. . . the work of Jesus on behalf
of his people is not “finished” on the cross, as in the famous Protestant
slogan “the finished work of Christ.” Of course, Jesus died once and only once.
He does not need to die again; he has done so once for all time (Heb. 9:26).
Something really was “finished” with his death, as John makes clear in Jesus’s
dying words (John 19:30). That is the point emphasized by traditional
Protestant polemic, warding off any suggestion that Jesus might be crucified
again and again with every Mass. But if the “sacrifice” to which Hebrews refers
is the larger sequence of events, not just Jesus’s death, then his ongoing work
of covenant maintenance continues to the present time and beyond to the
ultimate future . . . (N. T. Wright, “Foreword,” in David M. Moffitt, Rethinking
the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2022], xix)
Further Reading:
Full Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30,
