Join Bob George as he delves into the profound implications of the words ‘It is finished’ spoken by Jesus on the cross. In this enlightening episode, Bob challenges traditional views by exploring what it truly means to walk by faith and embrace God’s everlasting forgiveness. He unpacks the common misunderstandings surrounding eternal life, justification, and the importance of thanksgiving in our spiritual journey.
00:00:12 Introduction to Classic Christianity Radio
00:00:29 Understanding Finished Work: Faith and Thanksgiving
00:06:08 The Crucifixion and True Purpose of the Cross
00:14:45 The Law and the Cross: A New Understanding
00:27:26 Conclusion and Encouragement to Live by Faith
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Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.
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Now, guys, when someone says it is finished, what do you think that means? That it is finished. Now, again, if you and I are going to walk by faith, we don’t have to walk by faith. We can walk in presumption. But if you’re going to walk by faith in what is true and Jesus said it’s finished. Do you keep asking him to do what he’s already done or do you thank him for what he’s done? How many of you are born again? How many of you ask God to give you eternal life? As a born again believer, think it through. How many of you as a born again believer ask God to give you eternal life? That’s better. Why? You already have eternal life. How many of you ask God to redeem you? How come? You’re already redeemed. How many of you ask God to justify you? How many of you do that? If you did, are you walking by faith? And without faith, what does God say? It’s impossible to please God. So here we walk around thinking how pleasing we are to God, asking Him to do what in Him you already have. Instead of being thankful. One of the most honorable characteristics that God ever gave to you and me is to be thankful. A thankful spirit. Did not say give thanks and how much? All things. We don’t want to be thankful. I’m going to ask. I am going to be the initiator and get God to respond to me. Guys, that is Garden of Eden stuff of wanting to be like God. Because if I am the initiator and he is the responder, then I am greater than God. Right or wrong? God initiated all things. God initiated creation and God initiated salvation. He didn’t consult us. Isn’t that terrible? Isn’t that terrible he didn’t ask us? Wonderful, brilliant people that we are. He did it. And he said, now respond. Respond. You’re either going to respond by saying thank you, or you’re going to respond in rejection. Or you’re going to respond in something other than that by continuing to ask for what God has already accomplished. That’s faith, if you want to walk by faith. And remember, without faith, it’s what? Again. Again. So all you have to ask yourself is, am I asking, am I functioning in faith by asking God to do what he said is what at the cross? It’s finished. It means paid in what? Full. And so God at the cross took away the sins of the entire world, did he not? And he took away the sins of the entire world how many times? Now, it was the day of preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Now, guys, there is the passage of Scripture dealing with why, in my opinion, Thursday is the day that Jesus died, not Friday. The next day was to be a spatial Sabbath. You see, the reason we put it on Friday is because Sabbath is from Friday night to Saturday night or on Saturday. And if he died the day before, why then that’s Friday. But you see, what we’ve missed in the scripture is that word spatial, which was very usual in Judaism. Wherein the Jewish faith, they had the Sabbath and then you had spatial Sabbaths. Spatial Sabbaths could be brought into effect any time they desired to do so. A spatial Sabbath carried some of the restrictions of the Sabbath, but not all of them. And so that next day was to be a spatial Sabbath. So that means you had Thursday, the day of preparation, the next day, a spatial Sabbath, the next day, the Sabbath, and the next day, Resurrection Sunday. Three days and three nights, just like it says in the Scripture. It was a day of preparation. The next day was to be a special Sabbath because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during what? The Sabbath. The Sabbath. And they asked Pilate to have his legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and they broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus and then those of the other. Now, why did they break the legs? Because when you are dying on a cross… You’re nailed with your feet, you’re nailed with your arms stretched out, and you’re gasping for air. And you can lift yourself up to get air. And that’s what you do, you suffocate to death. When you break the legs, you’re unable to lift yourself up, and you just die of suffocation. So they broke the legs. Why? Because they didn’t want the bodies to be there on the Sabbath.
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Why?
