ForGive? ForGet it! - The Blasphemy of Forgiveness

I think we're missing it. Flat out. I think it was Bonhoffer who said that the church is the only institution that exists for its non-members. If true, what then is the main purpose of her existence? Is it evangelizing the lost? Caring for the widow & orphan? Preaching the GoodNews?

The people of God (the church of Jesus) are to individually and collectively live out the authority of heaven on earth. All authority in heaven and earth was given to Christ. He in turn gave that authority to the apostles & it has been handled down to us who receive God's gift of forgiveness and eternal life through belief in His Son Jesus Christ.

This authority … is it not the authority to forgive? If the 1st century Jewish teachers were correct, only God has the authority to forgive. When Jesus healed a paralyzed man (Matthew 9), He healed as a public statement that He had the authority of God to heal both body and soul. His blasphemous authority was defiantly distributed to His first followers (Matthew 28). Later, His sent one to the non-Jews declared this authority to forgive was fundamentally universal to all believers writing that we are to "forgive as the Lord has forgiven you" (Colossians 3).  This is only possible if we live filled with the Spirit in a single focused humility with limitless amounts of forgiveness (Matthew 18).

So maybe the reason believers are still here after we receive Christ is to be mediums of God's forgiveness to one another and to the world around us. As His body, this then will require us to be sinned against so that we can distribute the grace given us. All else that believers in Christ are to be about somehow fits under this.

forGIVEness. Freely received. Freely given.