Bonhoeffer on Cheap Grace

Anybody that has followed this site is well aware of how influential Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship has been in my life as we have walked through the Sermon on the Mount.  I find many of Bonhoeffer's words timely and desperately need to be heard for Christians today.
Perhaps this isn't more true when it comes to Bonhoeffer's chapter on cheap grace.  The first chapter of this Christian classic (written about 80 years ago) discusses the problem with accepting a cheap gospel, what Bonhoeffer calls cheap grace.  He defines cheap grace as:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.  -44-45

I can think of no better definition than that.   We all want forgiveness, but few of us want to live forgiven.  We all want baptism, but few of us live as if we have been washed.  We all want grace, but few of us want discipleship.  We all want the cross, but few want to die to ourselves.  We all want grace, but we want a cheap grace whereby we deny the incarnation of Christ (and act as if His life and example mean nothing), Hid death (and act as if Hid death meant nothing calling on us to sacrifice all like Him), and His resurrection (and act as if His resurrection meant nothing calling on us to live a new life differently from the old self).

Bonhoeffer begins his book with the following:


Cheap grace is the deadly enemy f our Church.  We are fighting to-day for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares.  The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices.  Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!  The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.  Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite.
 
Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system.  It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God.  An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins . . . no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin.  Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial o the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.
 
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.  Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything an remain as it was before. -43

Let Bonhoeffer's words pierce through our souls.  Have we bought into cheap grace, or a cost grace?  A grace that says everything about God's love and nothing about His holiness?  A grace that says everything about grace and nothing about repentence, regeneration, or conversion?  Or will we accept a more costly grace?  A grace that may cost us our reputations, our desires, our dreams, our wants, our plans, and even our very lives?

One is salvific (the costly grace) the other is damnable (cheap grace).  Bonhoeffer, and I believe Christ, is calling us to reject cheap grace that magnifies the soul over the Savior and accept a more costly grace that humbles the soul and magnifies the Savior.


For more:
Bonhoeffer on Anxiety  
Bonhoeffer on the Golden Rule 
Bonhoeffer on Treasures in Heaven  
Bonhoeffer on Matthew 5:7-9 
Bonhoeffer: The Meaning of Poor In Spirit and the Joy of Being Spiritual Bankrupt
Bonhoeffer:  "By Willing Endurance We Cause Suffering to Pass" 
Weekly Recommendation: "The Cost of Discipleship"
Bonhoeffer: Truth and the Cross

Bonhoeffer on the Golden Rule

I found this interesting from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's pen regarding the Golden Rule.

To sum up: it is clear from the foregoing that the disciple has no special privilege or power of his own in all his intercourse with others.  The mainspring of his life and work is the strength which comes from fellowship with Jesus Christ.  Jesus offers his disciples a simple rule of thumb which will enable even the least sophisticated of them to tell whether this intercourse with others is on the right lines or not.  All he need do is to say ‘I’ instead of ‘Thou,’ and put himself in the other man’s place.  ‘All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets.”  The moment he does that, the disciple forfeits all advantage over other men, and can no longer excuse in himself what he condemns in others.  He is as strict in condemning evil in himself as he was before with others, and as lenient with the evil in others as he was before to himself.  The evil in the other person is exactly the same evil as in ourselves.  There is only one judgment, one law, and one grace.  Henceforth the disciple will look upon other men as forgiven sinners who owe their lives to the love of God.  ‘This is the law and the prophets’ – for this is none other than the supreme commandment: to love God above all things and our neighbours as ourselves. -The Cost of Discipleship, 188.

Bonhoeffer on Anxiety

In his chapter on Matthew 6:19-34, Dietrich Bonhoeffer has some excellent things to say regarding the Christian and anxiety.  Though the following quotes are longer than normal, they are well worth our read.  These are taken from his book The Cost of Discipleship:

They way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day.  By trying to ensure for the next day we are only crating uncertainty to-day.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. The only way to win assurance is by leaving to-morrow entirely in the hands of God and by receiving from him all we need for to-day.  If instead of receiving God’s gifts for to-day we worry about tomorrow, we find ourselves helpless victims of infinite anxiety.  ‘Be not anxious for the morrow’: either that is cruel mockery for the poor and wretched, the very people Jesus is talking to who, humanly speaking, really will starve if they do not make provision to-day.  Either it is an intolerable law, which men will reject with indignation; or it is the unique proclamation of the gospel of the glorious liberty of the children of God, who have a Father in heaven, a Father who has given his beloved Son.  How shall not God with him also freely give us all things?

"Be not anxious for the morrow.’  This is not to be taken as a philosophy of life or a oral law: it is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and only so can it be understood.  Only those who follow him and know him can receive this word as a promise of the love of his Father and as a deliverance from the thraldom of material things.  It is not care that frees the disciples from care, but their faith in Jesus Christ.  Only they know that we cannot be anxious (verse 27).  The coming day, even the coming hour, are placed beyond our control.  It is senseless to pretend that we can make provision because we cannot alter the circumstances of this world.  Only God can take care, for it is he who rules the world.  Since we cannot take care, since we are so completely powerless, we ought not to do it either.  If we do, we are dethroning God and presuming to rule the world ourselves.

