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Life and Labors of a Poor Sinner
AUTHOR: | Dalton, Tolbert S. |
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CHAPTER XXI
"IT IS FINISHED."
The above caption causes us to look back in the history of the world over 1900 years, when on Calvary's rugged brow, near the city of Jerusalem, was enacted the most horrible and cruel crime ever recorded in the pages of ancient or modern history; a crime upon which the sun that illumines our day, refused to look; a crime which caused the globe upon which we tread to shake from center to circumference; a crime that caused the huge rocks of the earth to rend asunder; a crime that caused the veil of the temple (which hid the high priest from the vision of the worshipers when he entered the "Sanctum Sanctorum" once every year to offer unto God his yearly offering for his sins and also for the sins of the people) to rend in twain from top to bottom, and caused the wicked and bloodthirsty people that surrounded the place to cry out, "Surely this must be the Son of God." In the midst of the darkness and gloom which overspread the earth, we hear the sweet voice of the Son of God, the Son of Mary, that poor personage, who had lived upon earth thirty-three years, not having where to lay His head, "In whose mouth guile was never found," crying in the anguish of His soul, "I thirst." When one of His persecutors ran with vinegar mingled with gall and handed it to Him, he drank it, then cried in a loud voice, "It is finished:" and bowed His head and gave up the ghost.
Now the question is, what is it that is finished? All doubtless agree with me that when the Saviour used this language, something was finished, something was done, something was completed. It was useless for the Saviour to tell that His sufferings were ended, for every one knew that; therefore we can but conclude that the Saviour had reference to His work here on earth, the work His Father had given Him to do, for He says in John vi. 38, "I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." Therefore we can but conclude that Jesus had finished the will of His Father; hence His part of the contract or agreement, as fixed in the everlasting covenant between the three persons in the one God was completed, and to this agrees the words of the blessed Saviour in John xvii. 4. "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." Hence we have but to consider what His Father gave Him to do, and there the question must forever rest.
Let us hear the Prophet Isaiah, xlii. 1-4. "Behold my servant, whom I upheld; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law." Now notice God says He shall do these things, and the main thing we would have you notice is, "He shall not fail." If HE should fail in any part of the work that His Father has assigned Him, then the Bible is not true. Should we prove that the Bible is not true in one point, it is liable to be untrue in all, and we have no ground for our religious belief, and have proven ourselves to be open, avowed infidels. Hence we are driven to the necessity of denying Arminianism in toto, or else deny the Bible and confess infidelity. The Bible says "Jesus shall not fail." The Arminians say "He is striving, and trying to save all of the race of mankind, and will fail in perhaps a large majority." Hence either the Bible or Arminianism is untrue, and we will leave our readers to judge for themselves; but as for us, we shall believe what the Bible says, popular opinion to the contrary notwithstanding.
Again we read in Isaiah sixty-third chapter: "Who is this that cometh up from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." Not to try to save, but to save. Then in verse 9 He says: "In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old." This God spake by the mouth of His prophet as though it had already come to pass, and yet it was 698 years before the coming of Christ, which fulfils the Bible saying that God speaks "of things that are not, as though they were, saying my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure."
While there are hundreds of other texts in the Old Testament that we might introduce in support of this idea, yet we will now turn our attention to the New Testament; and the first language to which we want to direct your minds is that of the angel that God Himself dispatched from the courts of glory unto Joseph when he was mindful to put Mary away privily. The angel said, unto Joseph, "Fear nor to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins." If Jesus saved them, then He has done the work His Father sent Him to do; if He has given them a chance to be saved, then He has failed to do that work. Jesus says, "I have finished the work thou gavest me to do." The world says He is trying to do it but cannot, unless the people will assist Him; hence the battle is between the world and Jesus. Jesus says, "He has;" the world says, "He has not," and of course it is for us to say which we will believe; as for us, we shall believe Jesus. Oh! how strange that people of talent will openly dispute the language of our blessed Saviour, and yet claim to believe in Him as their Saviour. Oh, my God! Will they never see the truth? Will they never cease to dispute the authority of inspiration?
Is it possible that if I were to write a letter to my children, and tell them that I was going to do a certain thing for them, and they knew I possessed all the means necessary to accomplish it, and had full power to do it, then afterwards write them that I had finished it, or completed it, that they would then dispute my word, and say I had only tried to do it, or had given them a chance to do it? Surely my children would not treat me in this way, and yet there are many who claim to be the children of God that are disputing the word of Jesus on the very same principle. Jesus said He came, "To save His people from their sins." Afterwards He tells them that He has "Finished the work He came to do." and yet many of those who claim to be His children say it is not true.
Paul says in Heb; x; 14, 15, "For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness unto us:" and in the tenth verse Paul tells us how we are sanctified; in verse 9, he tells us that Jesus came to do the will of His Father; and in verse 10, he says, "By the which will we are sanctified," etc. Hence in God's will we are set apart as legatees of the inheritance in glory, or in other words, elected or chosen in Christ to salvation, and Jesus came to execute the will of His Father, and in doing this He "Redeems us from the curse of the law," ( Gal. iii. 13) "Redeems us from all iniquity," (Titus ii. 14), and this redemption is eternal, (Heb. ix. 12), "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, HAVING OBTAINED ETERNAL REDEMPTION FOR US."
Now notice, Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law, and has also redeemed us eternally from all iniquity, and yet the world says many of these redeemed souls will sink down to hell at last. Oh, my God! A sinner saved, and yet in danger of being lost. Such a thing was never known in the English vocabulary, and yet the wise of the world believe it. Should you ask us how Jesus did this work, we answer, by living a life of obedience to the requirements of the divine law. He says He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law; for He says, "not one jot or tittle of the law shall fail till all is fulfilled." This Jesus did to satisfy the demands of the law in our stead, and afterwards died on the Roman cross to redeem us from all the painful consequences of a broken law, and to cleanse us from all pollution and qualify us for a home among the blessed in glory, then He sends His Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, to give us a knowledge of what He did for us. And when Jesus opens the heart of the poor sinner, and gives him a view of his own corruption, and guilt before God, he at once begins to weep and cry for mercy, and in the very agony of death he cries, "God be merciful to me a poor sinner." If he only knew at that time, that Jesus had paid his debt, his mourning would be turned into joy, his grief into praise, but, poor soul, he needs evidence of that fact; he needs faith, which Paul says, "is the evidence of things not seen." And just as soon as God gives him that evidence (or faith), he bursts forth in an ecstacy of joy, and is delighted with the finished work of Jesus, and believes with every power of hrs soul the words that head this chapter, "It is finished."
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