The Finished Work

The Finished Work

Quite often you can hear it being said, “We must rest in the finished work.” By this people mean that Jesus has done everything, and that we shall do nothing. We are and remain sinners, and when we acknowledge this, Jesus’ work will be accepted as our own. However, if our conscience should accuse us, we only have to rest in the finished work. According to this train of thought, being a Christian is almost the same as being a sinner, yet believing that Jesus has done everything for our salvation. However, it can be difficult to believe this, seeing that sin rules in a person’s life. But when he is judged in his conscience, he presumes that Satan wants to rob him of his faith in the finished work. Therefore you hear quite often from old people when they testify: “It is now 15 to 20 years ago that I was saved. I have been unfaithful, but He has been faithful. I thank God that He has preserved me until today.” What they have been preserved in is their faith in the finished work—the fact that they can still believe that they are saved after fifteen or twenty years of unfaithfulness! One must admit that it really takes something to believe that! Especially when you come up against words like this: “He who sins is of the devil.” 1 John 3:8. Yet this false rest in the finished work has become so ingrained that people keep on sleeping.

What, then, is the finished work? When He came into the world, Jesus said, “Behold, I have come . . . to do Your will, O God.” That is what He finished. If He had been like the angels or like Adam before the Fall, it would not have been so difficult to do God’s will. Of course, that would not have been of any help to us. But He partook of flesh and blood as the children, and He became like us in all things. Read Hebrews 2:14-18. The intention was that He would do the will of God as the Son of Man. Therefore He always said, “Not My will, but Yours, be done.” This is what Jesus finished. Therefore, when Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished!” the veil was rent in two from top to bottom. The will of the flesh and of the mind was put to death, and all God’s will was finished in Jesus’ body. This finished work is not something that we are supposed to rest in according to the flesh and in sin; but the intention is that we shall follow Jesus and abstain from sinning by entering into His work. For this reason Jesus has become “the way.” We are to enter the Holiest to which Jesus has consecrated a new and living way for us through the veil, that is, His flesh. Heb. 10:20. We can understand that it is a way from the fact that Jesus is the author and finisher of the faith. He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Read Hebrews 5:7-10. From this we can see that Jesus opened up a way. He started it, and He finished it—not so that we could avoid having to go on it, but that we should follow Him. Jesus calls this way “narrow,” but it leads to life. It leads into the Holiest—through the flesh. He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. We must say like Jesus did, “Not my will, but Yours, be done.” The will of the flesh and of the mind has to die so that Jesus’ will can be carried out in our body. Eph. 2:3. This work was finished in Christ, and when we have received the Spirit of Christ, this work can also be finished in us. We can be transformed from being a mere man to being a man of God. 1 Cor. 3:3-4; 1 Tim. 6:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:4.

The condition for following Jesus on this way is to forsake everything and to hate even my own life. This was the first thing He said to His disciples. They were to learn to know God’s will from Him and follow Him on the way of obedience. On this way a death passes constantly over our will. On this way Jesus becomes our High Priest; and Paul became His servant on this way. He had received the apostleship to lead the Gentiles to the obedience to the faith. Rom. 1:5. Paul was the sacrificial priest of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles. He did not dare to boast of any of those things which Christ had not accomplished through him, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient. Rom. 15:16-18.

In these days people boast of gathering many people—of having large assemblies. But if you start speaking about obedience in these large assemblies, people begin to wake up. Right away one of them will stand up and lull the assembly back to sleep again by speaking about “Jesus’ finished work.”

You will have to fight when you come to the point of being obedient. You will have to empty the cup of sufferings by sacrificing your self-life. You will experience it like a burning flame until your self-will has been put to death. Then you have become an acceptable sacrifice to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Then the work is finished in you, and you have entered into rest. This is the purpose for which Paul was a priest, so that the Gentiles could be a perfect sacrifice—that their blood was poured out and that the battle had been fought to the very last, so that they could lie quietly on the altar when God revealed His will to them. Then they could do it heartily without making excuses, without doubting or murmuring. Only then have they come to rest in the finished work. We who have believed enter into that rest.

Paul was so successful in this ministry that the obedience of the Romans had become known to all. Rom. 16:19.