Τετέλεσται
What is it that Jesus finished?
Our Lutheran Fathers understood, with great clarity, that the doctrines of Holy Scripture all hang together. For example, see how Johann Gerhard argues against a heretic who thought that only Christ’s passive obedience saved and not his active obedience. His argument revolves around the last words of Jesus on the cross according to St. John, “It is finished.” If something is finished it first has to be begun. See how Gerhard explains it:
Thus although Scripture at times mentions only the death and blood of Christ in assigning the merit of justification, it should by no means be claimed that this excludes Christ’s active obedience since active and passive obedience are joined by an intimate bond. Indeed, Christ’s passion would be of no advantage to us if it were not the Passion of the very Son of God, dying freely and willingly out of His very great love for us and His obedience to the Father, and were this not conjoined with the same utterly full and perfect obedience to the Law, and thus the conformity of His entire nature and all His actions with the Law. Indeed, in the very acme of His Passion the perfectly outstanding virtues required in the Law are seen, namely, supreme love for God and a most ardent affection for the human race, humility, patience, obedience, confidence, invocation, hope, etc. In turn, the suffering of Christ did not just begin in the garden but lasted throughout the course of His life. . . . To tear Christ’s active obedience away from His passive obedience is to invert the order of things and substitute only a part for the whole of the righteousness and obedience of Christ.[1]
Gerhard explains further:
The suffering of Christ and His satisfaction or fulfillment of the Law are not two distinct types of obedience, one of which can keep its perfection or justify without the other. Rather, they are different parts of one obedience, coming together at one time to establish one whole thing which becomes incomplete as soon as it loses one part. For our debt was twofold, namely, perfect obedience and the suffering of punishment. Christ was clearly bound to pay both debts. Therefore Scripture itself connects the action and the suffering.[2]
And finally, in response to the argument that Hebrews 10:14 excludes the active obedience of Christ, Gerhard writes,
The apostle is by no means excluding the active obedience of Christ from our sanctification since he clearly states that we were sanctified “by the will of Christ,” who offered Himself as a sacrifice to God (v.10). Rather, he is ascribing the perfection of the benefit obtained for us to the offering on the altar of the cross, just as Christ cried out on the cross: Τετέλεσται, “It is consummated” (John 19:30). Christ’s obedience, which began at the very moment of His incarnation, lasted His entire life; but in the offering completed on the cross it came to its high point and perfection. Therefore, as in other things, consummation does not exclude but presupposes a beginning and advance. So also the offering of Christ on the cross does not exclude but rather presupposes His active obedience.[3]
[1] Gerhard, On Justification Through Faith, 105.
[2] Gerhard, On Justification Through Faith, 107.
[3] Gerhard, On Justification Through Faith, 108.