"Father, Forgive, For We Know What We Are Doing"

Luke 23:32-38

Two others also, who were criminals, were being led
away to be put to death with Him. ³³ When they came to the place
called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one
on the right and the other on the left. 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. ³⁵And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were
sneering at Him, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if
this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One." ³⁶ The soldiers also
mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, ³⁷ and
saying, "If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!" ³⁸ Now
there was also an inscription above Him, "THIS IS THE KING OF THE
JEWS."

Notice, in verse 34 Jesus says, "Father, forgive them; for they
do not know what they are doing." Forgive those who murder me
because they don't know what they are doing. Now this raises a
question: Why forgive a person for what he does not know he is
doing? Wouldn't we say: "Father, since they don't know what they
are doing, they are not guilty and don't need to be forgiven"?
Isn't it either-or? Either you know what you are doing and need to
be forgiven. Or you don't know what you are doing and you don't
need to be forgiven. Why does Jesus draw attention to their
ignorance of what they are doing AND ask God to forgive them?

The Guilt of Ignorance

Answer: Because they are guilty for not knowing what they are
doing. Forgiveness is only needed for the guilty. Nobody can
forgive an innocent person. That's why all this talk these days
about forgiving God is so wrongheaded, indeed, I would say,
blasphemous if you really mean it. Forgiveness is for the guilty.
So when Jesus says, "Father, forgive them," he means they are
guilty. Then when he says, "For they don't know what they are
doing," he must mean, "And they should know what they are
doing. And they are guilty for not knowing what they are doing." In
other words, they have so much evidence of the truth that the only
explanation for their ignorance is they don't want to see it. They
are hard and resistant and have a guilty blindness. That is why
they need to be forgiven.

So here are Gentiles and Jews killing the Son of God and the
Messiah of Israel and the most innocent and loving man that ever
existed. But they did not know whom they were killing. For this
ignorance they were guilty and in need of forgiveness. And
amazingly, Jesus is praying for them that his Father would open
their eyes and help them to see their sin, repent, and be forgiven.
That is the beautiful thing about this prayer of Jesus: It declares
guilt and offers forgiveness at the same time. So this morning here
in this room, if you are rejecting Jesus as Son of God and Lord and
Savior of your life, he declares that you are guilty AND he offers
himself as the sacrifice to pay for your sins and forgive all the
sins you have ever done and ever will do. "Father, forgive them,
for they don't know what they are doing."

There was evidence, and there is evidence, that Jesus is the
sin-bearing Messiah and Son of God who he claimed to be. For
example, 1) his supernatural healings; 2) his authority over
nature; 3) his power over demons; 4) his compassion for outcasts
(like lepers) and his association with the lowly; 5) his simplicity
of life and indifference to wealth; 6) his unparalleled wisdom and
his seeing through hypocrisy; 7) his indifference to human praise
and devotion to the good of others; 8) his living for the glory of
God; 9) his willingness to die for others; 10) his claim to be the
Messiah and Son of God (was he a liar, insane, true?). Those are
some of the evidences that made the ignorance of his killers a
guilty ignorance.

Therefore, they needed to be forgiven even if they did not know
what they were doing, because they should have known.

Application to Abortion

Now my point this morning is this: so it is with abortion. If we
claim to be ignorant that we are killing human beings and that
therefore we are innocent, Jesus prays for us, "Father, forgive
them, for . . ." But here I have to stop. I don't know if I can
say, "They don't know what they are doing." Maybe some don't. But
many do. But the important point is this: Whether we know what we
are doing or don't know what we are doing, we are guilty and need
forgiveness, because we should know what we are doing.
Indeed, we do know what we are doing.

So hear me loud and clear at the outset: Jesus offers you
forgiveness this morning for aborting your child, or encouraging
your girlfriend or your daughter to abort your child, or for
working in an abortion clinic, or for being apathetic and doing
nothing about this great evil and injustice in our society. And in
offering forgiveness, Jesus declares that we are guilty. Our
ignorance is guilty ignorance. We should know what we are doing
even if we don't. And we do know!

