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Why Did Jesus Say "Forgive THem Father......."

rhinefire

rhinefire

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So Jesus is said to say on the cross "Forgive them Father for they know not what they not what they do".
Here's my concern, did he have to say that in order for God to forgive?
Does this mean God had to be told to forgive?
So is this God capable of "revenge"?
If God is beyond vengence and retribution, why would Jesus utter these dying words?
 
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I think it was more of a plea for mercy asking God not to pour out his wrath upon those mocking Him and killing him. God doesn't forgive those who don't repent and chose to not repent, I could ask God time and time again to forgive someone else of their sins but unless that person repents of their sin before God they will still have to be judged for them.

We can pray for mercy, and I think that's what Jesus did. But I don't think we can pray someone else into heaven or pray away someone else's sin. Although, Jesus as God has the authority to forgive sins and did forgive them and does forgive them.
 
Symbolism. It's part of the fine line for Jesus of being God and man. He had a way of looking at the world both ways. To go further, why would He say "My God, why have you abandoned me" when He didn't abandon Himself? At the time, he probably felt helpless and abandoned. We all do sometimes.

It's important to remember also that what's written in the Gospels is sometimes fictionalized for different reasons. The earliest of them was written at least 30 years later, and the authors weren't actually there. I always read direct quotes of Jesus from them with a grain of salt.
 
Him saying that wasn't about God, the father, as much as it was about Jesus, the son. "Forgive them" was meant to illustrate Jesus's own merciful character even in the midst of being murdered brutally by the people he was asking his father to forgive. In other words, "Forgive them" was a reflection on Jesus's character NOT God and His abilities or character.
 
digsbe said:
I think it was more of a plea for mercy asking God not to pour out his wrath upon those mocking Him and killing him. God doesn't forgive those who don't repent and chose to not repent, I could ask God time and time again to forgive someone else of their sins but unless that person repents of their sin before God they will still have to be judged for them.

We can pray for mercy, and I think that's what Jesus did. But I don't think we can pray someone else into heaven or pray away someone else's sin. Although, Jesus as God has the authority to forgive sins and did forgive them and does forgive them.
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isn't that what members of the church of latter day saints do on behalf of their ancestors
 
He was talking to himself. The holy and self-righteous are always banning, spiting, torturing and killing people who are decent, and since humans get self-righteous at the drop of a hat, we have to keep remembering to forgive them, however shocking their unexamined behaviour.
 
rhinefire said:
So Jesus is said to say on the cross "Forgive them Father for they know not what they not what they do".
Here's my concern, did he have to say that in order for God to forgive?
Does this mean God had to be told to forgive?
So is this God capable of "revenge"?
If God is beyond vengence and retribution, why would Jesus utter these dying words?
Click to expand...

The bigger question is why an all-powerful God would require that his son die such a terrible death in order to forgive the people his son so loved.
 
justabubba said:
isn't that what members of the church of latter day saints do on behalf of their ancestors
Click to expand...
Yes, they do. Or at least they did. I think they may have stopped recently.
 
MaggieD said:
The bigger question is why an all-powerful God would require that his son die such a terrible death in order to forgive the people his son so loved.
Click to expand...

Don't you think you are getting stuck in a time-warp? The quick answer is, 'to reconcile an antique and sick theology with Christianity'. The real answer that is how the bullyboys are so answered by Reality: they do their worst, and our Man gets up and walks away. 'He is not here (with the self-righeous scumbags): he is risen.'
 
MaggieD said:
The bigger question is why an all-powerful God would require that his son die such a terrible death in order to forgive the people his son so loved.
Click to expand...

Further to that, he's not only omniscient and omnipresent, but Jesus is God too, so why is he telling himself to do what he already knows he'll do?
 
Manc Skipper said:
Further to that, he's not only omniscient and omnipresent, but Jesus is God too, so why is he telling himself to do what he already knows he'll do?
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Because the entire point is to let HUMAN BEINGS see Jesus's mercy as an example to them.
 
Manc Skipper said:
Further to that, he's not only omniscient and omnipresent, but Jesus is God too, so why is he telling himself to do what he already knows he'll do?
Click to expand...

AT what age exactly did Jesus become omniscient? Three? Five? Twenty-One? As to omnipresent, that must have increased the world population of the early first century to a remarkable degree. Does anyone actually suppose Jesus-as-human was 'God' (whoever He might be?) in any meaningful sense?
 
