Day 1 of 14
Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace
The Deadly Enemy of the Church
Scripture Readings
Today's Reading
Read Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'"
Then read Romans 6:1-2: "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?"
Reflection
The opening chapter of The Cost of Discipleship contains what may be the most devastating critique of comfortable Christianity ever written. Bonhoeffer, writing in 1937 as the German church was making its peace with National Socialism, identified the root disease: cheap grace.
"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace." With those words, Bonhoeffer drew a line that divides not just two kinds of theology but two kinds of Christianity — one that costs nothing and changes nothing, and one that costs everything and changes everything.
His definition of cheap grace is surgically precise: "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession." It is an intellectual acknowledgment of God's forgiveness that produces no transformation in the person who claims it. It is, Bonhoeffer says, "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
Jesus warned of exactly this in Matthew 7. There will be people on the last day who claimed His name, who prophesied and performed miracles in His name, to whom He will say: "I never knew you." The most terrifying words in Scripture are addressed not to atheists but to people who thought they were Christians. They had the language. They had the experiences. What they lacked was the relationship — the actual following of Jesus in daily obedience.
Costly grace, by contrast, is not a different gospel. It is the same gospel taken seriously. "It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life," Bonhoeffer writes later in the chapter. Costly grace is free — you cannot earn it — but it demands everything. It calls you out of your old life and into a new one, defined by the cross.
Going Deeper
Paul asked the same question in Romans 6: shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? His answer — "By no means!" — echoes Bonhoeffer's entire argument. Grace that does not produce holiness has not been properly understood. Grace that leaves you unchanged has been cheapened into something it was never meant to be.
Today, examine your own relationship to grace. Have you received it as costly — as the gift that cost God His Son and costs you your self-sovereignty? Or have you domesticated it into a comfortable assurance that God is fine with things as they are?
Key Quotes
“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.”
“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.”
Prayer Focus
Asking God to reveal any areas where you have settled for cheap grace — where you have accepted the comfort of forgiveness without submitting to the cost of following Jesus
Meditation
Bonhoeffer wrote these words as the Nazi regime was co-opting the German church. Where do you see cheap grace operating in the church today — forgiveness without repentance, belonging without obedience?
Question for Discussion
Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as 'grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.' How do you distinguish between costly grace — which is free but demands everything — and works-righteousness, which tries to earn what can only be received? Where is the line?