Costly Grace
"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church."
This chapter struck my heart in so many ways. I often look at two different extremes in thinking and rank which extreme is worse; however, the reality is that any value or belief that I hold to be true that is not centered in God's word, is false. Cheap grace is just as dangerous as salvation by works.
Depending on our backgrounds, we may be nervous to make that statement. Our past experience may have been filled with legalism, "dos and don'ts", and outward signs of "looking Christian" and the day we found that there was nothing we could do in our own power to earn our salvation was a great day of freedom and a beautiful revelation of God's grace. Or...maybe our past experience was filled attending seeker sensitive churches, church was nothing more then a social gathering where people plastered on fake smiles, no sense of authentic and real relationships and the day we discovered that we had purpose and mission was a day of great awakening for our soul.
The pendulum seems to be going back in the direction of "grace." But I can hardly call it grace, because it is a cheap grace. It seems to me that a generation looked at the church and said, "we are sick of legalism" and instead of going to God's word to define what it means to be a disciple of Christ, we simply spurned a movement in opposition to the current trend. The results are devastating. The recurring theme to me from reading this chapter was that cheap grace and salvation by works both...equally, desecrate the beautiful work of the cross.
"Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness which frees us from the toils of sin."
I confess that I have been guilty of seeing grace as an abstract concept, a beautiful, artistic idea and not as something concrete that changes the core and essence of who I am and what I am called to do. What type of salvation are we offering people if we are not offering them a salvation from their toils of sin? If we really believe that sin is as deadly as we say it is, then we need to make sure we explain a grace that really is something that leads to change. We do a disservice to our fellow brothers and sisters when we depict grace as something that gets us into heaven (making that the beginning, middle, and end of salvation)...praise God that grace offers us a life where we can take part in God's kingdom right now, here on earth!
Too often I wake up, go through my day, and go to bed fully knowing that God's grace saves me without giving thought to what this means as a disciple of his. My heart was broken as I read this chapter and realized how little sacredness I often put on "grace" and to know that I too...in my own relationship with Christ...have cheapened God's great gift to me.
Bonhoefer asks the question, "what are those three thousand Saxtons put to death by Charlemange compared with the million of spiritual corpses in our country today?" Almost 70 years later, the question haunts me.
The last paragraph paints a beautiful picture of God's amazing grace. God's ways are so opposite of the way the world would expect/think. It is in pouring ourselves out completely and fully following Christ that we are filled completely and fully. It is only in God's kingdom that you become whole through brokenness. Only in following Christ are you filled with a greater understanding of grace and mercy as you become a disciple in the truest sense.
Discussion:
I loved how Bonehofer integrates grace and discipleship. I think these two words were synonymous for Bonehofer. This is what I would like us to discuss.
Do we act like these are synonyms? Do we live out our daily life truly believing that being a disciple is a reflection of truly understanding God's grace?
posted by thankful4adoption.blogspot.com @ 6:15 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Not sure what happened, but that last post was me (Dennis, your Dad)
OK,now that I've actually read the chapter I have a few more observations.
Bonhoeffer discusses his concern that monastacism,rather than leading to a deeper more obedient church,had led to secularization of the church. This was a result of people taking the attitude that they were fine spritually,because they were part of a church that had these super-spiritual people who had totally devoted themselves to God. They felt they somehow had delegated the work of Christianity and Discipleship to these people and they could take credit for it. Do we have an element of that today with the church's delegation mentality toward professional ministry? Do we have these people who have this "Higher Call", so we can go on with our secular lives and leave the super-spiritual stuff to them?
Another concept he expresses is the idea of grace as an "answer" as opposed to grace as "data" regarding our condition. When grace is viewed as mere data, it is something that covers sin. When it is the answer, it is the thing that not only brings forgiveness, but deliverence, power to overcome, true justification.
