Luke 23:34 “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.”
As I was doing some study on a sermon when I was pointed to this scripture and this quote shined like a bright light, “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do…” I remember reading years ago that Jesus prayed for forgiveness for those that crucified Him, but the question came to my mind, why? I understand that what these Jews and Roman soldiers did to Jesus was in ignorance. But every sin a lost person does is in ignorance almost. There are a lot of Christians that does things against God out of ignorance. It would be fine if I prayed this prayer for them, but Jesus, the Son of God? Jesus was/is the Christ and the Son of God, His Father before the foundation of the world had given to Him a fold or a remnant of human souls out of the world. The eternal covenant between the Father and His Beloved Son was that He was to be born the Son of man and give His life on that cross for their sins. Jesus said, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10 His focus as the Son of man was to redeem this remnant that His Father had chosen and gifted Him with before the foundation of the world. At no point in His human life was Jesus not God’s Son, not for one moment did Jesus make a mistake or do something that was contradictive to His being the second part of the Trinity. Jesus, both as the Son of God and the Son of man was always God’s Son and without error in His actions and thoughts. This question crossed my mind as I looked at this passage of scripture, why would Jesus pray for the lost that are not the elect? Why would Jesus ever pray for the non-elected for anything, wouldn’t that be a contradiction to His deity? It was Jesus, that before He was arrested that said these words, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.” John 17:9 God told the Prophet Jeremiah these words, “Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.” Jeremiah 7:16 Why is it when these people are crucifying God’s Son called the Son of man did Jesus pray that the Father forgive them for their ignorance of crucifying Him? To what profit would that have been, I’m not Theologian by any stretch of the imagination but I see this prayer not for the ones crucifying Jesus. This is what I see, there is no need to pray for the salvation or the forgiveness of the non-elected, God’s not going to save them nor is God going to forgive their sins out of ignorance or otherwise. I can see no reason to ask God to forgive their sin, therefore there must be another answer why He prayed for His Father to forgive. I believe that for Jesus must have had us on His mind or at least some elect. Because For Jesus to ask the Father to forgive these hateful sinners who crucified the Christ, the very Messiah would be, I believe wrong. Again what Good would it do for Jesus to have asked the Father to forgive these hatful sinners of their sin for crucifying Him? I believe, as Jesus continued to pray in John 17, we read these words, “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” John 17:11 that we, the elected of the Father was this prayer for. Jesus must have had us on His mind as He was about to give-up the ghost because the whole crucifixion was about us. We were absolutely on His mind the whole time because it was for us, He died, not for the non-elect. All I can say is, Thank You Jesus for being my intercessor and mediator to our Father. God tells us as Christians to pray for those who persecute us or despitefully use us, because we do not know who the elect are. It is thought that some of these involved in the crucifixion was later saved, but I’m sure a small number. Maybe it was for them that Jesus prayed for, but I simply cannot see Jesus the very Christ, the Son of God praying for people who were involved in the crucifixion for no purpose. I have investigated many commentaries on this, and most either ignore it or skip it all together. One even said it was not in the original text. Really? This is my conclusion, either Jesus prayed for those elect that were involved in the crucifixion or He prayed for the elect sinners altogether. We do read in Acts 3:17 “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.” I cannot believe that Jesus prayed for the Father to forgive any non-elect especially the chief priest or Roman soldiers.
