This was such an amazing post. Moving.
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
The only thing I might be tempted to add is that, in addition to forgetting the past, you have to forget your fears about the future.
Confound this dissertation! Appropriating Nietzsche is one of the big items on my research agenda, and now Leithart is going to steal my thunder!
A few years ago I had a chance to teach during an evening service and I took a very similiar train of thought on the subject of forgiveness (in the context of how to love one’s enemies). Our amnesis of evil suffered is overcoming evil with good (Rom 12:21). We can allow our Inner Moral Bookkeeper and Recorder of Offenses to die because all things are raised in the anamnesis of Christ. I.e., There is now no condemnation. The outrage of forgetting is more than equaled by the outrage of our own acceptance by the Father.
The Luther in Nietzsche is, unfortunately, historically immature. Nietzsche’s hatred of Paul is seen through a filter of cheap grace and it might be worth reconsidering Nietzsche in light of 20th century and ongoing historical scholarship. I think he gets grace and he doesn’t even know it.