So let me show you why I believe we know what we are doing, or
should know, and are guilty for knowing or not knowing
what we are doing – namely wrongfully killing unborn human
beings whose right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
is a gift of God (Acts 17:25).

We Know What We Are Doing

1. States Treat the Killing of the Unborn as a Homicide

We know what we are doing because 27 States (including
Minnesota) treat the killing of an unborn child as a form of
homicide (see United for Life).
That is, they have what are called "fetal homicide laws." Other
states (besides these 27) have different kinds of penalties for
attacks on women that result in harm to the baby she is
carrying.

For example, in Minnesota in 1987, a teenage girl 6 ½
months pregnant went with her boyfriend on a suicide pact into the
woods. She shot herself in the head, and he changed his mind and
covered her over with brush and walked away. He was apprehended and
charged with assisting a suicide and "inadvertently murdering the
fetus during the commission of a felony." The fetal homicide law
carried a stiffer penalty than assisting in a suicide. The verdict
was upheld in 1991.

As I read about this in the newspaper one sentence leaped off
the page because of its stunning implications. "The law makes it
murder to kill an embryo or fetus intentionally, except in cases of
abortion." Think about that for a moment. We have some laws that
condemn the killing of a fetus as murder, and we have some laws
that condone the killing of a fetus as abortion.

Why is this? What is the basis for the difference? Usually the
proposed basis for the difference is simply this: It is
illegal to take the life of the unborn if the mother
chooses that it not be taken, but it is legal to take the
life of the unborn if the mother chooses that it be taken. In first
case the law treats the fetus as a human with rights; in the second
case the law treats the fetus as non-human with no rights.

Do you see what this means? It means that according to our laws
in Minnesota (as well as other states), the humanness of the unborn
is determined from case to case not on the basis of its intrinsic
qualities, but on the basis of someone else's choice. If the one
who has the power says it is right for the unborn to be killed, it
is right; but if the one with the power says it is wrong for the
unborn to be killed, it is wrong. There is a name for this state of
affairs. We call it anarchy: Each one who has the power defines
what is "right" on the basis of what he or she wants to be
right.

Now at this point those of us who care about racial justice
should hear some ominous and threatening sounds. And those who care
most about justice for the unborn should see the profound
implications of this for racial justice – and every other
form of justice. And there should be no sense that you can pick one
of these issues to care about with no concern about the other. When
human justice is disconnected from a person's intrinsic humanity
and made to depend simply on the choice of the strong, no one is
safe from being arbitrarily defined out of personhood –
whether it is a Jew in Nazi Germany or Black Slave in South
Carolina or an unborn infant in the womb. If the right to life and
liberty hangs merely on the will of the strong, there is no
justice. The issue for racial justice and justice for the unborn
is: What constitutes human personhood and the human
responsibilities and rights that flow from it.

But here's my point this morning: The existence of fetal
homicide laws show that we know what we are doing when we abort the
unborn or condone abortion or take no interest in it. Father,
forgive, we know what we are doing.

2. The Inconsistency of Fetal Surgery and Abortion

We know what we are doing because of the inconsistency of doing
fetal surgery on a baby in the womb to save him while his cousin at
the same stage of development is being killed. The evidence mounts
on all hands
that the unborn are persons and patients alongside of
their mothers. They can be medically treated just as the mother
can. But many people turn a deaf ear to observations like Dr. Steve
Calvin's in a letter some years ago to the Arizona Daily Star:
"There is inescapable schizophrenia in aborting a perfectly normal
22 week fetus while at the same hospital, performing intra-uterine
surgery on its cousin." Father, forgive, we know what we are
doing.

3. Size Is Irrelevant in Determining Personhood

We know what we are doing because the size of a person is
irrelevant when deciding if the person is a human being or not. The
five-foot-eight frame of a teenage son guarantees him no more right
to life than the 23-inch frame of his little sister in her mother's
arms. Size is morally irrelevant (1 inch, 23 inches, 68 inches) in
determining who should be protected. Forgive, Father, we know what
we are doing.

