"It is Finished"
March 25, 2026
The Law and Religion Judged At The Corss
The cross was not only the place where sin, Satan, and the world system were judged — it was also the place where the Law and all self-powered religion were forever condemned as incapable of producing righteousness. What Adam’s fall unleashed in the world, the Law exposed, but only Christ could remove.
Scripture makes it unmistakably clear: the Law had a purpose, but it never had the power to save. The cross is the dividing line where the old covenant of demand ended and the new covenant of grace and Spirit-empowered life began.
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” — Romans 10:4
From the moment sin entered humanity, God used the Law to reveal His holiness and our helplessness. Paul writes, “By the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). The Law could diagnose the disease, but it could never cure it. It could command righteousness, but it could not create it. It could reveal God’s standard, but it could not empower man to meet it. The Law was like a divine mirror — perfect, pure, and unyielding — reflecting the truth that “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).
But religion did what religion always does: it took what God meant to reveal our need for grace and twisted it into a system of self-effort, self-righteousness, and external performance. Jesus confronted that system head-on:
“These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me… teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” — Matthew 15:8–9
By the time Jesus entered the world, the Law had been buried under layers of tradition, rituals, and man-made burdens. It produced a righteousness for the eyes of men but not the transformation of the heart. This is why Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence.” (Matthew 23:25)
The cross changed everything.
Paul declares a stunning truth in Colossians 2:14–15:
“He wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us… having nailed it to the cross.”
The Law’s record of our failure — every transgression, every violation, every debt — was nailed to Jesus’ own body. The curse of the Law was absorbed by the Lamb of God.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” — Galatians 3:13
This means that religion died the day Christ died. The old covenant system of earning, striving, and rule-keeping met its final judgment at Golgotha. The veil in the temple tore from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51), declaring to the world that God was done with man coming to Him through systems, priests, and rituals. The way into the Holy of Holies — the very presence of God — was opened not through performance but through blood, not through merit but through grace, not through religious striving but through union with Christ.
Paul takes it further:
“For you are not under law but under grace.” — Romans 6:14
And again:
“We have been released from the law… so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the written code.” — Romans 7:6
The cross not only judged the Law — it rendered its condemning power completely powerless against those who are in Christ.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” — Romans 8:1
The judgment of the Law was not an attack on God’s holiness; it was the revelation of God’s solution. Christ fulfilled the Law completely (Matthew 5:17). The righteous requirement of the Law was satisfied in Him (Romans 8:4). And now the life of the Spirit replaces the life of religious striving.
Where does this leave the believer?
It leaves him free — not to sin, but free from the condemnation that once made holy living impossible.
It leaves him empowered — not by rules, but by the indwelling Christ.
It leaves him accepted — not because he measured up, but because Jesus finished the work.
The cross declared, once and for all time, that God has ended religion and begun relationship. That the age of law has closed and the age of grace has dawned. That righteousness is not something we achieve — it is Someone we receive.
“For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” — Hebrews 10:14
The judgment of the Law was not the end of holiness — it was the birth of true holiness.
The judgment of religion was not the end of worship — it was the beginning of worship “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23).
The cross did not relax God’s standard — it met it, satisfied it, and placed its perfection inside every believer through the Holy Spirit.
And now we live not by the old covenant cry of “Do and live,” but by the new covenant song of “It is finished.”
