Costly Grace

In a throwback to form and tradition, I re-read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book Discipleship, in which he talks about cheap grace and costly grace. Bonhoeffer believed that the church had cheapened grace. Cheap grace, he said, was when we proclaimed that the forgiving grace was ours no matter what we did; in essence, it gave us a ubiquitous license to sin. Costly grace, the true grace of Christ, must cost us something. Peter was called to leave his nets, his entire mode of life, to follow Christ. This pattern was repeated again and again in the New Testament. 

Bonhoeffer thought that it all stemmed from the convergence of faith and works. Not the debate about which is right, but the ineffable paradox that they both must be true. He said: 

"Only the believer obeys, and only the obedient believe."

Let me elucidate, for it's not as simple as it seems at first glance. It seems that obedience is a consequence of believing. That you must first believe before you can obey. That is not true. Your faith comes in obedience to an original call of God. Only Christ can call people, and it is our act of obedience to go into a situation where our faith can grow. They are symbiotic. Therefore, according to Bonhoeffer, it is not a matter for debate, whether we will be saved by works or by faith. They cannot be separated; for if you are obedient, you will believe; and if you believe, you will be obedient and the works will inevitably follow. 

I'm not trying to start a debate here, about faith vs. works (okay, maybe I am), but the point I'm trying to make is about how it is easy for us today to cheapen the grace of God. This redeeming grace, that forgives our sins and reconciles us to God, was costly. It cost the Christ, Son of God, the highest price in the world. And we cheapen that grace when we treat it as a given. Yes it is given, and if we ask, we will be forgiven. And yes, His grace covers anyone. But it does not cover everyone. Did you get that? It covers anyone but not everyone. For if the forgiving grace covered everyone, regardless of their state of belief or obedience, then we might as well slip into a sort of Christian hedonism, and do what we want because we'll be forgiven anyway. 

That is cheap grace. Costly grace, the grace that cost God his only Son, requires discipleship, requires obedience to following Christ. We follow the initial call, believe, and become disciples of Christ. Not simply students, or apprentices, but disciples. In the life of Christ, this was a complete lifestyle. To become a disciple meant leaving your home, your trade, your family and friends, and following the Teacher to learn everything you can from him. It's not going to church once on Sundays (or even twice on Tuesdays), it's about a lifestyle dedicated to learning and becoming more like Christ. 

Becoming disciples of Christ, however, requires that we sacrifice our fleshly desires. Perhaps we desire a stable job, a vacation home, weekends off. Becoming a disciple of Christ may mean passing up that lucrative promotion to take a pastoring job for little pay, where you are always on call and you haven't had a weekend off in a decade. That is costly grace. That is what we are given fully in God, and that is the end of a life well lived and a God well-obeyed.