Jesus forgiving sins prior to Passion

[JaKael02]

How can Jesus forgive sins prior to his redemption on the Cross? I understand he is God, but if sins are being forgiven prior to the redemption, would the redemption have less meaning?

What am I missing here?

Thank you!!

 

[CalCatholic]

Jesus forgives the sins of others (before his passion and resurrection) throughout the Gospels, because he is the Son of God and is God!

 

[JaKael02]

I understand he is God. But if he can forgive sins prior to his redemption, why experience the redemption? What value is the redemption if sins are already able to be forgiven?

Thank you.

 

[CalCatholic]

In Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus tells the criminal who was crucified next to him, “I assure you: this day you will be with me in paradise” he is forgiving his sins, but his sins only. Jesus crucifixion and resurrection cleanses the rest of us of our ‘original sin.’

 

[JerryZ]

He IS GOD,

He knew His role from the moment He incarnated in the Virgin Mary. He came down from Heaven to be sacrificed at Calgary in remission of our sins and restore us to the Father.

At Canaaa when He performed His first miracle, He gives us a hint, when He said “my moment has not yet arrived”.

To God; past, present and future are of no consequence. This is why you can “pray” to God for mercy on someone long dead before today when you prayed.
Also let’s say you leave in your will a request to your grandchildren to pray for your great grand father, and let’s say they honour your request, those prayers from your perspective are in the future (yours), but are affecting yours and theirs past.

However since God sees all as now, He can respond to your and your grandchildren request.

This very same principle also applies to Jesus. He could forgive sins commited BEFORE HE dies on the Cross and we are told HE applied His mercy to those that had died in friendship with the Lord going back to Adam and Eve. Hence He descended into the holding place to free those souls and take them to Heaven.

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[ClearWater]

This very same principle also applies to Jesus. He could forgive sins commited BEFORE HE dies on the Cross and we are told HE applied His mercy to those that had died in friendship with the Lord going back to Adam and Eve. Hence He descended into the holding place to free those souls and take them to Heaven.

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I feel like I’m in the episode of StarTrek when there was an explosion of time with antitime! lol

Padre Pio believed time was the all the same for God…past, present, and future, to a point Padre Pio once prayed for someone (who had already died) to have a good death!

 

[rogertheobald]

I think the simplest way to think of it is the way we were always taught from our younger days. Before Christ’s Death and resurrection the “Gates” of Heaven were not open to us. This is why the “righteous” dead were still waiting (in “prison”) and Jesus went to them after his death (“he descended into hell”)

I would think those whose sins were forgiven, had they died prior to him, would have been waiting with the other dead for the opening of the gates.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

JaKael02;
How can Jesus forgive sins prior to his redemption on the Cross?

Before the creation of the universe, did God have a plan, was the life, death and resurrection planned before creation began?

If the answer is yes, then redemption was planned before creation began, for God all things are possible,

 

[JerryZ]

Before the creation of the universe, did God have a plan, was the life, death and resurrection planned before creation began?

If the answer is yes, then redemption was planned before creation began, for God all things are possible,

Omniscience requires just that,

The coming of Jesus because of the sin of Adam was always Plan A for God.

–

 

[Loving_disciple]

I understand he is God. But if he can forgive sins prior to his redemption, why experience the redemption? What value is the redemption if sins are already able to be forgiven?

Thank you.

Because by doing this all humans have their sins forgiven. Also dying on the cross allows us to go to heaven. Before Jesus death no one went to heaven even those whose sin where forgiven

 

[JaKael02]

Thanks guys, this helps clear up that question. Soometimes I gotta go back to the basics to understand things again.

 

[Fidelis]

No need for time-travel explanations here. Jesus’ act of sacrifice on the Cross was THE act of redemption that made possible our salvation.

Jesus did indeed people forgive their sins. All of us can forgive those who sin against us, but since he was God, as was noted above, he could do this in a vastly superior way. His forgiving the sins of individuals while he was on earth, however, does not mean they were definitively saved at that point, just that their sins were forgiven at that time. For all we know, they could have sinned afterward and not been saved.

Salvation ultimately comes by the Cross of Christ and by our placing our faith in him and perseverance in our obedience to him as Lord and Savior.

 

[bmonk]

Sin is an offense (primarily) against God. As such, being God, Jesus can forgive sins. This is what the scribes and Pharisees were offended at–that a mere human claimed to forgive sins, outside of the “officially sanctioned” methods from the Torah.

There may seem to be a problem in that Jesus has not yet made his saving sacrifice on the cross, but that, to me, gets too much into dividing up and finding where exactly this or that happened. We Catholics tend to do this, for example, when we ask, “How much of the Mass is a minimum to count as attending Mass?” (Old answer: if you arrive before the Gospel, and stay through the Consecration, or maybe Communion. On the other hand, if you are really intent on an intimate relationship with God, the whole question is odd: would you ask “What’s the minimum time I can spend with my friend for it to count”?)

Jesus taking on human nature in the incarnation, all the way to his Passion and resurrection, is one movement of salvation, including forgiveness of sins. He came to forgive sins and restore us to life in God, to bring the Kingdom of God alive on Earth. All of that is found in all that he did, to greater or lesser extent. If he forgave sins a short time before he suffered for sins, is that any more amazing than that we can still partake of his sacrifice here, thousands of miles away, and thousands of years later?