Passage: Mark 15:37
The Big Idea
After six hours on the cross, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed His last. John tells us what He shouted: “It is finished!” One word in Greek, tetelestai: paid in full. It wasn’t a cry of defeat but of victory. The Judge took the penalty Himself, satisfying God’s justice by substitution, and He laid down His life by His own choice. Today, instead of rushing to application, we simply fix our eyes on what God has done.
Famous Last Words
People’s last words are often memorable:
- Leonardo da Vinci is said to have lamented that he had offended God and mankind because his work didn’t reach the quality it should have. (I guess the Mona Lisa wasn’t good enough?)
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, turned to his wife in his garden and said, “You are wonderful.”
- When his son told actor Michael Landon it was time to move on, Landon answered, “You’re right. It’s time. I love you all.”
- John Wayne told his wife, “Of course I know who you are. You’re my girl. I love you.”
- The playwright and wit Wilson Mizner, when a priest at his bedside said, “I’m sure you want to talk to me,” replied, “Why should I talk to you? I’ve just been talking to your boss.”
- And actress Joan Crawford, it’s reported, scolded her praying housekeeper with her last breath: “Don’t you dare ask God to help me!”
Today we look at the last cry of Jesus. (And no, it wasn’t “Wait till My Father hears about this!”)
A Loud Cry (Mark 15:37)
“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last.”
After six hours of torture, the worst that people could do.
- Most crucified men spent their final hours exhausted or unconscious. Jesus, though terribly weakened, was fully conscious and able to cry out with a loud voice right up to the moment of His death.
After bearing the wrath of God.
- On the cross, Jesus was treated as an enemy of God. He drank the cup of the Father’s fury against sin, so that we never would.
He had completed His mission. How do we know? He told us, with a loud voice!
Tetelestai
John tells us what Jesus cried: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). In Greek it’s one word, tetelestai. It means “completed, accomplished,” and in everyday commerce it could be written on a bill to mean “paid in full.”
That’s the shout of a winner. Jesus had paid in full the debt of sin we owed and finished the eternal purpose of the cross.
It wasn’t a cry of defeat but a cry of triumph: victory over sin and Satan, and, paradoxically, victory over death, even as He died.
Isaiah wrote that He was pierced for our rebellion and crushed for our sins; the punishment that brought us peace fell on Him, and by His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).
What Did He Win for Us?
1. Unfathomable mercy
Why was the cross necessary? Who were the enemies in this battle? We were (Romans 5:10).
- Jesus is the Judge of the world (John 5:22).
- And He took on Himself the very penalty He had every right to inflict.
- Because God is Father, Son and Spirit, He could both judge and bear judgment at the same time.
John Stott put it memorably: to save us in a way that satisfied His own justice, God, through Christ, put Himself in our place. Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice. The cross was at the same time punishment and pardon, severity and grace, justice and mercy.
We don’t deserve this. It’s so far above us, deeper than we’ll ever fully understand.
2. Satisfaction through substitution
This is the greatest victory in history, and we share it completely by faith.
Paul says we are Christ’s ambassadors, as if God Himself were pleading through us: be reconciled to God! For God made the sinless One to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:20-21).
- The righteousness of God. Not a little better than before. As righteous as God is, because it’s His righteousness given to us.
3. Transformation through substitution
When Peter healed a lame man, he explained that it was Jesus’ name, through faith in His name, that made the man strong, and that faith coming through Jesus had made him completely well in front of everyone (Acts 3:16).
- The same finished work that forgives us also transforms us.
- Our new life was won at the cross too.
He Breathed His Last
Mark says Jesus “uttered a loud cry” (the Greek is phōnē megalē, a “mega-phone” voice!) and “breathed His last.”
- Jesus wasn’t overpowered by death. He gave up His spirit. Matthew says He “yielded up His spirit” (Matthew 27:50), and Luke records Him saying, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!” (Luke 23:46).
- It was His own choice. He had said that no one takes His life from Him; He lays it down by His own choice. He has authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again, as His Father commanded (John 10:18).
Jesus willingly and freely won this war for you.
His breath ended so that God could breathe new life into you.
As Stott summed it up, the heart of the biblical gospel of atonement is God satisfying Himself by substituting Himself for us.
Eyes on God
A lot of times a pastor will end a sermon with some personal application.
I won’t today.
This death is all about God: the Father and the Son.
Let’s just fix our eyes on Him.
His finished work on the cross should be the first thing we think about in the morning, and the last thing our hearts rest in before we sleep.
Grace Takeaway
Jesus didn’t whisper His last words; He shouted them. “It is finished! Paid in full!” The Judge took the sentence, the debt was cancelled, and He laid down His life by His own choice. There’s nothing left for you to pay and nothing to add. Rest your heart tonight, and every night, in what He finished.
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