28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to His mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished,” and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. ~ John 19:28-30
Each Gospel describes Jesus receiving the sour wine while on the cross, but only John explains why this takes place. John states that Jesus knew all was now finished and then asked for sour wine to fulfill the Scripture.
The night before He was crucified, Jesus said that the cup represented the New Covenant. This is important to understand why Jesus said that all things were finished. Jesus wasn’t saying all prophecies were finished because He still had more prophecies to fulfill. In fact, there are still some prophecies and feasts that have to be fulfilled in the future. Therefore, Jesus wasn’t talking about fulfilling every single thing in this one action. Jesus was saying that He knew all things were finished. He sensed something in the Spirit.
We proclaim Christ’s death because in His death we died to sin, and because He raised to life again, will live to Him. In other words, we are no longer subject to sin, but sin has now become subject to Christ, who lives through us. And since we are no longer subject to sin when we die, death has no power over us, but instead, to be absent from the body is to be with the LORD (2 Corinthians 5:8).
The night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus spoke of a New Covenant for the first time. Before that Jesus never mentioned a New Covenant. Jesus waited til the last night before His death to mention the New Covenant because it hadn’t yet grown old and ready to vanish away. But after speaking of the New Covenant and making the old one obsolete and ready to vanish away, He went to the cross.
Jesus knew that the Old Covenant had grown old and was ready to pass away or vanish, not that every prophecy and law were fulfilled. This is why John added to fulfill Scripture (Psalms 69:21) right before He wrote Jesus’ words:
“I thirst.”
Jesus was fulfilling David’s prophecy that they would give Jesus sour wine to drink. Now, I want you to understand the importance of this. Jesus sensed in His Spirit that all things had been finished; in other words, the Old Covenant had grown old (Hebrews 8:13), so what did He do? He checks. How does He check? By asking for something to drink. And what do they give Him? Sour wine, and He accepts it. John specifically, in verse 30, says that He received the sour wine.
No longer are we under a covenant where sin uses what God created for our good against us (1 Corinthians 15:56-57). Now, we are under a new and better covenant (Hebrews 12:24) that isn’t based on works but on faith in Him (Ephesians 2:8-9). If Christ had not died on the cross that day 2000 years ago, the Old Covenant would have soured, and we would be without a covenant with God. We would be without hope at all. It is only through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus that we have eternal life through following Him.
Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek The New Covenant.
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