Luke 23:34
And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. And dividing His garments, they cast a lot.
1 Corinthians 2:8
which none of the rulers of this age has known. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
John 8:19
Then they said to Him, Where is Your father? Jesus answered, You neither know Me, nor My Father. If you had known Me, then you also would have known My Father.
Why didn’t the rulers of this world that crucified Jesus Christ know who He was. The following scriptures tell us why. The scriptures tell us they lacked knowledge and God predetermined all that comes to pass Matthew 11:27 Acts 2:23 Acts 4:27-28
27 All things were given over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and to whomever the Son purposes to reveal Him.
Acts 2:23
this One given up by the before-determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you having taken by lawless hands, having crucified Him, you killed Him.
Acts 4:26-28
The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were assembled on the same day against the Lord, and against His Anointed One.” Psa. 2:1, 2
27 For on a truth both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the nations and the peoples of Israel, were assembled against Your holy Servant, Jesus, whom You anointed,
28 to do as many things as Your hand and Your purpose before determined to occur.
Comment
The natural man, the descendant of fallen Adam, needs God the Father to shine into the heart the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6, John 3:3,5,8
The rulers of this world that crucified Jesus Christ had not received from God the Father the shining into the heart of the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ because if they had received the knowledge, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.
1 Corinthians 2:8
Romans 3:10-12
10 according as it is written, “There is not a righteous one, not even one!”
11 “There is not one understanding, there is not one seeking God.”
12 All turned aside; together they became worthless, not one is doing goodness
Psalm 14:2-3
2 Jehovah looked down from Heaven on the sons of mankind, to see if there was one considering and seeking God:
3 all have turned aside; together they are corrupt; not one is doing good, not even one!
Comment
Those that have not come to the knowledge and belief of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through generation from above, cannot please God or do anything good or pleasing to God. All their thoughts, words and deeds are fruit unto death. Romans 7:5 John 3,3,5,8
The spiritually dead sons of mankind, the descendants of fallen Adam, are all sons of Satan.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through the work and person of Jesus Christ Romans 3:23 Romans 6:23 Romans 3:24-27
John 8:44 1 Timothy 2:4
Hebrews 11:6 Genesis 2:17 Ephesians 1 Ephesians 2 1 Corinthians 2:14
Romans 1:16-17 Romans 3 Romans 4
Jesus said there is only one good, God. This means that only the Holy Spirit is good and because natural man is not in dwelt with the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Christ unto belief of the gospel of Christ that salvation is conditioned solely on His atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness alone, he cannot do anything pleasing to God and does not belong to Him.
Isaiah 45:24 Romans 8:9
How do we know that natural man does not have the Spirit of God dwelling in him? It is because he thinks the efficacious Cross of Christ is foolishness and the Cross did not accomplish anything in and of itself without the help of man; but yet the scripture says no one seeks after the True God or understands and he thinks the efficacious Cross of Christ is foolishness . The natural man believes he is able to achieve a righteousness sufficient to please God outside of believing the Gospel of Christ . Romans 3:10-12 Luke 13:11
In other words, the natural man doesn’t believe The Work of the Cross of Christ guaranteed anyone’s salvation. He believes man must perform a self generated free will act of faith toward God of believing the Gospel of Christ; but the scripture says in John 6:65 that no one comes to Jesus unless it is given by the Father. You won’t come to the true Jesus unless you believe the true Gospel that salvation is conditioned on His work and person alone; and The verse John 6:29 tells us that belief into the Son of God is the work of God.
John 6:29
Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe into
Him whom that One sent.
Luke 18:19 Ephesians 2:8-10 Romans 3, Romans 4, John 6:37-44 John 6:65 John 3:27 1 Corinthians 3:11
Natural man does not love the Gospel of Christ. His self generated appraised righteousness is a filthy menstrual cloth in God’s eyes without the love of the truth. Isaiah 64:6 1 Corinthians 1:18 2 Thessalonians 2:10 John 8:37
John 8:34-37
34 Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Everyone practicing sin is a slave of sin.