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And so they broke the legs so that they would die. Now he says, the soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus and then the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they didn’t break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. And some doctors say that’s a sign of a broken heart. The man who saw this is given a testimony and the testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth and he testifies so that you may also believe. These things happen so that the scripture would be fulfilled that not one of his bones will be broken. And as another scripture says, they will look upon the one whom they pierced. Now, as we go to see the cross… we realize that Jesus, it was not spikes that held Jesus to the cross, it was love. It was the love of God that so reached down to us in order to be able to save mankind. You can imagine the heart of Jesus saying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Lord, if there’s any other way to save these people down here who are lost and dead, that’s all of us, unrighteous. Is that right or wrong? None are righteous. No, not one. All have sinned. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. And if there’s any way to bring them into a relationship with you, apart from me, having to go to a cross and become sinned, Jesus didn’t sweat great drops of blood because he was going to die. You have many people who go to the electric chair, criminals, who know they’re going to die, who don’t sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. But he was going to take upon himself the sins of the entire world eternally. Guys, back to Adam, forward to eternity. He died for the sins of the whole world. Not for some people, for the whole world. Now, why did he do that? To clear the deck for the divine action of through his resurrection of being able to bring life to the spiritually dead. That’s us. Dead spiritually in need of spiritual life. And in order to have life, he had to take away eternally the cause of death, which is sin, so that he could give us life. Had he not taken away eternally the cause of sin at the cross or missed one and gave you life, the next time you sin, what would happen to you? Die. The wages of sin is what? Death. So you see why he had to go to the cross. The meaning of the cross was to take away eternally the cause of spiritual death so that he could give us spiritual life called eternal life. Not temporal life. but eternal. Reconciliation required total forgiveness, not partial forgiveness. Jesus said, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. Now, again, if Jesus prayed to his Father for the Father to forgive us that we don’t know what we’re doing, are we saying the Father didn’t answer that prayer? I mean, is that what we’re saying? That Christ, you’re a pretty good guy, but, you know, you weren’t good enough to get your prayer answered. Or did God do, the Father, do precisely what Jesus asked? Which is it? Father, forgive them. Guess what? He did. He did. That’s why he took away the sins of the world. You see, Jesus didn’t come to atone for sins. Folks, the word atonement is never used in the New Testament. Oh, you’ll see translation of atonement, but it’s a bad translation. The word is propitiation. It means that offering was satisfied to God. Atonement covered sin. That’s the blood of a bowling goat atoned for sin. And to say Jesus atoned for sin is putting his blood on the par of a bull and goat and making him nothing more than an animal sacrifice. Jesus came to do far greater than cover sin. He came to what? Take away. How did John the Baptist identify Jesus? Behold the Lamb of God who what? Takes away the sins of the world. And so he said, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. Christ died for sins how many times, guys? Once and for how many? All throughout all eternity. The righteous, who’s that? Who’s the righteous? Jesus for the unrighteous. Who’s that? We are unrighteous. Oh, my goodness. The righteous one for the unrighteous. That’s us. In order to do what? Bring us to God. He was put to death in a body, but he was made alive where? In the spirit. He said, when you were dead in your sins. Now, guys, again, we are born into this world dead in our sins, dead to God. That’s what it means to be unrighteous. That’s what it means to be lost. We are dead to God. Born that way in Adam. Dead to God. And if you’re dead, the only thing you need is what? Life. That’s what God had to solve at Easter. What we call Easter. At Resurrection Sunday. He had to give life. To the dead. To restore in us what we had lost in Adam. That being the spirit of God living in you. Because God in the man is totally indispensable to the humanity of the man. We’re not even true humans from God’s standpoint until we have been indwelt by God. And so that was the goal of salvation. Was to restore life to his creation. And so when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you what? Alive with Christ. He forgave how many of our sins, guys? All our sins. Not only that, when he did, he canceled the written code. That’s the Ten Commandments with its regulations. That was against us. Why was the law against us? Because we couldn’t keep it. Paul said there’s nothing wrong with the law, but when it flows through me, it kills me. So the law can do nothing for you except point out that you are a sinner in need of salvation, period. The law cannot make you righteous. The law cannot give you life. The law cannot justify you. All the law can do is kill you. And that’s why he said he had to cancel that law in order that with its regulations that was against us. Why was it against us? I can’t keep them. Of course, we’re so smart, we say, no, those Jews couldn’t keep them. You watch us, Lord. And so we go around struggling and trying to keep the law, and we’re no better than they are, but we’ve become a little better at hiding it from people so that we can feel more righteous. That’s where self-righteousness comes from, people thinking that they’re obedient to the law. You can’t even keep the first one, let alone all of them.
