Cheap Grace

Any one of us could benefit by reading the life and history of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  It is one of those accounts that often draws forth the gamut of emotions.  Joy, sorrow, envy, frustration; all of these things can result from learning about what he went through.  Bonhoeffer (as some of you may know) was a renowned Christian scholar and philosopher.  His writings still permeate the mindset of many Christians today, in both the academic realm, as well as the secular world.

It must have been difficult not to like him.  At the age of twenty he wrote a book about the Christian faith that impressed even influential theologian Karl Barth.  In 1935 he helped establish an underground church in the middle of Hitler's rise to power in Germany.  In 1941 he become part of a Jewish rescue operation, smuggling people to safety.  And in 1945, he is eventually executed at the hands of the Nazi party in a concentration camp.  

You get the idea ... he did not believe in soft soaking Christianity.

And this leads us to next discuss one of his most famous books.  'The Cost of Discipleship' was first published by Bonhoeffer in 1937, after his seminary was closed by the Gestapo.  In this book, he writes, "That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs.  Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.  Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves."

Remember that he was writing these words while watching some of the other churches in Germany sell out and follow Hitler.  A godless sort of national socialism was at hand, and many were too afraid (or apathetic) to stand up against it.  Bonhoeffer was not one of those people.

Cheap grace, in this sense, represents  what we often do to comfort ourselves in the midst of sinning.  "Just a few more times disobeying God," we might think, "God will be okay with it, after all, I'm covered under His grace."

It is true, the born again soul is indeed saved by grace through faith.  But let's look at what Jesus has to say about lukewarm living in the book of Revelation.  Rev 3:15-16 says, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!  So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth."  

Here, Jesus reminds us not to waste his grace.  Not to accept the gift of salvation, only to turn around and keep it to ourselves ... never taking a chance, never taking a stand for the God we say we love.  

The stakes were real for Bonhoeffer.  His generation saw one of the most powerful political and military forces of our time search out and destroy people who held God sacred.  Repentance was always the work at hand for the true believer, at least in his opinion.  And repentance is the work of you and I also, even now.  It means simply to turn from sin, and choose what God has to offer us instead.  Easy to write about, difficult to do.  

But there is good news.  We need not repent perfectly all the time.  Hopefully your church teaches this truth alongside the others as well.  When it comes to eliminating sin from our lives, we will need God's help.  Even then, we will drop the ball sometimes (okay, maybe a lot of the time)!  I prefer to think of success through repentance as long term trajectory, rather than perfection.  Sanctification is often a painful and imperfect process as well, as opposed to an impressive dossier to look back at with pride or arrogance.  I hope that understanding the difference between being called to a more perfect life versus being perfect helps you.  I know it has for me.

Faithful living is so much more than an academic adherence to a particular set of doctrines or beliefs.  It's a 'heart thing', not just a head thing.  It is more than the place where good works meet up against solid faith; but rather, it is the place between where those two pillars join together.  It is the ability to trust that God will catch you when you fall, and that no one else can possibly love you the way He does.  The born again believer has this special assurance because of Jesus.  

I pray that we do not take God's grace for granted.  I pray that we don't think or say things like, "I can do whatever I want, and then just ask for forgiveness at the very end."  This is salvation as fire insurance I think.  And if you are living that way, ask God to show you those areas you need to change, and then He can help you going forward.  

We are not all meant to be a Bonhoeffer, or to stand up for our beliefs in a way that gets us martyred.  But we are all called to stand up.  If you belong to God, then you are stamped with His image and likeness.  And that image is not to be trifled with or shelved away.  Instead, allow His goodness to overflow from your heart and out into the world.  Live in such a way that other people talk about you (good or bad), and that they can see the light which is in Christ also resides in you.

We will conclude with a rather famous Scripture from 2 Corinthians 5:17.  It says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"   Be a new creation.  Live up to it, own it.  God's grace is sufficient for you and I; it always has been.  Live into your new freedom in Christ, things go better that way.  It will not always be easy, but it will not be 'cheap.'  Costly grace feels different - and it looks different also.

But don't catch yourself trying to be the perfect penitent, as there was only one of those.  Jesus shows us how to live, we follow Him through the Spirit, and God works it out in the end.  Cheap grace is a waste of time.  God's crucified Son died for so much more than that.  Now go embrace your life as a new creation ... there is nothing "cheap" about you. 




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