Lent: Week Six

"It is finished"

I probably heard it every Easter growing up. Our pastor would give his Sunday sermon, and talk about how the greek word used to express this is tetelestai, and that this phrase also had financial connotations - that it was used to signify that a debt had been paid. I always thought that was a neat story.

But I'm more cautious about antecdotal translations now, so I decided to look up the usage of this word in other contexts. I'll bold the phrases that use the same word, for reference. It is variously translated as "accomplished, carried, carry, completed, finish, finished, fulfilled, fulfilling, keeps, pay, perfected, performed," and so the word carries a flavor of all of these.

John only uses this word twice in his gospel (here, and a couple verses earlier to say that Jesus acted knowing all things had been accomplished, said that he was thirsty), never in his named epistles, and 8 times in Revelation, three times about the end of the thousand years, twice about the 7 angels with plagues that finish the wrath of God, twice concerning the end of the mystery or words of God, and once concerning the end of the testimonty of the witnesses. Matthew uses it seven times, usually saying that Jesus had finished saying something - a parable, an instruction, or something of that nature - and three times he then departs. Another time, it's used when the disciples are questioned: "Does your teacher not pay the two drachma tax?"

It appears once in Acts, when Paul speaks of those who (presumably unknowingly) finished everything that had been written concerning Christ in crucifying and burying him. Paul uses it in Romans to ask if an uncircumcised man who keeps the law will judge those who have the circumcision but are transgressors of the law. He uses it in 2 Timothy to say that he himself has finished the course, fought the fight, and kept the faith. James tells us that if we are keeping the royal law "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" we are doing well.

But my very favorite usage of the word is in 2 Corinthians. It's one of my favorite passages anyway, and I find the parallelism to the cross to be amazing. This is a topic Kenny spoke of in his blog on the topic yesterday, and it's something we all do well to remember.

"And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness .' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me."