Sinners Unaware? (Luke 23:24)
This is one of the more baffling verses in the Bible. Jesus, who has been beaten within an inch of his life, is betrayed, publicly mocked, and then marched up a hill to be nailed to a wooden beam while his executioners play craps at his feet.
In that dark moment Jesus prays. Not for help, relief, or rescue. He asks God to forgive the very ones who are torturing and killing Him because, "...they don't know what they are doing?" (vs. 24).
Hang on. What???
I see a few problems here:
1. The soldiers knew exactly what they were doing- they were trained killers.
2. The leading priests and religious leaders who put them up to this knew exactly what they were doing- they had been planning this for months.
Did Jesus mean they didn't haven't any clue what they were doing was wrong? Hardly. Or did He mean they didn't truly understand the full repercussions of their actions? Maybe.
Either way, it's a bit of a mystery how God used the deliberate, sinful choices of ungodly men to accomplish the most holy event in the history of mankind. On this very subject Paul wrote, "the rulers of this world have not understood [the mysterious wisdom of God]; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord." (1 Corinthians 2:8 NLT).
In other words, had the Romans and the Sanhedrin truly understood the full weight of what they were doing, they would never have killed Jesus in the first place. They had clearly made the biggest mistake in history, and yet there hung Jesus, praying for their forgiveness.
We can either point the finger at their stupidity or we can learn a lesson from it. Whenever we choose sin I doubt any of us ever fully know what we're really doing. If we did we would never sin again! We know the wages of sin is death, and yet we choose it when we fool ourselves into thinking it is anything other than what it is- death.
We've all been impacted by the sins of others and vice versa, but nobody has more than Jesus. Despite the suffering our sins caused Him, He forgave them all because, well, "we don't know what we're doing".
The only way we can truly live out Ephesians 4:32 "forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you" is by first understanding the nature of sin. If the person who was sinning against you really knew what they were doing, they wouldn't do it. But like Jesus, we can still choose to forgive them anyway whether they're sorry or not.
It's a tough pill to swallow, but sometimes being Christ-like requires that we conform "to the likeness of His death" (Philippians 3:11).
In that dark moment Jesus prays. Not for help, relief, or rescue. He asks God to forgive the very ones who are torturing and killing Him because, "...they don't know what they are doing?" (vs. 24).
Hang on. What???
I see a few problems here:
1. The soldiers knew exactly what they were doing- they were trained killers.
2. The leading priests and religious leaders who put them up to this knew exactly what they were doing- they had been planning this for months.
Did Jesus mean they didn't haven't any clue what they were doing was wrong? Hardly. Or did He mean they didn't truly understand the full repercussions of their actions? Maybe.
Either way, it's a bit of a mystery how God used the deliberate, sinful choices of ungodly men to accomplish the most holy event in the history of mankind. On this very subject Paul wrote, "the rulers of this world have not understood [the mysterious wisdom of God]; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord." (1 Corinthians 2:8 NLT).
In other words, had the Romans and the Sanhedrin truly understood the full weight of what they were doing, they would never have killed Jesus in the first place. They had clearly made the biggest mistake in history, and yet there hung Jesus, praying for their forgiveness.
We can either point the finger at their stupidity or we can learn a lesson from it. Whenever we choose sin I doubt any of us ever fully know what we're really doing. If we did we would never sin again! We know the wages of sin is death, and yet we choose it when we fool ourselves into thinking it is anything other than what it is- death.
We've all been impacted by the sins of others and vice versa, but nobody has more than Jesus. Despite the suffering our sins caused Him, He forgave them all because, well, "we don't know what we're doing".
The only way we can truly live out Ephesians 4:32 "forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you" is by first understanding the nature of sin. If the person who was sinning against you really knew what they were doing, they wouldn't do it. But like Jesus, we can still choose to forgive them anyway whether they're sorry or not.
It's a tough pill to swallow, but sometimes being Christ-like requires that we conform "to the likeness of His death" (Philippians 3:11).
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