MaggieD said:
The bigger question is why an all-powerful God would require that his son die such a terrible death in order to forgive the people his son so loved.
Click to expand...

I believe it was so that God could share in equality with His people. They couldn't kill Him if He didn't allow it but in order to not Lord over them and either change their minds or forcefully stop them, He allowed them to have their way. The amount he was betrayed for was even prophesied in a quote before the NT from...

Zechariah 11:12-13

And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me!

Without "free will" we couldn't exist because we'd only be robots.
 
"...for they know not what they do."

What didn't they know they were doing?
 
justabubba said:
isn't that what members of the church of latter day saints do on behalf of their ancestors
Click to expand...

I think the belief is that when a Mormon prays in the temple for the unsaved damned that unsaved damned person is given respite from damnation temporarily--kind of like a vacation from the hell of not existing otherwise. The LDS church suffers from two problems--it is a very new church and the lack of a professional clergy has resulted in some very weird lines of belief that may or may not be credible. It suffers from a lack of consistent scholarship basically. Apparently some have discerned that LDS members who are very holy are gods on earth or can create children that were born before their own existence and stuff like that. Of course, members who don't believe these things deny that is part of their doctrine and those who do believe them do not deny it.
 
Manc Skipper said:
Further to that, he's not only omniscient and omnipresent, but Jesus is God too, so why is he telling himself to do what he already knows he'll do?
Click to expand...

Jesus did not sit on the throne until after his death. I am not big on that Father, Son, Holy Spirit being facets of the one God thing but I am in the minority on that. I still think of them as distinct entities.
 
rhinefire said:
So Jesus is said to say on the cross "Forgive them Father for they know not what they not what they do".
Here's my concern, did he have to say that in order for God to forgive?
Does this mean God had to be told to forgive?
So is this God capable of "revenge"?
If God is beyond vengence and retribution, why would Jesus utter these dying words?
Click to expand...

One aspect:

Jesus was the "son of man" in the same sense that he was Son of God. In a way, the people were sacrificing their son (in addition to His Son) as specifically prohibited in the Bible as a horrible (and unforgivable?) act.
 
Fisher said:
Jesus did not sit on the throne until after his death. I am not big on that Father, Son, Holy Spirit being facets of the one God thing but I am in the minority on that. I still think of them as distinct entities.
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So he didn't sit on "the thrown" before he was sent to earth to die and remove original sin?
 
spanky said:
So if they knew it was the son of god they might have stopped?
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Fisher said:
Jesus did not sit on the throne until after his death. I am not big on that Father, Son, Holy Spirit being facets of the one God thing but I am in the minority on that. I still think of them as distinct entities.
Click to expand...

Didn't Jesus say, "before Abraham was, I am"? If God is in all of us don't you think He can be in more than one place at a time? I think that's part of the mystery of the nature of God that He has no name, seen face or place where we can designate Him because He's pure energy. Jesus came from the bosom or center of the heavenly Father because He is Him. Jesus is the earthly version of God the Father who came to show His face and share in our humanity.
 
grip said:
Didn't Jesus say, "before Abraham was, I am"? If God is in all of us don't you think He can be in more than one place at a time? I think that's part of the mystery of the nature of God that He has no name, seen face or place where we can designate Him because He's pure energy. Jesus came from the bosom or center of the heavenly Father because He is Him. Jesus is the earthly version of God the Father who came to show His face and share in our humanity.
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Well, if one were to look for consistency and common sense, The Bible would not be the place to seek it. Regardless, I still think of them as separate entities. Always have and always will.
 
Fisher said:
Well, if one were to look for consistency and common sense, The Bible would not be the place to seek it. Regardless, I still think of them as separate entities. Always have and always will.
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I'm not shoving my opinion on anyone, it's just a comment.

But if God and the father are spirit, then what is the holy spirit? Maybe they're the same thing?
And if Jesus was full of the spirit, then after dying got turned into spirit as He appeared before Paul, sounds like it's all one spirit?
 
grip said:
I'm not shoving my opinion on anyone, it's just a comment.

But if God and the father are spirit, then what is the holy spirit? Maybe they're the same thing?
And if Jesus was full of the spirit, then after dying got turned into spirit as He appeared before Paul, sounds like it's all one spirit?
Click to expand...

I feel that they are separate entities and the need to merge them into one is a result of a drive to maintain a monotheistic doctrine free of competing deities as existed with ancient religions.
 
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