The fact that it is called a "finished work" is derived from the statement Jesus made on the cross just as he was about to give up the ghost.  He said, "It is finished!" (John 19:30).  The finished work of Christ includes: 1) fulfilling all that was required in satisfying the demands of justice against sin. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life" (Rom. 6:23).  His death became the ultimate sacrifice that freed us from the law of sin and death. 2) By fulfilling the law. He became that perfect sacrifice which purged man's conscience from dead works. Hebrews, chapter ten states, "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect" (Heb. 10:1).  Compare this verse with Hebrews, chapter seven, verse nineteen, and you see that the work of Christ has made us perfect: "For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God."  Christ made it possible for us to be made complete in him.  3) By finishing all the requirements to the Abrahamic covenant, which we now recognize as the Everlasting Covenant.  God cut a covenant with Abraham in Genesis chapter fifteen, and if you look closely at that passage of scripture, you will find that God put Abraham in a deep sleep, and proceeded with swearing by himself in establishing the terms of the covenant.  It says, "...behold, a smoking furnace and burning lamp passed between the pieces" (Gen. 15:17).  In other words, God and Jesus cut the covenant, and when Christ died on the cross it sealed forever that agreement (see Exo. 19:18; Psa. 119:105).  This Everlasting Covenant has been sealed in the blood of Jesus and cannot be altered or changed. 4) Lastly, by making one new man, a perfect man, a resurrected man, a glorified man in himself.  We are called the body of Christ because we are one with him.  All that he is - is what we have become.  We are identified in everything he did, so that it was as if his death was our death, his victory was our victory, and his exaltation was our exaltation.  Paul even told the church of Ephesus that, "...we have been raised up together, and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6). 

Another great truth that is revealed within the finished work of Christ is the fact that everything we need to become all that he is has already been accomplished in him.  That's why the Bible says, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18). Paul prayed, "That the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened; that we may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe..." (Eph 1:18-19).  In other words, as we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us, in the finished work of Christ, all that he did on our behalf, then that completed work becomes activated in us by levels or by degrees. We are changed as we see inwardly who we are in him!   One day, we are all going to stand in his presence.  One of the great wonders to this mystery is that when we behold him, we shall be like him - for we shall see him as he is! (1 John 3:2).  The one great fact that we can rest on is that when we do see him face to face, we will know the full power of the finished work of Christ, because he will then present us to himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. For we will be holy and without blemish! (Eph. 5:27).