Bonhoeffer: The Narrow Way and Good Fruit

In Chapters 19 and 20, Bonhoeffer ends his discussion of Matthew 7 and ends the second section of The Cost of Discipleship.  The chapters, titled The Great Divide and The Conclusion, cover Matthew 7: 13 – 25, where Jesus discusses the narrow way; the bearing of fruit as proof of discipleship; and the wise man who builds his house on the rock [of Christ’s words].  Bonhoeffer writes about the narrow way.

“The path of discipleship is narrow and it is fatally easy to miss one’s way and stray from the path, even after years of discipleship.  And it is hard to find….To be called to a life of extraordinary quality, to live up to it, and yet to be unconscious of it…to confess and testify to the truth as it is in Jesus, and at the same time to love the enemies of that truth...with the infinite love of Jesus Christ….to believe the promises of Jesus that His followers shall possess the earth, and at the same time to face our enemies unarmed and defenseless, preferring to incur injustice rather than to do wrong ourselves….to see the weakness and wrong in others, and at the same time refrain from judging them; to deliver the gospel message without casting pearls before swine is indeed the narrow way.”

“For He is Himself the way, the narrow way and the straight gate.  He, and He alone, is our journey’s end….The way which the Son of God trod on earth, and the way which we too must tread as citizens of two worlds on the razor edge between this world and the kingdom of heaven, could hardly be a broad way.” 

Bonhoeffer writes intentionally of the narrowness of the way of faith. It would be easy for this narrative then to turn into a pietistic list of all the ways not to fall off the narrow way, a list of ways we can ensure we save ourselves.  Instead, appropriately so, Bonhoeffer reminds us that the walking of the narrow way is not a command that we obey in our own power; it is that we behold and follow Jesus Christ for “He is Himself the way, the narrow way and the straight gate.  He, and He alone, is our journey’s end.” 

This is exactly what Jesus Himself told His disciples their last night together before crucifixion, recorded in John 14: 6, where He says “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  Later in John 14: 23ff, Jesus says “If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching.  My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.  These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father Who sent me.”  It is also in John 14 that Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will be sent, the Counselor and Spirit of truth, who will teach and remind the disciples of all things.

Earlier in John 10: 9, Jesus describes Himself “I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved.”  In the John 10 passage, Jesus is using an analogy of a shepherd and sheep, and how sheep know and follow the voice of the true Shepherd and ignore the voice of the false; the true Shepherd leads the flock to good pastures and is willing to sacrifice Himself for the safety of the sheep. 

Jesus is the path, the gate, the narrow way to eternal life.  We “fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith….” (Hebrews 12:2) and in that way we remain on the narrow way. We listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd, we abide and remain in Him in faith and obedience.  How do we—in this era, this age, separated in time from the physical appearing of Christ—hear His voice?  We read and study His Word, the Word of God in scripture—Old and New Testament, all of Scriptures which testifies of Christ Jesus (John 5: 37-40) and which is God-breathed, useful for teaching and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3: 16, 17).  Jesus Himself is the Word of God made flesh; the eternal God Who chose to become incarnate, to live and die and to be raised to life for our salvation (John 1: 10-14).  When we are told to listen to Him, to hear His voice and obey His commands in faith and love—we are to start by hearing His Word through Scripture.  The Word of God has power to create and sustain faith.  It is this Word that places us and sustains us on the narrow way of faith.  We follow Jesus on that narrow way by listening to His Word.  

Jesus states that the true and false will be known by their fruit—only good trees bear good fruit, a thorn bush never bears figs—and that only those who do His will, will enter the kingdom of Heaven.  Bonhoeffer draws a distinction between those who “say” (those who only cry “Lord, Lord”) versus those who “do”, that is, those who obey the will of the Heavenly Father.  Bonhoeffer makes what I think is a confusing statement “The grace of Jesus is a demand upon the doer, and so his doing becomes the true humility, the right faith, and the right confession of the grace of the God Who calls.”  The phrase “grace of Jesus is a demand….” does not sit well with me, as a Lutheran Christian increasingly sensitive to the essential need to rightly divide law and gospel.  The law convicts us of what we cannot do—any command to do is a statement of the law.  The gospel of grace tells us what God in Christ has done for us, the gift of faith and salvation we are given without any merit or action on our part.  By definition, grace does not make demands—at least per my understanding:  it only gives freely.  True, Bonhoeffer’s rejection of “cheap grace” is a valid critique of this Lutheran understanding of grace—that it could become pearls thrown before swine, if we attempt to pronounce absolution for sins never repented from.  Therefore, I can see that for one who receives the gospel message of grace through faith will understand that there can be only one valid response of a living, active faith—the cost which Christ paid on the cross demonstrates the value of this free gift, and therefore shows us the appropriate weightiness of our response.  The response is to bear fruit, but this not simply because it is commanded but because it is right and good so to do, and because we have the Spirit of truth which leads and guides us.  

