It Is Finished

When was “it finished” and what was finished?

Most people have no concept of what Hell really is. When the Bible says that Jesus went down into Hell, where did He really go? There were two places to go when you died in those days. The first was the “Bosom of Abraham” and the other was Hades. There was a divide between the two places, as described in Luke 16:19-26, the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Since Jesus rose from the dead, there are still two separate places for those who die; Heaven and what was called Hades and is mostly referred to as Hell.

Jesus was not tortured by demons as some teach. He had gone down into the “Bosom of Abraham” and took all those saints to Heaven. He did not empty Hades or take its keys from Satan. The keys to Hades/Hell are now and always were, held by God. God made Hell for Satan and his followers, therefore Satan never had control over it.

When Jesus cried “it is finished”; IT WAS FINISHED. He went into Hell as Savior; not as a victim of Satan. What he had come to accomplish was completed, and the price fully paid. This was not a price set by Satan or man. It was the price set by God the Father for the Salvation of anyone who would repent of their sins and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

We were redeemed when Jesus was on the Cross, not afterward in Hell. “It is finished” meant “it is finished”. Satan, never at any time, as some teach, had any power over Jesus. God is not subject to His creation; His creation is subject to Him. Satan and his followers are created beings. Jesus didn’t enter into Hell as a lost soul. He entered as God and Savior of the world.

This is my view and opinion of what occurred on the cross. When Jesus said “Father into your hands I commit my Spirit” he was no longer abandoned by, but rejoined with the Father. “Father why have you forsaken me” was apparently when, in the twinkling of an eye, the Father had separated their Spirits so that Jesus could commit His Spirit back to the Father. It was at that split second it was finished.

Now for the Christian, to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord. In the past, generally speaking, people didn’t go to Heaven when they died (as described above). There were a few exceptions, like Elijah and Enoch, who were translated into Heaven without seeing death. Normally good people went to Paradise/Bosom of Abraham, to await Jesus, while the bad folks went to Hades.

Jesus never died spiritually. He simply gave his Spirit back to being only part of the Trinity, rather than being all man and all God. The man body died, not the Spirit of God. Jesus gave up His man nature on the cross. Jesus never gave up His divinity. He said “it is finished”, not I am finished. That statement meant the price for redemption was paid in full, period.