35 But the slave does not remain into the house to the age; the son remains to the age.
36 Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.
37 I know that you are Abraham’s seed, but you seek to kill Me, because My Word is not given place in you.
John 8:43-44
43 Why do you not know My speech? It is because you are not able to hear My Word.
44 You are of the devil as father, and the lusts of your father you desire to do. That one was a murderer from the beginning,
John 3:20
20 For everyone practicing wickedness hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, that his works may not be exposed.
Any work or effort generated from the self without it being produced out of the love and understanding of the Cross and Jesus Christ through the spirit, is looked upon by God as fruit unto death
It is impossible to please God without Faith in the Gospel of Christ and No one believes the Gospel of Christ unless they are generated from above and given a new heart and new spirit by the Sovereign Will of God.
John 3:8
The Spirit breathes where He desires, and you hear His voice; but you do not know from where He comes, and where He goes; so is everyone having been generated from the Spirit.
John 3:3,5,8 Hebrews 11:6
Romans 10:1-4
¶ Brothers, truly my heart’s pleasure and supplication to God on behalf of Israel is unto salvation.
2 For I testify to them that they have zeal to God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For not knowing the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God.
4 For the end of the law is Christ for righ- teousness to everyone that believes.
Comment
The unsaved Israelites that the apostle Paul was praying for did not know and submit to the righteousness of God in Christ’s work and person. They were seeking to establish their own righteousness to gain favor and salvation with God. They had zeal towards God; but lacked the knowledge of the righteousness of God in Christ and failed to submit to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.
They didn’t know that salvation was a gift conditioned on Christ’s work and person alone without any contribution or effort from those that Christ represented on the cross and that God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. Romans 9:15,16,18
1 Corinthians 1:17-27
17 ¶ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be nullified.
1 Corinthians 1:18
18 For the Word of the cross is foolishness to the ones perishing, but to us being saved it is the power of God.
19 For it has been written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the understanding ones.” Isaiah 29:14
20 Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Did God not make the wisdom of this world to be foolish?
21 For since in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom did not know God, God was pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save the ones believing.
22 And since Jews ask for a sign, and Greeks seek wisdom,
23 we, on the other hand, preach Christ crucified (truly a stumbling block to Jews, and a pitfall to Greeks),
24 but to them, the ones called, both to Jews and to Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God;
25 because the foolish thing of God is wiser than men, and the weak thing of God is stronger than men.
26 For you see your calling, brothers, that there are not many wise ones according to flesh, not many powerful ones, not many wellborn ones.
27 But God chose the foolish things of the world that the wise might be put to shame, and God chose the weak things of the world so that He might put to shame the strong (things)
Romans 4:6-8
6. Even as also David says of the blessing of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are they whose lawlessnesses have been remitted, and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”
1 Corinthians 2:14
14 But a natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Comment
“The things of the Spirit of God”are spiritually discerned. Since, only those that have the Spirit of Christ can spiritually discern, the natural man must be void of the Spirit of Christ; since he cannot spiritually discern spiritual things.
1 John 2:15-18
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,
16 because everything in the world: the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
17 And the world is passing away, and its lust. But the one doing the will of God abides unto the age.
18 ¶ Little children, it is a last hour, and as you heard that the antichrist is coming to be, even now many antichrists have come to be, from which you know that it is a last hour.
John 10: 14-15
14 I am the Good Shepherd, and I know those that are Mine, and I am known by the ones that are Mine.
15 Even as the Father knows Me, I also know the Father; and I lay down My life on behalf of the sheep.
John 10:26
But you do not believe, for you are not of My sheep, even as I said to you.
Matthew 11:25
25 Answering at that time, Jesus said, I praise You, Father, Lord of Heaven and of earth, because You hid these things from the sophisticated and learned ones and revealed them to babes
Matthew 11:26
26 Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing before You.
Matthew 11:27
.
27 All things were given over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son ex- cept the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and to whomever the Son purposes to reveal Him.
