Resources/Articles
Cheap Grace
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian (1906-1945), was asked in 1943 how it was possible for the church to sit back and let Hitler seize absolute power. His firm answer, which he wrote in The Cost of Discipleship: “It was the teaching of cheap grace.”
“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow upon 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.”
It’s like receiving forgiveness without truly turning away from wrongdoing or following Christ wholeheartedly. Bonhoeffer emphasized the need for costly grace, which involves genuine repentance, discipleship, and a willingness to take up one’s cross in following Jesus. We live in a time an culture that not only teaches cheap grace, but praises it.
The apostle Paul described costly grace as follows: “For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that’d ending ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in the present world” (Titus 2.11-12).