Grace is a gift that we receive by faith. Like any gift, we can fully use it, or we can stick it in a closet somewhere and just know we have it. If I gave you a brand new car and you stuck it in a garage and never drove it, you would still have the gift, it would still be yours, but how has it changed your life. You're still walking and riding the bus. Still can't go places because you have no way to get there. Meanwhile you have a beautiful new car sitting in the garage.
"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
It's only reasonable! Let's be transformed!
makes me think of the great hymn "when I survey the wondrous cross"...
"love so amazing, so divine
demands my soul
my life
my all"
Absolutely amazing.
I identified with this part so much:
"Perhaps we had once heard the gracious call to follow him, and had at this command even taken the first few steps along the path of discipleship in the discipline of obedience, only to find ourselves confronted by the word of cheap grace. Was that not merciless and hard? The only effect that such a word could have on us was to bar our way to progress, and seduce us to the mediocre level of the world, quenching the joy of discipleship by telling us that we were following a way of our own choosing, that we were spending our strength and disciplining ourselves in vain--all of which was not merely useless, but extremely dangerous. After all, we were told, our salvation had already been accomplished by the grace of God."
My, oh my...how grateful I am for the birth of this book discussion. For the last couple months I have been "confronted by the word of cheap grace." As my understanding of how extreme God's call grew, the idea of cheap grace certainly was tempting. The pendulum has been swinging in my own life: one phase to the side of works, the other to grace. But, like you said, both equally desecrate the beautiful work of the cross. Both are false, neither of the two extremes being the true, costly grace Bonhoeffer speaks of.
As of late, the recurring theme in my life has been truly comprehending and acknowledging the fact that I am supposed to be dead, that my life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3). And that means that I have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24), that it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). In the midst of all this, an example of being on the far side of works: I hear from a street preacher that we are expected to live perfectly moral lives after accepting grace.
Then I read in Romans 7 about Paul struggling with sin:
"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."
(Romans 7:15-25 ESV)
Now, where is the balance? Lord, as we meet together and discuss true grace, be with us! Help not just me, but all understand what it means to be free from sin, to crucify selfish desires to make way for Your heart. Let us also be satisfied if our search ends in recognizing mystery, that we may never fully know how it all works. Again, I am so thankful that we have started this before I had "laid hold on cheap grace," or for that matter, the concept of salvation by works. I am so excited for this opportunity to deepen my understanding!
But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
(Romans 6:21, 22 ESV)
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
(Colossians 3:1-3 ESV)
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
(Galatians 2:20 ESV)
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
(Galatians 5:24 ESV)
I agree with Dennis that one of the key observations of Bonhoeffer is the "data" vs. "answer" view of grace. God's grace is the ANSWER, the CONCLUSION to the whole work of God in Jesus Christ incarnate, crucified, and resurrected, not the "data" or starting point.
So often however we make grace the "data" though by starting with this idea: God's love you, you are God's child and creature. In reality however this is something that someone apart from Jesus Christ CANNOT say. God does not love them and they are not His children, they are under His wrath and judgment in their rebellion, they are "objects of wrath" as Paul states so boldly. I can ONLY speak of God's love, acceptance, and my childhood before Him IN Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ that is nothing but lies which ignore the true depth and reality of my sin. But IN Christ Jesus it is the answer, the final conclusion to all the work that Jesus Christ did on my behalf.
Only in the light of God's law and wrath which stand against my complete wretchedness and depravity can the true answer of God's grace be reached in Jesus Christ incarnate, crucified, and risen FOR ME.
Eddie, I love your thoughts and expecially the passages of scripture. Especially the first one...how powerful to think that we are "slaves of God" what does that mean and what does that look like in our every day lives?
Luke, your words are very powerful. Those thoughts should put a fear within us to submit all of ourselves to our Lord in humble obedience.
Eddie, I love your thoughts and expecially the passages of scripture. Especially the first one...how powerful to think that we are "slaves of God" what does that mean and what does that look like in our every day lives?
Luke, your words are very powerful. Those thoughts should put a fear within us to submit all of ourselves to our Lord in humble obedience.
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