4. Developed Reasoning Powers Are Irrelevant for Determining
Personhood

We know what we are doing because developed reasoning powers are
not the criterion of personhood. A one-week-old infant, nursing at
his mother's breast, does not have these powers either, yet we
don't put his life in jeopardy because of that. Father, forgive, we
know what we are doing.

5. Location or Envionment Are Irrelevant for Determining
Personhood

We know what we are doing because in all other areas of life we
do not allow location or environment to determine a person's right
to life. So Scott Klusendorf asks, "How does a simple journey of
seven inches down the birth canal suddenly transform the essential
nature of the fetus from non-person to person?"
(http://www.str.org/free/bioethics/Seriously.pdf) The so-called
"partial-birth abortion" is so obviously infanticide that only the
most guilty blindness could deny it. Father, forgive, we know what
we are doing.

6. Dependency on Another Is Irrelevant for Determining
Personhood

We know what we are doing because we consider persons on
respirators and dialysis as human beings whose lives are precious
and to be protected. In other words, the unborn cannot be
disqualified from human life because they are dependent on their
mother for food and oxygen and protection from toxins. In fact, we
operate on the exact opposite principle: The more dependent a
little one is on us, the more responsibility we feel to protect
him, not the less. Father, forgive, we know what we are doing.

(Those last four observations were summed up by Scott Klusendorf
under the acronym SLED: Size, Level of development, Environment,
Degree of dependence – none is morally relevant for the
definition of human life.)

7. The Genetic Make Up of Humans Is Unique

We know what we are doing because we know that the genetic make
up of a human is different from all other creatures from the moment
of conception. The human code is complete and unique from the
start. We know what we are doing. Father, forgive us.

8. All the Organs Are Present at Eight Weeks of Gestation

We know what we are doing because we know that at eight weeks of
gestation all the organs are present. The brain is functioning, the
heart pumping, the liver making blood cells, the kidney cleaning
the fluids, the finger has a print. Yet almost all abortions happen
later than this date. Father, forgive, we know what we are
doing.

9. We Have Seen the Ultrasounds and the Photographs

We know what we are doing because the marvel of ultrasound has
given a stunning window into the womb that shows the unborn, for
example, at 8 weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking,
responding to sound. And, besides that, we have the amazing books
and magazines capturing the intrauterine photographs of every stage
in a baby's development. We think especially of the photography of
Lennart Nilsson. When pro-choice people say pictures don't count,
they are inconsistent. The way things look is a crucial part of how
we make choices. You don't shoot a man, you shoot a deer, and you
use your eyes to tell the difference. If the world could see
clearly the babies being killed, millions of people would recoil.
And O how great the guilt of our ignorance, because we can
see them – if we would. Father, forgive, we know what we are
doing.

10. When Two Rights Conflict, the Higher Value Should Be
Protected

We know what we are doing because we know the principle of
justice that when two legitimate rights conflict, the right that
protects the higher value should prevail. We deny the right to
drive at 100 miles per hour because the value of life is greater
than the value of being on time or getting thrills. The right of
the unborn not to be killed and the right of a woman not to be
pregnant may be at odds. But they are not equal rights. Staying
alive is more precious and more basic than not being pregnant. But
in abortion, we reverse this order. And we know what we are doing.
O Father, forgive us.

And there are so many more reasons we could give why we know
what we are doing – especially we Christians with all God's
precious special revelation like Psalm 139:13 ("You [O God] formed
my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.")

As we dream toward Planting a Passion – planting a strong,
God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible saturated,
missions-mobilizing, soul-winning, justice-pursuing church, let us
remember that Jesus Christ indicts and forgives in one and the same
act of death. He died to show us the greatness of our sin, and he
died to forgive the greatness of our sin. And, we add, he died
(according to Titus 2:14) "to purify for Himself a people for His
own possession, zealous for good deeds." O may God raise up
coronary, Wilberforce-like, never-give-up Christians in the battle
for racial justice and justice for the unborn, mingled with mercy
for everyone involved, because we live by mercy.