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And what did James say? If you kept them all, and in your entire life just violated one, you violated all of them. How many want to stand before God saying how obedient you’ve been to the law with that as a criteria? I don’t think so. And so he nailed the law to the cross with its regulations that was against us and stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. Now, folks, in doing that, he neutralized the Jew who had the law. The Gentile never did have the law. He neutralized us all down to one level. All have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God. And there’s only one way to salvation, and that’s through faith in Christ Jesus. So he neutralized us and brought us all down to one level. And so he said, I’m sending you to them to open up their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. How come? So that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who who are set apart by faith in me. Christ took away our sins. The next day, remember, John said, look, the Lamb of God, who does what, guys? Takes away the sins of the world. Takes it away from where? Now, as guys see people say, take away sin, doesn’t seem like I’ve taken it away from me. How many of you know that he hadn’t taken it away from you in practice? Who do you take it away from? The eyes of God. So that God is not dealing with you and me on the basis of sin today. Sins of the world have already been judged. The verdict was guilty. The punishment was what? Death. And who took it? Jesus. How much of it? All of it. Only one sin attributable to man, according to Jesus. The sin of the rejection of the Son of God. That the world’s sin is unbelief in me. And the only question God will ever ask any man on earth is, what did you do with my son? No man will ever go to hell because of his sins. Only the sin of the rejection of the Son of God. We watched a little excerpt last night on Jeffrey Dahmer. Nice guy. You can’t get much worse if you were to name a sinner than Jeffrey Dahmer. You know what he talked about in the end of the interview? That he had come to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. And that he was a child of the living God. Do you believe that? Jeffrey Dahmer who cut people up in cannibalism? And murdered people. He’s in heaven. Yeah. The best thing that those prisoners ever did for. Jeffrey Dahmer was killing. So that he could go into the presence of Christ. Now people say that’s not fair. I’ve been so good. And Jesus said I’m not interested in how good you’ve been. Or how bad you’ve been. It’s how dead you are. I’m here to cure death. And the only solution to death is life. And the only life available to you is the resurrected life of my son Jesus. And when you refuse him, you remain dead. That’s the good news of the gospel, guys. So Christ was sacrificed how many times? Once to take away the sins of many people and he will appear a second time not to bear sin but to bring salvation for those waiting for him. Why isn’t when Jesus comes back he coming to bear sin? Why isn’t he going to do it? Well he’s already done it. Why isn’t he going to come to offer more forgiveness for us? Because there isn’t any more forgiveness. Without the shedding of blood there is what? no forgiveness if there was any further forgiveness to be executed on your and my half we have if we truly believe what the bible says that without the shedding of blood there’s no forgiveness what would jesus have to do die again do you want him to do that i have people oh they just keep asking god all the time please forgive me please forgive me because it makes me feel good so in other words you want to crucify the son of god all over again so you can feel good You ought to think how good it feels to just wake up in the morning knowing you’re a forgiven person. You ought to test that one sometime and see how good it makes you feel. That I’m not good because I’ve done something. I’m free because he did something. And we’ve reversed it and made this out of a stupid religion whereby we go to the confession booth or you go to your first John 1 nines or you go back to your days of atonement. Or you go, we’ve made a religion out of what Jesus said. I finished it. I did it, not you. There is no more forgiveness to be executed. He cried out from the cross what? It’s finished. Now when are we going to believe that? When are we going to believe it? He said, you know that he appeared so that he might do what? Take away our sins and in him is what? There isn’t any sin in him. And so, my dear children, he said, I write this to you so that you won’t sin. But if anyone does, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And he is the one who turns aside God’s wrath, taking away our sin and not only ours, but the sins of the entire world. Remember this. Atonement covered sins. Christ Took away sins. What is the only conclusion. That you