But the Christian also knows that he not only cannot and dare not be anxious, but that there is also no need for him to be so.  Neither anxiety nor work can secure his daily bread, for bread is the gift of the Father.  The birds an lilies neither toil nor spin, yet both are fed and clothed and received their daily portion without being anxious for them.  They need earthly goods only for their daily sustenance, and they do not lay up for a store for the future.  This is the way they glorify their Creator, not by their industry, toil or care, but by a daily unquestioning acceptance of his gifts.  Birds and lilies then are an example for the followers of Christ.  ‘Man-in-revolt’ imagines that there is a relation of cause and effect between work and sustenance, but Jesus explodes that illusion.  According to him, bread is not to be valued as the reward for work; he speaks instead of carefree simplicity of the man who walks with him and accepts everything as it comes from God.  -178-179

Anxiety is a gospel issue.  Let us not forget that. If God is provident, then why do we worry?  Worry is for those who have no such God.

Bonhoeffer on Treasures in Heaven

We return once again to Dietrich Bonhoeffer whose book The Cost of Discipleship is insightful and a good read and covers the Sermon on the Mount.  I have mentioned the book before on this site and so I won't go into more detail here (see the links at the bottom for more).  I particularly liked and wanted to highlighted what Bonhoeffer had to say about our text this week, Matthew 6:19-24:


The life of discipleship can only be maintained so long as nothing is allowed to come b/t Christ and ourselves – neither the law, nor personal piety, nor even the world.  The disciple always looks only t his master, never to Christ and the law, Christ and religion.  Christ and the world.  He avoids all such notions like the plague.  Only by following Christ alone can he preserve a single eye.  His eye rests wholly on the light that comes from Christ, and has no darkness or ambiguity in it.  As the ye must be single, clear and pure in order to keep light in the body, as hand and foot can receive light from no other source save the eye, as the foot stumbles and the hand misses its mark when the eye is dim, as the whole body is in darkness when the eye is blind; so the follower of Christ is in the light only so long as he looks simply to Christ and at nothing else in the world.  Thus the heart of the disciple must be set upon Christ alone.  If the eye sees an object which is not there, the whole body is deceived.  If the heart is devoted to the mirage of the world to the creature instead of the Creator, the disciple is lost. -173-174


For more:
Treasures in Heaven and the Great Commission:  An Important and Timely Sermon  
Calvin on Treasures in Heaven 
DC Talk - Things of This World 
Bonhoeffer on Matthew 5:7-9 
Bonhoeffer: The Meaning of Poor In Spirit and the Joy of Being Spiritual Bankrupt
Bonhoeffer:  "By Willing Endurance We Cause Suffering to Pass" 
Weekly Recommendation: "The Cost of Discipleship"
Bonhoeffer: Truth and the Cross

Bonhoeffer: "By Willing Endurance We Cause Suffering to Pass

Here is yet another quote from German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His book, "The Cost of Discipleship" is a classic for good reason. This Sunday we'll be studying Matthew 5:38-42 regarding retaliation. Bonhoeffer makes some good points about why we as Christians refuse to retailate, but instead go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, and give our coat also.

By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy in how own coin, and by preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence. When a man unjustly demands that I should give him my coat, I offer him my cloak also, and so counter his demand; when he requires me to go the other mile, I go willingly, and show up his exploitation of my service for what it is. To leave everything behind at the call of Christ is to be content with him alone, and to follow only him. By his willingly renouncing self-defense, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil. -142


For more:
Free Book!: Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship"
Weekly Recommendation: "The Cost of Discipleship"
Bonhoeffer: Truth and the Cross

Bonhoeffer: Truth and the Cross

I've been studying Sunday mornings text Matthew 5:33-37 regarding oath taking, truthfulness, and integrity and came across the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, "The Cost of Discipleship," that I thought was powerful:

In this question of truthfulness, what matters first and last is that a man's whole being should be exposed, his whole evil laid bare in the sight of God. But sinful men do not like this sort of truthfulness, and they resist it with all their might. That is why they persecute it and crucify it. it is only because we follow Jesus that we can be genuinely truthful, for then he reveals to us our sin upon the cross. The cross is God's truth about us, and therefore it is the only power which can make us truthful. When we know the cross we are no longer afraid of the truth. We need no more oaths to confirm the truth of our utterances, for we live in the perfect truth of God. There is no truth towards Jesus without truth towards man. Untruthfulness destroys fellowship, but truth cuts false fellowship to pieces and establishes genuine brotherhood. We cannot follow Christ unless we live in revealed truth before God and man. -138-139

What is so interesting about this is how Bonhoeffer connects truth telling to the cross. If people do not know if we are telling the truth on life's most trivial issues, how can they believe us when we give them the message of the gospel?


