"Father, Forgive Them for They Know Not What They Do."...Well, Did He?
There can be no forgiveness without repentance. That's Kingdom principle taught by God himself in the bible. Yet, Jesus prayed on the cross: "Forgive them for they know not what they do." Well, did God do it? Did he forgive them? Did they repent? Obviously God didn't. Countless times in the bible, God never forgave anyone without repentance. It's his righteousness principle. But why did Jesus still pray to the Father about forgiving the unrepentant? It was to demonstrate to us for all time the proper attitude when being persecuted for righteousness' sake. You want them forgiven in your heart and their misdeeds not counted against them, as Stephen later also prayed. Yet, know for sure that God does not forgive without repentance. How do I know they never repented (at least majority of them didn't)? Well, take the soldiers who guarded Jesus' grave, for instance. They saw the resurrection with their own two eyes, and saw mighty angels rolled away th