Costly Grace

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. MATTHEW 13:44

The book that English readers first met as The Cost of Discipleship opens with a single, sharp distinction, and it is the phrase for which Bonhoeffer is best remembered: the difference between cheap grace and costly grace. He wrote it in the mid-1930s, while training young pastors for a church under pressure, and he wrote it first of all against his own church. It has lost none of its edge.

Grace sold at a discount

What is cheap grace? Bonhoeffer described it, in effect, as grace treated like goods on a market stall, sold off at clearance prices. It is forgiveness offered without repentance. It is baptism without the discipline of the church, the Lord’s Supper without confession of sin, absolution without any personal turning. It is grace as a doctrine, a general truth, a principle — God is gracious, and therefore everything is covered — rather than as the living word of a Lord who forgives and commands in the same breath. The trouble with such grace, as Bonhoeffer saw it, is that it ends up excusing the sin instead of rescuing the sinner. It lets a man go on exactly as before, comforted that his account has been settled, and never asks him to leave anything behind.

He regarded it as the mortal danger of the church in his time. That was a strong charge from a Lutheran, and he knew it. He was not attacking the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone; he believed it with all his heart. He was attacking what his church had made of it. Luther, he argued, had found grace by leaving the monastery and going out into the world to obey Christ there. The grace he found cost him everything. But the generations that followed had inherited the conclusion without the journey. They had learned to say that we are saved by grace and not by works, and they had taken it to mean that works did not matter much at all.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ROMANS 6:1–2

The Apostle had seen the same danger. The answer of Romans 6 is not that grace is smaller than we thought, but that grace is a death and a new life. It does not leave us where it found us.

Grace that costs

Against cheap grace Bonhoeffer set costly grace. The two are not two different gifts; they are the same gift, received in two different ways. Costly grace is the grace of Jesus Christ received as He actually gives it — as a summons as well as a pardon. It asks for the whole life, and it gives back a life worth having. It does not wink at sin; it judges it, and then it sets the sinner free. And beneath all of this lies the deepest reason of all: this grace cost God His own Son. What God bought at such a price, we cannot treat as a bargain.

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 1 PETER 1:18–19

To describe it, Bonhoeffer turned to the Gospels themselves — to the hidden treasure and the pearl for which a merchant parts with everything, and to the fishermen who left their boats when Jesus called. The picture is of something so valuable that giving up the rest is no longer the point. Notice that in the parable the man sells everything for joy. Costly grace is not a grim transaction in which God drives a hard bargain. It is the discovery that one thing is worth more than all the rest, and the glad letting-go that follows.

Two kinds of preaching

A church, he thought, can be orthodox in every sentence and still preach cheap grace, simply by never letting the grace it offers touch the lives of its hearers. It can say to the comfortable, you are forgiven, and never say, follow me. It can offer peace without ever mentioning the cross. The result is not a gentle church but a dead one — a people who have been assured of their salvation so often that they no longer notice they are not following anyone.

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. JEREMIAH 6:14

Jeremiah’s false prophets used the language of the covenant, but applied it where it did not belong. Bonhoeffer thought the church of his day was doing the same, and paying for it: when the state demanded its obedience, too many Christians had no habit of costly obedience to Christ with which to refuse.

A fair question

Readers from the evangelical tradition have sometimes asked whether Bonhoeffer blurred the line between grace and works — whether costly grace smuggles obedience back into the ground of our acceptance. It is a fair question, and he anticipated it. He never taught that we earn our salvation by following. He taught that the grace which saves us is the grace of a Lord who calls us, and that faith and obedience cannot be pulled apart without destroying both. Grace is free, but it is not cheap: it costs us nothing to receive and everything to keep company with. That is not far from what the Reformers themselves said, when they insisted that we are justified by faith alone, but that the faith which justifies is never alone.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. EPHESIANS 2:8–10

Paul holds both halves in a single breath. Not of works; unto good works. Cheap grace keeps the first half and drops the second. Legalism keeps the second and drops the first. Costly grace keeps both.

There is also a pastoral caution worth adding. Bonhoeffer wrote for complacent people. A tender conscience, already crushed by its failures, may read the chapter on costly grace and hear only demand. That would be to misread him. The cost of grace was paid first by God. The call to follow comes from the one who has already carried the cross. Anyone who finds this teaching heavy should go back to where Bonhoeffer himself started: to the precious blood, and to the Lord who says, come.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. MATTHEW 11:28–30

The yoke is easy. But it is still a yoke.

Counting the cost today

Every age has its own discounts on grace. The questions Bonhoeffer asked still cut. Has the grace I have received changed anything I do with my money, my time, my tongue, my ambitions? Have I heard the word of forgiveness without ever hearing the word, follow? Do I treat grace as an insurance policy or as a summons?

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? LUKE 14:28

Jesus told would-be disciples to count the cost before they began. He did not do so to discourage them, but to spare them the shame of a tower abandoned half-built. Bonhoeffer counted it, and paid it. The point of reading him is not to admire his account, but to settle our own.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Write down one area of your life where you have been glad of forgiveness but have never really turned. Bring it to God today, by name.

2. Read Romans 6:1–14 slowly. Mark every place where Paul says what grace does, not only what it gives.

3. If you teach or preach, look back over your last few talks. Did you offer grace without ever calling anyone to follow? Or call to follow without ever offering grace?

4. Name one concrete thing — a habit, a possession, a grudge, an ambition — that following Jesus would require you to leave behind. Take one step towards leaving it this week.

5. If your conscience is already crushed, do not start with the cost. Start with the cross. Read 1 Peter 1:18–21 each morning this week and thank God for the price He paid.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, You did not redeem me with silver or gold but with Your own precious blood. Forgive me for treating so costly a gift as if it were cheap.

I have been glad to be forgiven and slow to be changed. I have taken Your grace as a comfort and left it there. Call me again, and give me grace to answer.

Show me what I am holding back from You. Give me the joy of the man who found the treasure, so that selling all is no longer loss but gain.

And where my heart is already bowed down, lift it with the knowledge that You paid the price before You asked me to follow. Amen.