Christ's Work of Redemption is Finished, Not Continuing

Just before the Lord Jesus gave up His spirit upon the cross, He cried out, "It is finished!" (John 19:30). His sacrificial work of redemption was done. The Greek verb here is in the perfect tense. "It implies a process, but views that process as having reached its consummation and existing in a finished state." [1] In other words, the saving work of Christ was completed on the cross and continues in a state of completion. The verse can be translated: "It has been finished and stands complete" (John 19:30). [2]

Roman Catholicism misrepresents the finished work of Christ on the cross by saying that the sacrifice of the cross is continued in the Mass. The Church claims that "…God Himself wishes that there should be a continuation of the sacrifice…." [3] And so, Christ "…has offered and continues to offer Himself as a victim for our sins…." [4] According to Roman Catholic theology, at over 120 million Masses each year four things occur: [5]

An Immolation
As we have seen, the Church teaches that at each Mass, through the words and actions of the priest, Christ is immolated—made present in His victimhood upon the altar under the appearance of bread and wine. This, says the Church, is "no mere empty commemoration of the passion and death of Jesus Christ, but a true and proper act of sacrifice…an unbloody immolation…a most acceptable victim…."6

This doctrine terribly misrepresents the present resurrected and glorified state of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptures teach that "Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him" (Romans 6:9). Christ manifests Himself as "the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore…." (Revelation 1:18). He then adds, "…and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Revelation 1:18). Shall the living One who holds all power over death be continually presented in His death? And that by those for whom He died? Clearly not. Furthermore, the Bible makes no mention of an unbloody immolation. Scripture teaches that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Hebrews 9:22). No blood, no propitiation.

A Re-Presentation
The Church teaches that at each Mass, Christ "…offers Himself a most acceptable victim to the Eternal Father, as He did upon the cross."7 In the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest petitions God, "Look with favor on your Church’s offering, and see the Victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself."8 The Church explains that the priest is praying that "…the Body and Blood of Christ may be the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. ["]9

This re-presentation of Christ in His victimhood, allegedly occurring millions of times each year at the Mass, misrepresents the accepted work of Christ. The Bible teaches that Christ presented the sacrifice of His life to the Father only once. Upon His death, the Lord Jesus passed "through the greater and more perfect tabernacle" (Hebrews 9:11). His purpose was "to appear in the presence of God for us" (Hebrews 9:24). Jesus entered the heavenly throne room of God "not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood" (Hebrews 9:12). His purpose was "to make propitiation for the sins of the people" (Hebrews 2:17). He "entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12).

The Father accepted the perfect sacrifice of Christ without reservation. "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain" (Revelation 5:12), shall be the praise of myriads of angels in heaven for all eternity.

On earth the Father signaled His acceptance of Christ’s work by dramatically removing one of the principal symbols of the separation that sin had caused between God and man. In the Temple, as instructed by God, a thick curtain formed a wall between the area in which the Aaronic priesthood could minister and the Holy of Holies where God dwelt. The Scriptures record that as Christ yielded up His spirit, "Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51). This removal of the barrier between God and man signaled that Christ’s work of redemption had been accepted.

The greatest manifestation of the Father’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice came three days later. The Bible says that Jesus "was raised because of our justification" (Romans 4:25). Christ’s offering for sin had been accepted (1 Corinthians 15:17).

The Scriptures further teach, speaking of Christ: "When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3). He sat down for His work was finished. There He remains until a future day: "He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet" (Hebrews 10:12-13).

The Roman Catholic Mass distorts these truths by in effect calling Christ off His throne tens of thousands of times each day to reenter the holy place and re-present Himself in His victimhood to the Father. There Christ supposedly stands while a priest on earth petitions God: "Look with favor on these offerings and accept them…." [10] This constant re-presentation is a denial of the finished and accepted work of Christ.

