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Why Did Jesus on the Cross Ask the Father to Forgive Others Instead of Doing It Directly Himself?

While being crucified, Jesus asked the Father to forgive those who were crucifying Him instead of doing it directly Himself.  He did this partly in order to fulfill prophecy and partly to serve as a model for Christians' own behavior.

This question concerns Jesus' statement in Luke 23:34:  "Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing," while He was being crucified.  Despite incredible physical suffering and being the victim of a judicial lynching, the Messiah still had the sublime presence of mind to love His enemies and to ask the Father to forgive them.  So why didn't Jesus just directly forgive them by saying so out loud since He had the power to forgive sins?  One reason was to fulfill prophecy.  What was the Messiah prophesied to do in Isaiah 53:7?  "For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors."  If He had directly forgiven them by His own divine powers, it wouldn't have been an intercessory act.  By definition an intercessor or mediator is between two other parties as a third party.  He needed to pray to the Father in order to do this.

Another factor behind why Jesus didn't forgive them directly was that He was serving implicitly as a model for Christians.  Jesus directed us, in the model prayer that should serve as a basic outline for how to do this, to pray to the Father, not to Him.  The "Lord's prayer" begins with, "Our Father in heaven . . . forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."  (Matthew 6:9, 12).  So He told us to pray to the Father, not to Him, as the routine procedure when praying.  As a result, the standard protocol is that Christians should pray to the Father for forgiveness primarily, not directly to the Son, who is the One who reconciles us to God (Romans 5:10-11).   (Matthew Henry's commentary, pp. 1907-1908, is helpful in making points on this issue).  

So Jesus asked the Father to forgive those crucifying Him because He fulfilled prophecy by doing so and also because was serving as a model for Christian conduct.

Eric V. Snow
www.lionofjudah1.org

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