For more:
Free Book!: Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship"
Weekly Recommendation: "The Cost of Discipleship"

Free Book!: Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship"

One of the books I reference each week and have mentioned during church before is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's classic, "The Cost of Discipleship." This was one of the best books I read in seminary and I highly recommend it. Bonhoeffer, executed under Hitler's reign, writes against "cheap grace" and takes his reader through Matthew's Gospel. He spends much of his time in the Sermon on the Mount which we find ourselves walking through each Sunday Morning.

Bonhoeffer's book is available for free online this month in audio form. I have downloaded it and will listen to it frequently. But remember, it is only free during the month of March. Use the coupon code MAR2010. The book is available here.

Bonhoeffer on Matthew 5:7-9

This Sunday we will be looking at Matthew 5:7-9. As I studied this text, I was encouraged and enjoyed reading some of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to say on these verses. Here is a sampling:

Matthew 5:7 - "These men w/o possessions or power, these strangers on earth, these sinners, these followers of Jesus, have in their life with him renounced their own dignity, for they are merciful. As if their own needs and their own distress were not enough, they take upon themselves the distress and humiliation and sin of others . . . For the only honor and dignity they know is their Lord’s own mercy, to which alone they owe their very lives. He was not ashamed of his disciples, he became the brother of mankind and bore their shame unto the death of the cross. This is how Jesus, the crucified, was merciful. His followers owe their lives entirely to that mercy. It makes them forget their own honor and dignity, and seek the society of sinners . . . "Blessed are the merciful, for they have the Merciful for their Lord." (111-112)

Matthew 5:8 - "Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil - and by their own virtues too . . . If men renounce their own good, if in penitence they have renounced their own hearts, if they rely solely upon Jesus, then his words purifies their hearts. Purity of heart is here contrasted with all outward purity, even the purity of high intentions. The pure heart is pure alike of good and evil it belongs exclusively t Christ and looks only to him who goes on before." (112)

Matthew 5:9 - "The followers of Jesus have been called to peace. When he called them they found their peace, for he is their peace. But now they are told that they must not only have pace but make it . . . The peacemakers will carry the cross with their Lord, for it was on the cross that peace was made. Now that they are partners in Christ’s work of reconciliation, they are called the sons of God as he is the Son of God." (112-113)

To Bonhoeffer, in the end, these Beatitudes regarding Sanctification (the doctrine that describes the Christian life as growing in holiness) rooted in the cross. I think he's right. The cross is the center of everything; especially the Chrisitan life and its road to holiness.

For More:
Bonhoeffer: The Meaning of Poor In Spirit and the Joy of Being Spiritual Bankrupt
Weekly Recommendation: "The Cost of Discipleship"

Bonhoeffer: The Meaning of Poor In Spirit and the Joy of Being Spiritual Bankrupt

Sunday morning we will be begin by looking at the subject of joy and we will be looking at the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). The first of 9 "blesseds" regards those who are "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3). While studying what Jesus meant by this, I came across the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, The Cost of Discipleship:

They are poor . . . They have no security, no possession to call their own, not even a foot of earth to call their home, no earthly society to claim their absolute allegiance. Nay more, they have no spiritual power, experience or knowledge to afford them consolation or security. For his sake they have lost all. In following him they lost even their own selves, and everything that could make them rich. Now they are poor -- so inexperienced, so stupid, that they have no other hope but him who called them. -107

I love this quote. It is a good summary of what Jesus means by "blessed are the poor in spirit." Jesus says that those who are truly happy, those who have real joy, are those who are utterly spiritually bankrupt. It is Jesus, and Jesus alone, who can turn things on their head like this. Jesus calls us to recognize that only when we realize that we are already spiritual destitute can find true joy in the gospel of Christ. And it is the poor in the spirit who will "inherit the kingdom of heaven." It is only whenever we acknowledge that we have nothing and yet gain everything that we can be truly happy and live a life of joy.

Weekly Recommendation: "The Cost of Discipleship"

In just a few hours, we will come together and worship our Savior. This week we will be looking at the crucifixion of Christ, the very foundation of Christianity. We will be looking specifically at Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross for Jesus on the way to Christ's execution. And as I was studying (have referenced about 50 books and completely read 3!) I can think of no better book to recommend on the issue of discipleship and its cost than Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship."

Bonhoeffer, who was executed by Hitler, believes that Christianity, and the gospel, has become cheap. He begins his book arguing:

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?...

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before...

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptist without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate...

[Costly] grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly beaus it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner... (43-45)

Bonhoeffer's concern is evident, the gospel is being smothered by cheap grace. And I think he is right. Even today, decades after he wrote this book, the Church continues to preach a message that is simply "joining the team" without any commitment. As I will say in a few short hours, we want forgiveness without repentance, we want mercy without discipleship.

Loved ones, we cannot have one without the other. Bonhoeffer goes on to add that self-denying obedience is demanded of the Christian: "Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes" (63).

Oh that all Christians would heed Bonhoeffer's words who is giving us the words of Christ. Grace is not cheap, it is very costly. It cost God His Son, and it must cost us our lives. We must be willing to give up and forsake all for His Kingdom rather than to expect God to give us all for our Kingdom.