The Disciples Received New Life in Christ

Tuesday, April 01, 2014    

The Disciples Received New Life in Christ

John  20: 19-23

When Jesus appeared to his disciples on the evening of the first day of the week, he gave them the responsibility for taking his message of God’s New Creation to the entire world. When Jesus breathes on them, it invokes memories of Genesis 2:7 where God “breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” Now the disciples have received New Life in Christ.

Because you cannot give responsibility without also delegating authority, Jesus gives his disciples the authority to forgive sins. This delegation of authority immediately follows the imparting of the Holy Spirit. It is not by their own power or wisdom that the disciples will forgive sins. It will be by and through the power of the Holy Spirit. If they are to be granted power to forgive, then they also have the power to not forgive. This is not the power to establish rules about what’s sinful and what is not, as the Pharisees had done with their legislation of Sabbath rules. God’s establishment of His New Creation came by and through the crucifixion of Jesus. It is by the blood of Jesus that sin and death have been defeated.

John has more to say about sin in his three epistles, but for now we do not ever want to lose sight of God’s promise to us through John: “If we confess our sins, (God) who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NRSV). The authority Jesus granted to his disciples, and through them to the church, is for the church to help us not delude ourselves about the issue of sin and thus slip into a state of cheap grace:

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship )

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.