Bonhoeffer: Cheap Grace and the Bloody Cross

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved…..For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

~ Ephesians 2: 4, 5, 8-10

“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.  For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.  The law was added so that the trespass might increase.  But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means!  We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  We were therefore buried with Hi through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

~ Romans 5: 18 -21; 6: 1-4

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship” starts with a chapter entitled “Costly Grace.”  In it, he rales against “cheap grace”—a grace dumped out by the church with no strings attached, as if because it cost us nothing it is therefore worth nothing.  “In such a Church [dispensing cheap grace] the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin….Cheap grace means the justification of sin without justification of the sinner.  Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.”  

1)      Contemplate your attitude toward the forgiveness you have in Christ Jesus—the fact that, through Him, your sins are forgiven and you are righteous in God’s sight.   Do you intentionally contemplate the magnitude of God’s love demonstrated to you in Christ?  Or is this something you take for granted, something you rarely stop to consider in depth—do you fall into the mindset of “cheap grace”?

2)      Consider Bonhoeffer’s phrase “justification of sin without justification of the sinner.”  Calling something “sin” or someone a “sinner” is either done cavalierly in our modern world, or it is held as deeply offensive—as unkind, intolerant, judgmental.   We love to have our favorite sins justified—declared as OK, just fine, no big deal.  What are the implications if we want our sins justified, but we do not want to be called sinners?  

Romans 3: 21-26 tells us that we are declared righteous in a way that is separate from obedience to the law, through faith in Christ Jesus; we are justified “through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood.”   The image of our wounded, bloody Savior nailed to the cross and dying is one that populates hymns, artwork and poetry throughout Christendom.  The hymn “In Christ alone” has these words “And as He stands in victory, Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me; For I am His and He is mine—Bought with the precious blood of Christ.”   Christ Jesus lived a perfect life and allowed Himself to be cruelly tortured then slaughtered on the cross in an agony of both physical pain and abandonment.  Hebrews chapters 9 and 10 describe the sacrificial death of Christ as infinitely more powerful and effective than past sacrifices involving the blood of goats and bulls.  Hebrews 9: 22 reiterates what was declared in Leviticus 17: 11, that the forgiveness of sins requires the shedding of blood.  The blood of Christ, Son of God, was the cost of our salvation.   

3)      What is your tendency—do you shy away from thoughts of the wounded Christ Jesus and His sacrificial death on the cross?  Or do you contemplate Christ’ death in various contexts—when confessing faith in His saving works or confessing your sin? 

4)      There is a trend in modern “Christianity” to minimize the blood and sacrifice of Christ; to perceive it as too gory, too ugly, too brutal, too cruel, to be part of our understanding of a loving God.   How does this perception cheapen God’s grace?  If Christ’s death is “too” anything, how does that minimize sin and the price which was required to pay for it?

Bonhoeffer states that “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.”

5)      In 1 Timothy 1: 15, the apostle Paul declares that “Christ came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst.” It is this verse that inspired the hymn “Chief of sinners though I be [Jesus shed his blood for me.]” 1 John 1: 8-9 warns us against claiming we have no sin, and reminds us to instead confess our sins and to be forgiven.  Even in the secular world of psychotherapy and self-help, it is common to hear the phrase “the first step is acknowledging that you have a problem.”  How can regular self-reflection and confession of your sin and sinfulness before God combat the tendency to treat God’s grace as cheap?

6)      When He shared His last supper with His disciples, Jesus declared “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me….This cup is the new covenant in my blood…” (See 1 Corinthians 11: 23ff, also Matthew26: 17ff).  How frequently do you receive Communion, in obedience to Christ’s command to “do this in remembrance of [Him]”?  How can regular receipt of His holy supper, with a humble, repentant and contemplative mindset, combat our human tendency toward “cheap grace”?