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Cheap Grace

As part of my Lenten practice I have this season been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.  As he was a Lutheran I don’t necessarily agree with everything he writes, particularly when he (rarely) pokes into his understanding of the teachings of the Catholic Church, but I have found this work to be singularly powerful.  This was a man who devoted his life to Christ and, in the end, gave up his life for what he believed.  This book is just over 300 pages of reminding us we are called to just the same.  Pardon the length of the quote, but I found it incredibly applicable both to this season and to our times in general.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church.  We are fighting to-day for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares.  The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices.  Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits.  Grace without price; grace without cost!  The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can e had for nothing.  Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite.  What would grace be if it were not cheap?

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system.  It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian “conception” of God.  An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins.  The Church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part in that grace.  In such a Church 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 therefore amounts to a denial fo the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.  Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.  “All for sin could not atone.”  The world goes on in the same old way, and we are still sinners “even in the best life” as Luther said.  Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin.  That was the heresy of the enthusiasts, the Anabaptists and their kind.  Let the Christian beware of rebelling against the free and boundless grace of God and desecrating it.  Let him not attempt to erect a new religion of the letter by endeavouring to live a life of obedience to the commandments of Jesus Christ!  The world has been justified by grace.  The Christian knows that, and takes it seriously.  He knows he must not strive against this indispensable grace.  Therefore – let him live like the rest of the world!  Of course he would like to go and do something extraordinary, and it does demand a good deal of self-restraint to refrain from the attempt and content himself with living as the world lives.  Yet it is imperative for the Christian to achieve renunciation, to practice self-effacement, to distinguish his life from the life of the world.  He must let grace be grace indeed, otherwise he will destroy the world’s faith in the free gift of grace.  Let the Christian rest content with his worldliness and with this renunciation of any higher standard than the world.  He is doing it for the sake of the world rather than for the sake of grace.  Let him be comforted and rest assured in his possession of this grace – for grace alone does everything.  Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of this grace!  That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs.  Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.  Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

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 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.

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