The first impact of his powerful work unravelling the difference between cheap grace which we bestow on ourselves and costly grace which may ultimately cost a disciple his life but in the end offers him the only true life sets the bar that this is indeed a serious work. Typical of his forceful expression is the passage where he shows how cheap grace becomes just another law to bind people to a selfish lifestyle while all the time masquerading as the gift of God. In his own words "Grace interpreted as a principle, pecca fortiter as a principle, grace at a low cost, is in the last resort simply a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom.Grace as a living word, pecca fortiter as our comfort in tribulation and as a summons to discipleship, costly grace is the only pure grace, which really forgives sins and gives freedom to the sinner.
We ........have gathered like eagles round the carcase of cheap grace, and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of following Christ."
The fine distinction between following a correct doctrine but abusing it and following Christ in the dynamic of grace is masterfully handled in this work which desperately needs airing in this day of cheap grace.
Discipleship takes on a new meaning as he discusses the differences between being obedient to Christ by prescription and following Christ in a living relationship with him in a contemporary world. All the more remarkable is this book as we recognize the circumstances under which it was written and the price which Bonhoeffer ultimately paid in order to live by what he had written.
"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die"- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.
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