CHRIST’S COMPLETED WORK
We were occupied yesterday with the words of the Lord Jesus and His cry on the cross, “It is finished”, John 19:30. We were also occupied with the two occasions in Revelation where we read the pronouncement, “It is done” (chaps.16:17; 21:6). I was drawn to this passage because of the expression at the beginning of verse 4: “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it". In conversation yesterday evening it was remarked that when the Lord said on the cross, “It is finished”, that was actually anticipative. And so, in a sense, are His words in this passage. We know that, as a divine Person, the Lord Jesus was entitled to say things anticipatively. None of us may do that. We read in Romans that Abraham trusted “before the God whom he believed, who quickens the dead, and calls the things which be not as being” (chap.4:17). That is a divine prerogative, reserved for divine Persons.
There is also a sense that what the Lord says was literally true: “I have glorified thee on the earth”. That is absolute. I would like to be able to grasp something of that, that here was a Man who could speak to His Father and say, “I have glorified thee on the earth”. One of the distinctive features of the deeds of the Lord Jesus is that He did everything to the Father’s glory. He did not take any of the glory to Himself. There is a reference in Revelation where the Lord says to the assembly in Thyatira, “he that keeps unto the end my works” (chap.2:26), and He speaks of Himself as the Son of God there: “These things says the Son of God” (v.18). One of the marks of the works of the Son of God is that He did everything to the Father’s glory. So that is an absolute statement: “I have glorified thee on the earth”.
When He gives up the kingdom, it will be so that God may be all in all. He “gives up the kingdom to him who is God and Father”, 1 Cor.15:24. That will be entirely in keeping with the character of this Person who always glorified His Father.
He says, “I have glorified thee on the earth”. We know that, in just a few hours’ time, the Lord was going to be lifted up on the cross above the earth so that He would not die on the earth. Neither would He do the work of atonement on the earth, the bearing of our sins. And His being made sin (2 Cor.5:21) was not on the earth, it was done as lifted up above it. Yet there were still ahead of Him these footsteps and the hours spent, hours of the severest trial at the hand of man. And Satan’s final thrust would be while He was still on the earth. We know that took place in the garden of Gethsemane when a ‘season’ to which Luke makes reference (chap.4:13, see footnote) had passed and Satan himself returned in another more terrible character of opposition: imposing upon Him – if it were possible – the awful cup of death from his hand. But no, He would take that cup from His Father’s hand. What He had said in prayer would remain absolutely true: “I have glorified thee on the earth”.
I was particularly impressed by what follows: “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”. That was certainly anticipative. The Lord was entitled to speak like that because of who He is. Who could understand what that involved – “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”? One of the characteristic features of fallen man is that what he does is often incomplete. We know that in God’s government He prevented the completion of the tower of Babel: it says that “they left off building the city”, Gen.11:8. It was God’s mercy that what man in his independent will had set about, he would not complete, he was not able to finish. We know in the address to Sardis the Lord says, “I have not found thy works complete before my God”, Rev.3:2. How He felt that!
I simply wanted to draw our attention to the glory of the One who could say, “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”. There is mystery in that, that we could not penetrate into, involving such a One coming into manhood and taking a body which had been prepared for Him: “thou hast prepared me a body”, Heb.10:5. He took the condition and place of subjection, a condition in which it was appropriate for Him to be sent. Doubtless He was sent from the waters of the Jordan, possibly before then, but distinctly so at that time. We have to be careful as to putting precise times on such a holy matter. It was not a work He took upon Himself, exactly, but it was given to Him: “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”. Before that He had said, “And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. What a privilege it is to have the knowledge of the true God and the true Man, the glory of Christ in His manhood and perfection. It is the “true God”, and the true Man. But what was before me was really the greatness of this One who is able to complete all that He took up. We were reminded recently of “the leader and completer of faith”, Heb.12:2.
May these thoughts be blessed to us, for the Lord’s name’s sake.
John Richards
Words in a meeting for ministry, Malvern
23 June 2025