An Appeasement
Roman Catholicism teaches that the Sacrifice of the Mass is a "truly propitiatory sacrifice"11 of "infinite value" 12:

Through each Mass, says the Roman Catholic Church, God’s anger against sin is pacified [1371, 1414]:

To the contrary, the Lord is offended by the offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass. God has already told us that He is fully satisfied with the once for all offering of Christ on the cross: "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace" (Ephesians 1:7). The "Holy Spirit also bears witness to us…saying…their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Hebrews 10:15-17). The conclusion naturally follows: "Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin" (Hebrews 10:18). For this reason, Scripture repeatedly calls the cross the "once for all" offering of Christ (Hebrews 7:27, 9:12, 9:26, 9:28, 10:10; Romans 6:10, 1 Peter 3:18). To continue to try to appease God with an ongoing sacrifice is an act of unbelief.

An Application
Finally, Roman Catholicism teaches that at each Mass, the blessings of Calvary are meted out to Catholics:

This relationship between the work of redemption and the Mass is also expressed in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The priest prays over the gifts:

All of this stands in contradiction to the Bible. Scripture teaches that God freely and immediately bestows upon each true believer "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). These He lavishes upon His children in Christ (Ephesians 1:7-8). Nowhere does God require a Christian to participate in an ongoing sacrifice in order to obtain his or her blessings in Christ. The Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that the Sacrifice of the Mass is "the supreme instrument whereby the merits won by the divine Redeemer upon the cross are distributed to the faithful"20 is just one more way in which the Church makes people dependent upon it for the blessings of God.

Notes
This article is indexed to the numbered paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The paragraph numbers are in brackets.

1. H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Toronto, Canada: Macmillan Company, 1955), p. 200.
2. Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament, An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1956), p. 262.
3. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, no. 79.
4. Pope Pius Xl, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.
5. This figure is based upon each of the 404,031 Roman Catholic priests of the world offering the Mass 300 times each year. The annual total would be 121.2 million Masses. (Number of priests based on figures from 1994 Catholic Almanac (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1993), p. 367. Figure is as of December 31, 1991.)
6. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, no. 68.
7. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, no. 68.
8. Third Eucharistic Prayer.
9. Second Vatican Council, "Sacred Liturgy," "General Instruction on the Roman Missal," no. 2.
10. First Eucharistic Prayer, The Memorial Prayer.
11. Council of Trent, session 22, "Decree and Canons on the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass," chapter 2.
12. A. Tanquerey, A Manual of Dogmatic Theology (New York, NY: Desclee Company, 1959), vol. II, p. 279. Also compare Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, (Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, 1960), p. 414.
13. Council of Trent, session 22, "Teaching and Canons on the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass," chapter 2.
14. Council of Trent, session 22, "Teaching and Canons on the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass," chapter 2.
15. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, no. 79.
16. Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, no. 33.
17. Second Vatican Council, "Life of Priests," no. 13. See also the Code of Canon Law, canon 904.
18. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, no. 73.
19. Roman Missal, "Prayer Over the Offerings," ninth Sunday after Pentecost. This prayer is cited by the Second Vatican Council, "Life of Priests," no. 13, footnote 14.
20. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, no. 79.

Where does the resurrection fit in all this? That happened after it was “finished.” Is it not a part of this all?

Two different milestones are described by these events.

First, "IT IS FINISHED" refers to what occurred on the Cross. Secondly, the Resurrection manifests Jesus Christ was the First Fruits, a testimony that in His Human Body, He had received forgiveness and had eternal life free from Hades. 40 days later, at the Ascension, He would be raised up to seat at the right hand of God the Father.

The Cross was JUDGMENT (not forgiveness,..that comes later). At the Cross, all the sins of humanity, past, present, and future, were imputed to Jesus Christ in His humanity, and judged.

When He exclaims, "IT IS FINISHED", He manifests the JUDGMENT of all human sins had been completed. Sin is no longer the object being judged in the future. Nowhere at the Great White Throne Judgment, where those who are sent away to the Lake of Fire, are sins called into judgment. Instead the Books of Names and Works are opened.

