I’m sorry my comments are a bit late, unfortunately I am a new reader of these articles.

It is my understanding of Jesus’ comment on the cross, “Father, forgive them…, that it was a prayer to the Father and not an exercise of His sovereign power and will to forgive, (and might I add, a great example of how we should pray to those who have sinned against us). The actual forgiveness however, did not come until Pentecost and only to those “elect” who repented and received the gift of Faith and the Grace of our Sovereign God.

I am therefore in full support of Dr. MacArthur’s article and like always, highly respect his teaching and understanding of the Scriptures.

Respectfully,
Joe

First question: Was salvation ever a corporate/group affair while the Jews were subject to the law? I’ve seen debates on these boards where some propose that the answer to this is “yes”. This comes up in discussions of salvation where the answer to “what must I do to be saved” is “believe and be baptized and you shall be saved, and your household.” This sequence has been used on these boards to support the notion that infants (and children?) are saved by the belief of a parent. To me, this is group, or corporate salvation - if this interpretation is correct. I realize that these statements were spoken in the Bible after Jesus was crucified, but they were spoken by Jews accustomed to thinking in terms of the rules of the Temple for salvation.

Next question: At what point did the Law and the rules of the Temple cease to be controlling? That is, at what point did the Pauline view of salvation take over from the Jewish view of salvation? I’ve always been taught that this happened at the moment the Veil in the Temple was torn from top to bottom. If this is correct, then Jesus was saying “Father, forgive them …” as a fully Jewish christian, under control of the rules of the Temple - not as a Pauline christian. He hadn’t died yet, and the veil had not yet been torn in the Temple.

Does that trigger any thoughts?

dave, I believe that God did permissively will some things from His eternal decree before the foundations of the world, making them sure, not because of foresight, but because He is all knowing. And this is in hamony with scripture.

I agree with the OP. In short…”A house divided against itself cannot stand”

Dave

Good question, and one which I had not really thought about before, even though I have read the familiar quote from Luke many times.

Jesus almost certainly did not ask the Father to “forgive” them in the sense of Salvation, for that always is by grace through faith, and also because salvation is always a personal experience between an individual and God, not a group event. So what was Jesus asking the Father to do??

It is clear by the testimony of Jesus that Judas was not forgiven, and of course he knew (or should have known) exactly what he was doing. The same should be true of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes who had the testimony of both Jesus Himself (authenticated by His miracles), and the Scriptures to guide them, so they should have known also. I have always assumed that Jesus was speaking of the Roman soldiers and perhaps the average “Jew in the street” who switched from laying down palm fronds one day and screamed “crucify Him” on the next.

The statement is certainly a fulfillment of both His command to “Love your enemy” and of the prophesy in Isaiah 53 saying that He would “make intercession for the transgressors,” but other than the above, little else comes to mind — I would like to hear more ideas on that one.

Maybe just semantics again???

Does guilt linger after forgiveness has been granted? Didn’t Jesus say from the Cross Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.? (Luke 23:34) Wasn’t He referring to “all those who killed Him” in that plea for forgiveness?

Glad to hear it. It can be difficult to explain doctrine while keeping the post short enough. The end result of being more thorough, though, is that God is Glorified and His Sovereignty affirmed.

My the Lord bless you.

i can now officially confirm that most of this was semantics. while i definitely do not see the world through a Calvinist lens, i can say that we mostly agree on this issue.

there are some disagreements, but this is not the place.

thanks for clarifying.

I hope we are dealing with semantics, here, but I fear it is more than that. What I am saying is that God is entirely sovereign in all that He created. He can do anything He wants to do, whenever he wants, for whatever reason He wants — and anything He does will by definition be perfect, totally untainted by evil.

Evil comes from the intent of the heart of fallen men. God can allow their evil to be done or He can choose to prevent it from happening — there are Scriptural examples of both. The bottom line is that nothing can happen, no evil can occur, without the permission of the Sovereign God of the Universe.

God can use the evil deeds and plans of both men and even Satan himself for good according to His purposes — Joseph said it best when he said to his brothers “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” it is the same idea that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:28 — “We know that God works all things to the good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

God never in any way instigates evil — that would be against His character. It is always the individual who conceives the evil even though God can use it for His own purposes. The most extreme example of that is the most evil deed in history — the murder of Christ on the cross. Judas and the Pharisees and all the others involved all meant it for evil, but God, as an act of His own sovereignty, turned that evil into the most important event in history — the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus. All those who killed Him are eternally guilty of their sin, and it was Satan, not God, who put that evil in their hearts. But God used their evil to bring about the basis of our salvation, and made it available to all of us. Out of their evil came the most utterly good event in the history of the universe, all due to the power of God and our Lord Jesus.

By the way, calamitous events, like earthquakes, floods, tidal waves, etc., are in and of themselves, amoral — neither good nor evil. We have to always remember that they are a direct result of the fall and sin, but also remember that God, in His sovereignty, can use such events as an instrument of His Wrath. Again, they can never occur without His permission, and unlike Evil, God sometimes (not always) causes calamities Himself.