Galatians 1:15-16
But when God was pleased, He having separated me from my mother’s womb, and having called me through His grace, Isa. 49:1
16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the nations, imme- diately I did not confer with flesh and blood,
Comment
In the above 2 verses the Apostle Paul gives glory to God for his salvation. He acknowledges that it is God that shined into his heart the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
John 6:37-44
All who the Father gives to Me shall come to Me, and the one coming to Me I will not cast out, not ever,
38 for I have come down out of Heaven, not that I should do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
39 And this is the will of the Father send- ing Me, that of all that He has given Me, I shall not lose any of it, but shall raise it up in the last day.
40 And this is the will of the One having sent Me, that everyone seeing the Son and believing into Him should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
41 Therefore the Jews murmured about Him, because He said, I am the Bread coming down out of Heaven.
42 And they said, Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, of whom we know the father and the mother? How, then, does this One now say, I have come down out of Heaven?
43 Therefore Jesus answered and said to them, Do not murmur with one another.
44 No one is able to come to Me if not the Father, the One having sent Me, draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day.
John 6:65
65 And He said, Because of this, I have told you that no one is able to come to Me if it is not given to him from My Father.
John 17:1-3
¶ Jesus spoke these things and lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may also glorify You,
2 Even as You gave to Him authority over all flesh, so that to all which You gave to Him, He may give to them everlasting life.
John 17:3
And this is everlasting life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the One whom You sent.
John 3:3,5,8
3 Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, If one is not generated from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.
5 Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, If one is not generated out of water and Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God.
8 The Spirit breathes where He desires, and you hear His voice; but you do not know from where He comes, and where He goes; so is everyone having been generated from the Spirit.
Matthew 16:13-18
¶ And Jesus coming into the parts of Caesarea of Philip, He questioned His disciples, saying, Whom do men say Me the Son of Man to be?
14 And they said, Some say John the Baptist, and others Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
15 He said to them, But you, whom do you say Me to be?
16 And answering, Simon Peter said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And answering, Jesus said to him, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father in Heaven.
18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against her.
2 Corinthians 4:6
Because it is God who said, “Out of darkness Light shall shine,” the One who shone in our hearts to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Isa. 42:6, 7,
Comment
It is God who shines into the heart the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ that salvation for His people is conditioned solely on Jesus Christ’s atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness alone without any contributing effort or work from those being saved who were chosen from before the foundation of the world according to the counsel of His Will according to purpose. Ephesians 1, Ephesians 2 Romans 8:28-30 2 Thessalonians 2:13 Romans 9
He gives them a new heart and a new spirit from above unto belief of the Gospel of Christ. They will love Him and keep His commandments because He first loved them and gave himself for them. 1 John 4:10 John 14:15-31 Ezekiel 36:26
Jesus Christ provided a righteousness apart from Law for His people; the perfect propitiatory sacrifice that satisfied God’s law and justice which removed God’s anger toward His people for their sin. God is a just God and a savior satisfying the perfection of God’s character of Love, justice and righteousness; becoming His people’s substitute in punishment and righteousness. He declares them righteous; justifying them based upon His righteousness which He imputes to their account.
He redeems them from the family of Satan. He regenerates them and preserves them from regeneration to final glorification at His return when He gives them a new sinless glorified spiritual body. His people will worship Him throughout eternity in the new heaven and new earth because of what He did for them. They know He is the only giver of all good and perfect gifts from above. James 1:17
His people know that their righteousness is a filthy menstrual cloth and only God is good; and The One being in the bosom of the Father declared Him.
They beg for mercy to the One who gives mercy to whom He wills.
Comment
Here are 3 examples of God generating from above a new heart and a new spirit bringing forth the knowledge of the worthlessness of self righteousness and the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; the salvation of His people conditioned on His atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness alone; along with 1 example of a self righteous person seeking to establish his own righteousness not knowing or submitting to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.
Example 1
Luke 7:37
37 And, behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, knowing that He reclined in the Pharisee’s house, taking an alabaster vial of ointment,
38 and standing by His feet, weeping be- hind Him, she began to wash His feet with tears. And she was wiping with the hairs of her head. And she ardently kissed His feet and was anointing them with the ointment
Luke 7:44-48
And turning to the woman, He said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give water for My feet, but she washed My feet with tears and wiped them off with the hairs of her head.