While sins have already been judged, we as humans from the seed of Adam, are born with an old sin nature, are not sinless, and are condemned prior to salvation. Before any human can have salvation, they must be reborn in the spirit.

God is free to give us a reborn spirit by His GRACE, when we face Him through faith in what Christ performed at the Cross and confess our sins to Him.

When we are reborn, we now have a regenerated human spirit, but our souls are still scarred from our lives as sinners, from a worldly and carnal past and simply from acting independently from His Spirit. He then begins His work in us of Sanctification.

Before the Cross, the Perfect Sacrifice had not yet been made. No man was pure enough to enter into the abode of God in Heaven.

Sequence of events:

While on the Cross, all the sins of humanity were imputed to Jesus Christ, and His soul was JUDGED for those sins.

He then declared "IT IS FINISHED". He had not yet died in His soul, because He made the statement, and later exclaimed, My God, My God, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!". Then he yielded up his human spirit to God the Father, and by his own volition, shoved His head forward, and the physical forces caused his physical death.

His soul departed His body while on the Cross at His physical death, and descended into HADES. His body was pierced manifesting He died on the Cross prior to the spearing, and His body was then taken to a prepared grave (the tomb) and guarded for three days. His spirit was returned to God the Father.

As the First Fruits, when He resurrected, we know all sins had been judged. We know He also paid the penalty of spiritual death when He exclaimed, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" (Matt 27:46).

In order to be resurrected, his body, soul, and spirit came back together. God the Father returned His human spirit to His body in the grave, and His soul returned to His body in the grave, and He was then Resurrected into a new Resurrected body.

God the Father was not free by His immutable essence to perform these things prior to the judgment of all sin, and their penalties paid.

So we know Jesus Christ fulfilled a substitutionary atonement of sin for all mankind; He redeemed mankind from the slave market of sin; and He manifests eternal life for the believer.

Great post.

Here are some additional notes on OSAS, so easily forgotten.:

