“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion – without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When one knows that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”
Miroslav Volf: Exclusion and Embrace, 124.
Peace, dwight
It sounds good, but from over here it looks impossible. I would have just left off the statment after “long”, thusly:
“But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long.” Period.
And it also looks difficult enough that it amounts to impossibility to know the things spoken of (so seeminlgy blithely) here:
“When one knows that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim,” and
“when one knows that God’s love is greater than all sin,”
How can one know these things? So far, I cannot.