Grace in the words: “It is finished.”

This week is the last week in the church calendar year of Lent that culminates with Easter. The entire Bible hinges on what God planned for the world through the redemption of his Son, Jesus. God so loved us that he allowed our ancestors to kill his only Son so that through his death and resurrection we could become his children.

That kind of logic doesn’t make sense. When Abraham was commanded to take his child, Isaac, to kill his son as God had commanded him, he didn’t get the logic behind it (Genesis 22). He obeyed the orders he was given and would have given up his only child to follow his Lord’s wishes.

Yet, his God and ours is so much more than we could have asked for or imagined. Abraham was given an object lesson from God that never left his memory, and we have the benefit of learning from his trial. At just the right time, our Lord stopped short of demanding the life of Isaac.

The famous chapter 11 of the book to the Hebrews commends Abraham for his faith. God gave that faith to him and called him out of the land of Canaan to become the father of many nations. Paul calls those who have faith in the same Lord children of the promise, children of Abraham (Romans 4).

Now take that object lesson to heart. Imagine that you were asked to sacrifice your son, daughter, mother, or brother for the Lord. Could you do it? I don’t know that I could. God wouldn’t expect that from us. That’s not the point.

The point is that whether we understand, whether we feel that God loves us, does not matter. God provided for us assurance in simple terms: “It is finished” (John 19:30). With these words, God sacrificed his only Son, Jesus. On the cross, God viewed Jesus as the carrier of each and every human sin ever committed since the creation of time through the end of the world. We have peace with God, despite our struggles and misguided feelings that we harbor in our hearts. Through faith, God gives us more grace than we could ever need because our salvation, in his eyes, is truly “finished.”