This is the narrow way, and Bonhoeffer’s phrase “the razor edge between this world and the kingdom of heaven” is an apt one.  My concern articulated above is a circular one; Bonhoeffer’s statement about the demands of the gospel are part of the same circle:  the response of faith is that of active works and good fruit.  But if we stop for too long to dwell on the logic or parse our way through to an exact understanding, we may only be delaying our response to the call of Christ to “follow Me.”   Bonhoeffer says “Jesus knows only one possibility:  simple surrender and obedience, not interpreting it or applying it, but doing and obeying it.  That is the only way to hear His word.  But again He does not mean that it is to be discussed as an ideal, He really means us to get on with it….Jesus has spoken:  His is the word, ours the obedience.  Only in the doing of it does the word of Jesus retain its honor, might and power among us.  Now the storm can rage over the house, but it cannot shatter that union with Him, which His word has created.”  Later, he says “However vehemently we assert our faith and our fundamental recognition of His word, Jesus still calls it “not-doing.”  But the word we fail to do is no rock to build a house on….The word we had was not Christ’s, but a word we had wrestled from Him and made our own by reflecting on it instead of doing it.  So our house crashes in ruins, because it is not founded on the word of Jesus.”

I’m not blind to the irony here.  Bonhoeffer has written an entire book meditating and reflecting on a handful of chapters from the book of Matthew; I’m composing copious essays contemplating scripture by meditating and writing about it, to include the scriptures highlighted here by Bonhoeffer himself.  Are we both then wrestling away the words of Christ, neutering them of their power by only thinking and therefore failing to do?  Maybe.  It’s a word of warning, this is true.  Jesus’ admonition is to both hear His words and put them into practice, and in this way to build a house upon a firm foundation of rock which will not fail.  It would be very easy to only read the words of Jesus, to only run my eyes over the Scripture passages or let the spoken word stream into one ear and out of the other.  It would be very easy to study the words of Jesus with purely an intellectual eye, carefully calculating how many angels might dance on the head of a pin.  But both of these imply a reader or a hearer immune—or resistant to—the power of God’s Spirit and the power of the call of Jesus.  Again, the way is narrow—not only hear but also do, not only read but also build and bear fruit.  

In Matthew 7: 22-23, Jesus says that many will call Him Lord and may even do miraculous things, but they are unknown to Him.  He says “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.  Away from me you evildoers!’”  How are we known by Christ?  Galatians 3: 26 through 4: 9 reminds us that we are children of God through faith in Christ as we have been baptized into Christ and clothed with His righteousness; we are no longer slaves to sin, but are born again in righteousness and called His children and heirs—we are known by God, claimed as His.  

The hymn “My hope is built on nothing less [than Jesus blood and righteousness]” reminds us that when we build our house of faith, we build on Christ and on His righteousness—this is our firm foundation.  “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name.  One Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand….His oath, His covenant His blood support me in the whelming flood….When He shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I then in Him be found, clothed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne!”

How are we known?  We are known as children of God by grace through faith; we bear fruit because that is who we are in Christ.  We build on the firm foundation of Christ’s Word, a word of promise and a word of salvation.  We are known as those clothed in the righteousness of Christ in our baptism; we are now heirs of salvation. Yes, this is a narrow way—it is easy to slide one way into an attempt to earn this gift, to layer our broken works of righteousness upon the perfect and complete saving work of Christ; it is easy to slide the other way, forgetting the call to follow Christ and to be do-ers and builders who produce good fruit.  We remain on this narrow way only by fixing our eyes upon Jesus and by abiding in Him and in His Word.

1)      The gate is narrow that leads to eternal life; Bonhoeffer reminds us that only by following the call of Christ do we remain on this “razor edge between this world and the kingdom of heaven.”  The Word of Your Good Shepherd are found in Holy Scripture.  How are you keeping your eyes on Jesus, hearing the call of your Good Shepherd by hearing and reading His Word?

2)      Jesus calls us to produce good fruit and to hear His words and put them into practice.  What shape might this take in your life?

3)      As a baptized Child of Christ, you are clothed in His righteousness and are known by Him.  You are no longer a slave to sin but an heir to eternal life.  How does this serve as the foundation of your life of faith?