What's the Difference?

Recently I have been reading “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  For those not familiar with Bonhoeffer, he was a Lutheran pastor and theologian from Germany.  He spent time in Britain and the United States in the time leading up to WWII.  As the persecution of the church was growing leading up to the war, Bonhoeffer decided to return to Germany.  He believed that if he did not share with the church in its suffering, he had no right to participate in rebuilding the church after the war. 

Bonhoeffer was eventually arrested in 1943 for his efforts to overthrow Hitler.  He was then executed by strangulation, at the age of 39, in 1945 at the Flossenburg Concentration Camp just two weeks before it was liberated.

In his book, “The Cost of Discipleship” Bonhoeffer talks about costly grace compared to cheap grace.  According to Bonhoeffer cheap grace is justification of the sin, while costly grace is the justification of the sinner.  Cheap grace is that which we accept without any thought to the fact that it cost God the death of his Son on a cross.  Cheap grace allows us to live like the rest of the world.  Costly grace calls us to set ourselves apart from the world, take up our cross and follow him.

In Bonhoeffer’s words, “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.   Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. … It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble.  It is the call of Jesus Christ, at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.”

Too often in our culture today, we forget that we are called to be different from the world.  We want to dress, act, and talk like the world.  We want to watch the same movies and listen to the same music.  But Christ has called us to be different.  Even in things as simple as what we talk about.  2 Timothy 2:16 tells us to “avoid godless chatter”.  This is a call to be different from the world.  In verse 19 of the same chapter Paul says, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”  Cheap grace does not require a change, costly grace requires one to be different.