Luke 23:34
Luke 23:34
But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.
Similarly, Matthew 9:6 states: “‘But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’--then He said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, pick up your bed and go home.’” Furthermore, Hebrews 9:22 states: “And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
When it is all put together, the following syllogism emerges:
If there is no forgiveness of sins apart from the shedding of blood, and if the forgiveness of sins is ultimately tied to the blood covenant of the cross at Calvary, and if the atonement at Calvary was somehow limited to only Calvinism’s elect (as per the Calvinist doctrine of a Limited Atonement), then Jesus would not have had the requisite authority to just forgive any random person’s sins who happened to appear that day in the crowd of Luke 23:34, but instead, would be restricted to forgiving the sins of Calvinism’s elect alone.
The issue is whether Calvinism’s doctrine of a Limited Atonement must necessarily restrict the scope of Jesus’ indiscriminate plea for forgiveness, despite the distinct impression that Jesus has authority and intent to extend forgiveness to those who would fall outside of Calvinism’s elect.