h. There are three reasons for faith alone in Christ alone for eternal salvation: efficacious grace, the Greek word TETELESTAI, the direct statement of Scripture.
(1) Efficacious Grace.
(a) When the spiritually dead person responds to the divine call (or invitation to eternal salvation), he simply believes in Jesus Christ. This is a thought in the soul of a spiritually dead person. We are spiritually brain dead and are helpless to have a spiritual thought. When you respond with faith in Christ to the divine call to believe in Christ, the grace of God the Holy Spirit takes faith in Christ and makes it effective for eternal salvation.
(b) If you add anything to non-meritorious faith alone, then the Holy Spirit cannot make that faith effective for salvation. If you add anything, it cancels your faith; you have contradicted the grace of God completely. Many people are not saved because they have added some work to their faith. If you add anything, you have rejected Christ as savior. God the Holy Spirit cannot make human works effective for salvation. He cannot make your making Christ Lord or making a commitment for Christ or giving up something or any legalistic function effective for salvation. We do not cooperate with God for our salvation; God provides it all by Himself.
(c) The only thing we have that is compatible with the grace policy of God is faith alone in Christ alone. The faith of the spiritually dead person indicates positive volition and non-meritorious function compatible with grace.
(d) The Holy Spirit, in common grace, makes the gospel understandable to the spiritually dead person. Then God the Father invites the spiritually dead person to believe in Christ. Then the spiritually dead person believes in Christ for salvation. Then God the Holy Spirit makes the spiritually dead person’s faith in Christ effective for salvation. When works are added the omnipotence of the Spirit does not cause faith to be effective for salvation, because divine omnipotence and human power are mutually exclusive. Consequently, human works added to faith in Christ cancels faith; for human works is human power, which is rejected by grace.
(e) The legalist tries to fit all believers into his own pattern and mode of thinking. When the professed believer does not comply with the legalist’s erroneous ideas, the legalist is shocked, frustrated, and proclaims that the professed believer was really not saved in the first place. The legalist says that the professed believer really was not saved because all he did was believe in Christ. From this legalistic thinking comes the heresy and blasphemy that you have to believe and make a commitment, that you have to believe and feel sorry for your sins, that you have to make Christ Lord of all, that you have to believe and be baptized, that you have to believe and live a good moral life, that you have to believe and have an emotional experience, that you must feel saved, that you must come forward and make a public profession of your faith, or that you must invite Christ into your heart.
(2) The Greek word TETELESTAI.
(a) This word was uttered by our Lord on the Cross while He was still alive. His physical death had nothing to do with our salvation. When the last sin was judged, our Lord said, “It is finished.” He was telling us that His work of substitutionary spiritual death—being judged for our sins—was finished. Then He died physically and dismissed His soul and spirit from His body. Christ did not die physically for our sins. His physical death only meant that His work on earth during the Incarnation was finished. When our Lord said TETELESTAI, He was speaking from His humanity.
(b) Jn 19:30, “Therefore, when Jesus had received the wine, He said, `Finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever.’ He pushed His head forward and delivered over His human spirit.” This is the intensive perfect passive indicative of the verb TELEO, which means to achieve, to succeed, to complete, or to finish.
(3) The direct statement of Scripture. Grace is a gift from God. Since it is a gift, it cannot be earned or deserved.
(a) Jn 16:8-9, “And when He [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will convince the world concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.”
(b) Jn 3:15-16, 18, “Every one who believes in Me has eternal life. For God loved the world so much that He gave His Son, the unique One, in order that any one who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. ...He who believes in Him is not judged, but he who does not believe is judged already because he has not believed in the person of the uniquely born Son of God.”
(c) Jn 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not believe shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him.”
(d) Jn 6:47, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has eternal life.”
(e) Jn 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.”
(f) Jn 20:31, “These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life through His name.”
(g) Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And likewise, every one of your family [can do the same thing and be saved].”
(h) Gal 3:26, “You are the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
(i) Gal 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law.”
(j) Rom 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God for salvation to every one who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.”
(k) Rom 3:20-22, “Because by the works of the Law no flesh shall be justified in His sight; for through the Law is the knowledge of sin, but apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets [Old Testament], even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.”
(l) Rom 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law.”
(m) Rom 4:4-5, “But to the one who works for salvation, his wages are not calculated on the basis of grace, they are calculated on the basis of debt. But to him who does not work for salvation but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly [the spiritually dead person], his faith receives credit for righteousness.”
(n) Rom 4:14, 16, “For if those who are by means of the Law heirs, then faith has been made void and the promises have been canceled.” “For this reason, it is by means of faith, in order that it might be on the basis of grace.”
(o) Rom 5:1,15,17, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we are jubilant in the hope of the glory of God.” “But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.” “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through that one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through that One, Jesus Christ.”
(p) Eph 2:8-9, “For by means of grace you have been saved [with the result that you remain saved forever] through faith; and this [concept of salvation by grace aloone through faith] is not fro yourselves, it is a gift of God; not from works, in order that no one may boast.”
(q) Phil 3:9, “And may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ.”
(r) 2 Tim 3:15, “And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
(s) 2 Tim 2:11-13 teaches that we cannot lose our salvation, even if we deny our faith in Christ, “Faithful is the Word; for if we have died with Christ [and we have], we shall also live with Christ. If we endure, we shall reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us [blessing in eternity]. If we do not believe[faith-rest], He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself.” The Father, Son, and Spirit cannot deny us because they dwell in us as of the moment of salvation.
(t) 1 Jn 5:11-13, “This is the deposition that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has this life. He who does not have the Son does not have this life. These things I have written to you who believe in the person of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.”
(u) Jn 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in His name.”
(v) Eph 1:6-7, “Resulting in the praise of the glory of His grace, by which [grace] He has graced us out in the Beloved. In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, on the basis of the riches of His grace.”
(w) 2 Tim 1:8-9, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering with reference to the gospel on the basis of the power of God, who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”
(x) Heb 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than angels for the sake of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God might taste death as a substitute for all of us.”

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