world is breaking and dying. The kingdom of God is accomplished, even though the churches and kingdoms of this world struggle so hard against it.

And to all of us who think that we are in a state of change or even only beginning, who are troubled by the little we accomplished and the great things that we decided to do and never get done - also to us weak sinners Jesus says: "It is finished!" Jesus' work is accomplished, God is honored on earth. Truly so completely (perfectly) is Jesus' work finished on the cross that nothing, nothing at all could be added by man.

Amen.