Cheap Grace or Costly Grace?

August 20, 2020 (Thursday)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German scholar and minister who opposed Hitler and his Nazi party. He was arrested on April 5, 1943 and imprisoned in jails and concentration camps until his execution April 9, 1945, two weeks before the concentration camp where he was held was liberated by American soldiers. His views opposing Hitler were well known from the outset of Hitler’s rise as fuehrer of the Third Reich. Hitler realized the end of his own rule and life were near as the allies marched toward Berlin, but he was enraged by Bonhoeffer’s continued opposition from a concentration camp and ordered his execution. Bonhoeffer was hanged, and the method used by the hangman was especially horrific. As the person being hanged neared death, he was aroused and made alert so that he could be hanged several times.

Here are some quotations from his writings:

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 go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. 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.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

When I think of grace in this way, I cannot keep from repeating Psalm 139:6 (CEV), “I can’t understand all of this! Such wonderful knowledge is far above me.”

As I have meditated on Bonhoeffer’s execution on Monday, April 9, 1945, I have tried to remember what I was doing on that day. I was 13 years old, in the 8th grade. When classes were over that day, I rode a bus home and on the bus boys were shooting dice, bragging about sinful acts, cursing with filthy words, generally denying God with their actions. On the other side of the world, a man who loved God and knew by experience what “costly grace” is, died because he loved God.

We quote the Bible and testify that we are “saved by grace.” What kind of grace? Cheap? Or costly?