Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Finished: Completed, or ended or destroyed (10/23/25)
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TITLE: No Additives Or Preservatives | Previous Challenge Entry
By Doug Laird
10/27/25 -
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Yet, a failure to comprehend the meaningful significance of this short, but critical phrase, has opened the door to many false doctrines and accompanying practices within the Christian Community-at-large.
Among these false doctrines and accompanying practices is the erroneously perceived need to participate in additional rituals, in order to “finish” the salvation process, or to maintain its effectiveness.
There is no need to add anything to the atoning Work that the Lord Jesus Christ finished on the cross.
Nor is there any need to preserve or restore it through human effort.
God, Who provided it is the One Who sustains it (1).
The gift of salvation is irrevocable (2).
His sealing (baptizing) (3) and regenerating (4) Work, that God performs at the moment one is born-again, cannot be undone by human failure.
Furthermore, while many such things are held in high esteem in the “religious” community, traditions of men can amount to blasphemy, if they promote the concept that faith in the Person and the atoning Work of the Lord Jesus Christ is not enough!
The first thing that an advancing disciple needs to understand is exactly what the pronoun “it” of John 19: 30 represents.
The pronoun “it” refers to the atoning Work of the Lord Jesus Christ (5).
It is one’s individual faith (belief, trust, confidence) in this atoning Work that is the basis of receiving forgiveness of sin, and God’s gift of eternal life (6).
The next principle is a clear understanding of the significance verb” “is.”
He did NOT say that His atoning Work was “about to be” finished (when He died physically), but that as of that moment, before He died physically, it WAS already finished.
The fact that He SPOKE these words is evidence in itself that He was still alive when His atoning Work was already finished.
Christians correctly say that Jesus died for them while on the cross to provide for them the means of salvation, but many fail to acknowledge that there were two types of death that had taken place, and what the purpose was for each one.
Yes, Jesus experienced two forms of death on the cross.
He was on the cross for approximately 6 hours, from 9am to 3pm.
During the first three hours, He had not yet been forsaken.
Around 12 noon, and for the following three hours, He was forsaken (7), suffering spiritual death (separation from God) in our place, as the entire world’s sin debt (8) was poured out on His atoning Humanity.
It was during these three hours of spiritual death that He atoned for the world’s sin debt, as He shed His atoning blood.
It was not until His atoning Work had been finished, that the period of His spiritual death was over.
It was not until AFTER His atoning Work had been finished that His physical death came into the picture,setting the stage for all the future events that was called for in the plan of God.
At the moment of His physical death, He descended to the Paradise section of Hades, just as He had foretold the man on the cross on the side of Him (9).
After spending the prophesied (10) three days and three nights in Paradise, He was reunited with His body that had been placed in the tomb, being raised in resurrected form.
Finally, there is the need to understand the concept of the finished Work.
Being finished means that there was, or is, nothing left to be done to receive salvation, other than for each individual to BELIEVE (11) in what has already taken place on the cross, when one is presented with the unadulterated Gospel Message.
The unadulterated Gospel Message explains the need (12) and the ONE requirement to be eternally saved and secure. That one requirement is to believe in the Person and the atoning Work of the Lord Jesus Christ that He finished on the cross.
In conclusion, know that after being born again, the devil is not finished with you.
He can do nothing to have your gift of eternal life revoked, but He can do much to raise doubts and to impede your forward progress in the post salvation life of discipleship, if you listen to the blind leading the blind (13), as they promote their additives and preservatives.
(1) Rom. 14: 4 (2) Rom. 11: 29 (3) Eph. 4: 30 (4) Titus 3: 5 (5) 1John 2: 2 (6) John 3: 16 (7) Psalms 22: 1 (8) 1John 2: 2 (9) Luke 23: 43 (10) Matt. 12: 40 (11) John 3: 16 (12) John 3: 5, 7 (13) Matt. 15: 14
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