_To Himself_.
"_It is finished_!"
Thus in His last, ever-wonderful words Jesus pronounces Himself the
sentence of His own heart upon His own work. _It is completed._ Every
barrier is broken down, every battle is fought, every hellish dart has
flown, every wilderness is past, every drop of the cup of anguish has been
drunk up, and, with a note of victorious confidence, He cries out, "It is
finished!" Looking back from the cross on all His life in the light of
these words, we see how He regarded it as an opportunity for accomplishing
a great duty, and for the fulfilment of a mission. Now, He says, "The duty
is done--the mission is fulfilled; the work is finished!" Truly, it is a
lofty, a noble, yea, a godlike view of life!
Is it ours? Death will come to us. "The living know that they shall die."
The waters will overflow, and the foundations will be broken up, and every
precious thing will grow dim, and our life, also, will have passed. We
shall then have to say of something, "_It is finished_!" It will be
too late to alter it. "There is no man that hath power in the day of
death."
_What, then, shall it be that is finished_? A life of selfish ease,
or a life of following the Son of Man? A life of sinful gratification, of
careful thought of ourselves, unprofitable from beginning to end, or a
life of generous devotion to the things which are immortal in the honour
of God and the salvation of men?