I remember writing a paper for a college class my senior year. I have never written such a long paper in my life! The class I had was a three-hour class on Thursday nights. The paper I wrote was on a theological issue (the class was called, “Theological Issues”) that I had chosen to write about. When the paper was completed, it ended up being sixty-five pages long! This was in the days before computers, word-processors, etc. For those of you who cannot fathom that idea, that meant that we had to type each page of those sixty-five pages!
I had typed some of the pages, but asked a friend of mine to help in with the majority of the typing. I paid her so much per page, but she typed the main body of the paper. I recall sending my girl-friend (now my wife) over to this girl’s dorm room to find out if she was done typing about a half-hour before this evening class. As I was walking to my class on the evening it was due, with the few pages I had typed, I remember my wife sprinting across the campus with the remainder of my paper. That is cutting it close! I will tell you that when I got those pages in my hand, and saw the paper in its completed form, my heart jumped for joy!
I still get this good feeling today when something I have worked hard on reaches the point of completion. Today I read some simple, but amazing words in John 19. After living for thirty-three years as a perfect man among imperfect people, Jesus carried my cross to the top of Golgotha’s hill. There for six hours, He struggled with the last hours of those thirty-three years of life. After all that time, He pushed up on the nail that pierced His feet, and cried out three glorious words … “It is finished” (John 19:30). The scene was not glorious in any way, but those words were glorious for me, as well as for you.
What was finished on that day? Our salvation was not finished on that day, but the payment for the sins of every repentant sinner was finished! Just as nothing needed to be added to my sixty-five-page paper that cool fall day in college; nothing more needs to be added to the price of your redemption that day at Calvary. No good works we can do can be added. No church membership, baptism, communion … nothing can be added! The reason is that the price-tag for sin that was hung on every human being’s heart from the sin of Adam and Eve forward, had been paid in full! What a glorious thought! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! My debt has been paid by the only One capable of paying it! I will rejoice for eternity that all that was required for my sins to be removed, has been paid! I am finished too!