I have always wanted to like Dietrich Bonheoffer. His story is compelling. He came to age in Germany during the rise of Nazism and was a founding member of the Confessing Church that stood as a bulwark against the coopting of the Church by Hitler. Eventually he was arrested after a failed assassination attempt on Hitler and was executed just before he would have been rescued from a prisoner of war camp. He is the author of a number of books, most of which would be included among the corpus of Christian classics of the early twentieth century. Would wouldn’t like Bonheoffer?
Maybe I started disliking him after his most recent biographer, Eric Metaxas came out as one of the evangelical supporters of Donald Trump. Just the idea of it makes my skin crawl. But this has nothing to do with my disagreement on one of the seminal beliefs held by Bonheoffer: cheap grace.
One can simply hang around on the fringes of twentieth century Christian thought and still have encountered Bonheoffer’s quote from his book Christian Discipleship. I have heard this quote from countless preachers and have seen it a number of books. In part he wrote “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism with church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” Sort of flows off the tongue, doesn’t it? One would have to be some sort of world-class heretic to take exception with this, wouldn’t you? I rarely fear to go where no writer has gone before so let me say it upfront and boldly, I disagree with Bonheoffer.
It always strikes me as odd when someone feels as if they have been endowed with the power to redefine biblical terms, as Bonheoffer does. Just knowing the historical context in which he writes, helps understand what he is railing against. Hitler’s advance against the church made a response necessary. For that, I am grateful. But his words, taken out of context can lead to a Pelagian conclusion, where grace becomes more about what we do that what has been done for us.
Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, “But when it comes to mercy, God is rich! He had such great love for us that he took us at the very point where we were dead through our offenses and made us alive together with the king (yes you are saved by sheer grace!). He raised us up with him, and made us sit with him- in the heavenly places, in King Jesus! This was so in the ages to come he could show just how unbelievably rich his grace is, the kindness he has shown us in King Jesus.
How has all this come about? You have been saved by grace, through faith! This doesn’t happen on your own initiative; it’s God’s gift. It isn’t on the basis of works, so no one is able to boast. This is the explanation: God has made us what we are. God has created us in King Jesus for the good works that he prepared, aead of time, as the road we must travel.” Ephesians 2: 8-9.
How can that be cheap? Bonheoffer argues that grace becomes cheap when we don’t treasure it. It becomes cheap when our response is less that what he supposes it should be. In other words, we have the power to lift grace to its lofty position, or to tread on it. Our response, then, is what makes grace, grace
That’s not how it works. A rose is a rose by any other name. So is grace. Grace is by its very definition never cheap. It is overwhelming. It is beyond compelling. Its value is greater then the mind can fathom or the heart contain. It has nothing to do with the way we respond to it. The most amazing thing about grace is that it is free. It is not cheap but it is free.