Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace: Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Call to True Discipleship
*Originally written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship. Translated into modern English by Modern Saints.
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. Today, we are fighting for costly grace.
Cheap grace is grace offered at a bargain—careless forgiveness, shallow comfort, empty sacraments. It is grace treated as the Church's inexhaustible resource, handed out freely without any questions or conditions.
It is grace without a price, without sacrifice! It assumes that because the price was paid long ago, everything is now free. Since the original price for grace was infinite, it must now be an infinitely exploitable resource.
After all, what would grace even mean if it weren't cheap for us?
This cheap version reduces grace to nothing more than a doctrine, a principle, a system. It presents the forgiveness of sins as a general truth and the love of God as merely a Christian idea.
Simply agreeing with this idea intellectually becomes enough to guarantee forgiveness, leading to the assumption that any church with the right doctrine automatically shares in this grace. In such a church, the world finds an easy cover for its sins—there is no need for real sorrow or a genuine desire to be freed from sin.
Cheap grace, in the end, is a denial of the living Word of God—the Incarnation of God's Word.
Cheap grace means the forgiveness of sin without the transformation of the sinner. It is the idea that grace does everything, so nothing in life needs to change. "Our actions don't matter," it whispers, and the world carries on as usual.
We are all still sinners, "even the best of us," as Luther once said. So, the Christian might as well live like everyone else, adopting the world's standards in every area of life. After all, we wouldn't want to be accused of the heresy of "fanaticism," of living a new life in grace, different from the old life of sin!
No, the Christian must be careful not to rebel against God's free and boundless grace! We must not desecrate this cheap grace by attempting to live in literal obedience to Jesus' commands! The world is justified by grace, and we Christians know this and take it seriously! We know we must not resist this essential grace.
So, for the sake of this cheap grace, we Christians must live like the rest of the world! Sure, we may feel an urge to go and do something extraordinary, and it takes a good deal of self-restraint to resist that temptation in favor of a worldly life.
But we must deny ourselves and simply blend in with the world. We must let grace be grace, or we risk undermining the world's belief that grace is truly cheap!
Let us Christians be content with our worldliness, for we make this sacrifice for the sake of the world—no, for the sake of grace! We can still rest assured in our possession of this grace—for grace alone does everything. Rather than following Christ, we should enjoy the comforts of cheap grace!
The True Nature of Cheap Grace
Ultimately, this is what cheap grace means: grace that justifies sin without justifying the sinner. It does not lead to true repentance or a life that turns away from sin, because it is not the kind of forgiveness that frees us from sin's power.
Cheap grace is the grace we give ourselves. Cheap grace is forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, and absolution without accountability.
It is grace without discipleship, without the cross, without the living presence of Jesus Christ.
The Alternative: Costly Grace
Costly grace, on the other hand, is like the treasure hidden in a field, for which we would gladly sell everything to obtain. It is the pearl of great price, worth more than all a merchant's goods.
It is the kingdom of Christ, for whose sake we will go so far as to pluck out the eye that causes us to sin. It is the call of Jesus that leads a disciple to leave his nets and follow Him.
Costly grace is the gospel that we must seek again and again, the gift we must ask for, the door we must continually knock on.
This grace is costly because it calls us to follow, but it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it demands our very lives, but it is grace because it gives us true life in return.
It is costly because it condemns sin, but it is grace because it forgives the sinner. Most of all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His Son—"you were bought at a price"—and what cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.
Yet, it is grace because God did not consider the life of His Son too high a price to pay, but gave Him up for our sake. Costly grace is the grace of God becoming human, the Incarnation itself.
Conclusion
Costly grace is the holy gift of God, which must be guarded from the world, not tossed carelessly to the dogs. It is the living Word of God, spoken as He chooses.
Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, offering forgiveness to the afraid and broken-hearted. It is costly because it demands that we submit to Christ's yoke and follow Him, but it is grace because, as Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