45 You gave Me no kiss, but she from when I entered did not stop fervently kiss- ing My feet.
46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with ointment.
47 For this reason I say to you, Her many sins are remitted, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, he loves little.
48 And He said to her, Your sins are re- mitted.
Comment
Her sins were many and she knew it. She knew that her righteousness was a filthy menstrual cloth and she knew the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ because God had shined into her heart the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ . Her showering Jesus with very costly ointment was a demonstration of the worth she found resting her being in the holy and righteous Lord of all creation.
Example 2
Luke 13:9-14
And He also spoke this parable to some of those relying on themselves, that they are righteous, and despising the rest:
10 Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee was standing, praying these things to himself: God, I thank You that I am not as the rest of men, rapacious ones, unrighteous ones, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
Luke 18:13-14
13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but smote on his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner!
14 I say to you, This one went down to his house having been justified, rather than that one. For everyone exalting himself will be humbled. And the one humbling him- self will be exalted
Example 3
Matthew 27:44
44 And also the plunderers crucified with Him defamed Him, saying the same.
Comment
Both plunderers, one on the right side and one on the left side started out defaming and mocking Jesus. They did not acknowledge their unrighteousness and did not submit to the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ; but in the scriptures below you will read how one plunderer changed his mind and eventually rebuked the other plunderer who continued mocking Jesus as the Son of God.
One plunderer was generated a new from above. He changed his mind and acknowledged his unrighteousness and submitted to the righteousness of God in Christ as Lord of all; while the other continued in his hatred of the true and living God.
Luke 23:39-42
39 And one of the hanged criminals blas- phemed Him, saying, If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.
40 But answering, the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, for you are in the same judgment?
41 And we indeed justly, for we receive things worthy of what we did. But this One did nothing amiss.
42 And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come in Your kingdom.
43 And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you will be with Me in Paradise.
Comment
No one will come to the true Jesus Christ unless the Father drags them. The Father is the one that gives those He draws or drags to Jesus. They are the ones who come to Jesus ; and no one will come without believing the true Gospel that salvation is based on Jesus Christ’s atoning shed blood and His imputed righteousness alone; and no one will come unless it is given to them by the Father. John 6:65 John 6:44 John 5:39 John 6:37-44
Once again, No one will come to Jesus unless The Father draws or drags him. The Drawing or Dragging is a metaphorical verb expressing how contrary to spiritual things the nature of man is and it demonstrates that move of coming to Jesus is an act of God in order for a change of direction to occur.
Therefore, unless the Father gives understanding and belief into the work and person of Jesus Christ upon hearing the Gospel of Christ through regeneration from above, no one will come to Jesus knowing the truth of the Gospel of Salvation by Grace alone through the work and person of Jesus Christ alone and that their righteousness is a filthy menstrual cloth; a righteousness insufficient to dwell with a holy and righteous God.
Ephesians 2:8-10 John 3:3,5,8 John 6:47 John 6:37-44 Romans 1:16-17 Romans 3:19-27 Acts 4:12 John 14:6 2 Thessalonians 2:13
The scripture says no one is able to come to Jesus unless it is given to him by The Father; Therefore, if no one wills to come and if no one comes unless they believe into Jesus, then the belief and faith into Jesus’ work and person as the only grounds for salvation must be given by the Father. The Father must give that which causes one to come to the only source of eternal life.
This is confirmed by “ Jesus answered and said This is the work of God that you believe into whom that One sent” John 6:29
Matthew 11:27–30
27 All things were given over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and to whomever the Son purposes to reveal Him.
28 Come to Me, all those laboring and being burdened, and I will give you rest.
29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, because I am meek and lowly in heart, “and you will find rest to your souls.” Jer. 6:16
30 For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light
John 6:47
Truly, truly, I say to you, The one believing into Me has everlasting life.
Scripture taken from the literal translation KJ3 Sgpbooks.com
All highlights, comments and italics are added for emphasis
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