The Cost of Discipleship by Deitrich Bonhoeffer is a book that has had a rather significant influence on my life. I can’t read a passage like this one in Romans without thinking a few of the things I learned from Bonhoeffer.
At the beginning of the book Bonhoeffer starts the conversation with a strong statement about grace. Paul does the same in this Romans passage. Paul starts with this statement: What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Bonhoeffer calls this kind of treatment of God’s gift cheap grace. He writes, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession… Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” When we live like God’s gift means nothing or when we live as though Jesus cannot really save us from sin, we are living with cheap grace. Thinking that grace is just around so we can get our ticket punched and go to heaven is living as though Jesus’ sacrifice means nothing. And when we live like we need to keep sinning so grace can keep coming- that’s just ridiculous.
Paul says it this way: We know that our old self was crucified with him [Jesus] in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
We can actually live freed from sin because of Jesus- and we had nothing to do with it! That is amazing grace. It is grace, but it costs greatly. “It’s costly because it calls us to follow,” writes Bonhoeffer. “Our old self was crucified,” writes Paul- that is costly. Bonhoeffer also reminds us “Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son…” With that kind of thought, the question becomes: how do I live in response to this costly grace?
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