Could ‘It is finished’ refer to something other than the atonement?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1991.

In raising your question about our Lord's statement 'It is finished', you remark that 'our Lord Jesus is said to be the one who is the executor, not the subject, of God's wrath'. I am not quite sure that I follow the logic of your remark.

Certainly our Lord will be the executor of God's wrath at his second coming (see 2 Thessalonians 2; Revelation 19, etc.); but are you meaning to imply that, at Calvary also, our Lord was executing the wrath of God and not suffering it? I cannot think you mean this, since Isaiah 53:10 declares quite plainly 'it pleased the Lord to bruise him'—or as the NIV puts it, 'it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer'—and goes on to talk of his soul being made an offering for sin.

Ephesians 5:2 reminds us that our Lord Jesus gave himself for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice, and the New Testament nowhere says that God the Father had to turn away in disgust. But then the New Testament insists that, not only did Christ offer himself as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice—which is a technical term for the burnt offering and the peace offering in the Levitical system—but he also was made a sin offering, as Romans 8:3 (NIV) explicitly declares.

The question of what our Lord's cry 'It is finished' refers to (see John 19:30) has long been debated, and various suggestions have been put forth. Certainly, it is true to say that our Lord's work would not have been complete without his dying. But before we come to the conclusion that the phrase 'It is finished' refers to something other than the completion of his atoning work, it seems to me that we must take seriously the possibility that the remark was proleptic. In John 17:4 for instance, where our Lord says, 'I have glorified thee on the earth, having finished the work which thou hast given me to do', he must be including his sufferings and death at Calvary. He is not simply referring to his work solely up to the point at which he stood praying his prayer; for his very next words, 'And now', indicate that all that is now left to be done, since the work has been finished, is his resurrection and ascension.

Here then it is clear that, in 17:4, when he indicates that he has finished the work given him by God to do, he is speaking proleptically. So certain is he of accomplishing the work of atonement that he speaks as if it is already complete. In the same fashion, the ancient prophets prophesied 'Babylon has fallen, has fallen', when in fact they were announcing the future fall of Babylon (see Isaiah 21:9). If our Lord were going to announce publicly, and for all the world to hear, that the work of atonement was finished, he had to announce it before he breathed his last. He could not have done it afterwards. I personally am impressed by the strict sequence of the two remarks in John 19:30: 'He said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit'. The first remark 'It is finished' cannot be separated in its significance from the second.

Now, that is my personal view; many people don\'t agree with it. But I think you have to bring forward a very strong case against my view if you are going to assert that the phrase 'It is finished' does not include our Lord's death.

It seems to me that you would find these issues dealt with, in part at least, in books like The Cross of Christ by John Stott, and the two or three other books by Leon Morris on the atonement and the cross of Christ. Maybe you have read them already, but if not I recommend them to you.

Yours very truly in Christ,