can come to. As a born again believer. Who has come into a relationship with the living risen Christ. Because what was provided for then is only received in his resurrection. You don’t come forward to get forgiveness. You already are forgiven. You come forward to get life. And that’s why it said in Romans that while we were yet enemies. That means lost, guys. While we were yet enemies, we were. That means past tense, already done. Reconciled to God through the death of his son. How much more? Having been reconciled, that being now an accomplished fact, shall we be saved by his what? His life. That’s the importance of Easter. That’s the importance of this Sunday. It’s the day that man received life called eternal life. Why is it eternal? Because of the eternal consequence of what he did on the day of preparation. Took away eternally the cause of spiritual death. Is that good news, guys? That’s the good news of the gospel. Now, I want us to turn over to Corinthians in the 11th chapter of Corinthians. And if it brings us to what is the meaning of this supper, what is the meaning of this event that we do that we call the Lord’s Supper? Well, what I’m going to do is to read from the Scripture, not from our tradition, not from our Baptist teaching or charismatic teaching or anything else, but from the Scripture, the only place it talks about the Lord’s Supper. I’m going to read from it. Paul says in the following directives, I have no praise for you. I don’t think he had much praise for anything the Corinthian church did, to be real honest. It’s probably the most unholy group of people that ever lived on the face of the earth, and that’s where he had to go minister. In the following directives, I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. But when you come together, is it not the Lord’s Supper you eat? For as you eat, each one of you goes ahead without waiting on anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Now don’t you wonder how you get drunk on that grape juice? It’s amazing. And we’ve built that into doctrine. It Oh, my Lord would never touch wine. You know the passage, do not get drunk on grape juice wherein is excess. That little bit of grape juice makes your heart happy. Come on, people, grow up. Grow up. Quit acting like morons in regard to these things. God says that we’re not to go out and abuse alcohol and that type of thing. But where in the world does he say that your lips are never supposed to touch it? And I’m not advocating drinking. I don’t like to drink. I drank enough to last a lifetime. That’s not the issue. It’s the issue of converting scripture. And what it says in scripture is don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? There’s a solution. You’re coming together, and one remains hungry, another gets drunk. Now, what is he saying here? Well, he’s saying you’re getting ready to come and have the Lord’s Supper together as a body of Christ, and the Lord’s Supper has a picture to it. There’s a picture that God wants us to see. And so you come into the room, and you’ve got the food and everything here, and all of this room over here comes and looks at the table, and it’s all empty. all the food’s gone, all the wine’s gone, and here this group over there is sitting over there, fat, dumb, and happy, and they’ve eaten all the food, drank up all the booze, and you’re coming for supper. And he’s saying, you guys are not thinking about the body of Christ. All you’re thinking about is yourself, your gluttons. That’s what he’s saying here. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in, he says, or do you despise the church of God? Do you despise your brothers and sisters in Christ so that you’re sitting there and happy that all the food’s gone because you filled your belly? He said, humiliate those who have nothing. What shall I say? Should I praise you for this? He said, certainly not. I’m going to go down to verse 27. Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. What is the unworthy manner in which the Corinthian church was taking the Lord’s Supper? What was the unworthy manner? Do what? Not waiting on your brother. Eating up all the food, drinking up all the wine before the rest of the people got there. Now what have we taught in the church today? But you have to make yourself worthy. So we dim the lights. Play the organ. And sit there in maudlin introspection. Trying to get all of your sins confessed. As you celebrate the new covenant which says there’s sins and lawless acts. I’ll remember no more. And where these have been forgiven, there’s no longer any sacrifice for sins. And we’re sitting there forgetting that and drinking the cup of the new covenant and don’t have a clue what the new covenant says. Pervert. Talk about perversion of truth.
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Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at bobgeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.
