Dear Brethren and Friends,
Christ, near the end of His life, while giving instructions and encouraging comments to His disciples, said in John 17 that He had completed the Work given to Him by God the Father. We read His Words in John 17:4: “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.”
This Work was a most important one, and on the cross, with His dying breath, made this comment in John 19:30: “So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.”
His death was the finishing touch of the Work He was sent by God the Father to accomplish.
Just what did this Work entail?
Christ came to reveal the Father because there was ignorance and confusion about this vital understanding, as there is today in thinking the God of the Old Testament was a cruel and harsh God, while Christ in the New Testament was the compassionate, merciful Son of God.
Nothing could be further from the Truth since Christ was actually the God of the Old Testament. We read in John 8:58: “Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.’”
They picked up rocks to stone him (compare verse 59) because they fully understood He was identifying Himself as the God of the Old Testament who had referred Himself to being the “I AM.”
This is confirmed in Exodus 3:14, where we read: “And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
His persecution was also prophesied. We read in John 16:3: “And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.”
So they did not know the Father, nor who Christ really was.
He also came to choose the apostles and disciples so they could become part of the Church after His death and receive the Holy Spirit, giving them the opportunity to be resurrected into the Family of God as children of God in the future.
Note Acts 2:37-39:
“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’”
Our calling is unique because we were predetermined and predestined to be called before the foundation of the world, with the potential to eventually rule with Christ in the Millennium and on into eternity.
We read in Ephesians 1:4-7:
“… just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons [better: having predestined us to be sons] by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
This is all made possible by our willingness to respond to our calling through obedience and faith in the promises made by God.
Christ also came to die for our sins, to pay the penalty in our place since the wages of sin is death, as Romans 6:23 explains: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” For without Him paying the price for our sins, we would have to die, and there would be no resurrection to eternal life.
Having died for us and having bestowed on us God the Father’s and Christ’s Spirit in us, we can reach the promise at the end—ETERNAL LIFE IN Christ Jesus through a resurrection. So Christ came to show us the Way to salvation and eternal life.
When Christ said He had finished the Work given to Him by God the Father, He truly did accomplish this, and now we must finish the Work given to us by Christ—the preaching and publishing of the gospel to the world as a witness, allowing God to call whom He chooses by our efforts.
This gospel, showing the way to salvation by repentance and redemption to eternal life, is the only message by which man can be saved.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. If we get sidetracked and fail in our commission and calling to do the Work, it will not end well for us, but it will go on without us since Christ said it would in Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
The fact is, if the gospel is not preached at all, including the warning of destruction because of sin, then the end would be delayed and no one in their right mind would want this madness in the world to continue and be prolonged.
It is imperative for us to finish this Work given to us by Christ, to see it through to the end of our life or the return of Christ, whichever comes first, so we can utter at the end of it all, “It is finished,” and move on into the beautiful and incredible future God has in store for us.
In Christian love,
Rene Messier
(Canada)