Unconditional Grace?

Here's a thought provoking quote from Tim Keller (Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, pp. 226-7).

Grace is not unconditional acceptance, but it is undeserved. That is a very difficult balance to strike! God's grace comes to us without prerequisites, finding us as we are. God's grace does not come to the "deserving" (there is no such person), and it does not discriminate. Rather, initially it comes to us freely. But once it enters into our lives, God's grace demands changes; it holds us accountable. Why? Grace demands our holiness and growth for our sake as well as for God's glory. Grace intercepts destructive behavior, protects us from the ravages of sin, sanctifies us so we can be "holy and happy," two inseparable qualities.

In summary, grace is undeserved caring that intercepts destructive behavior. It is not unconditional acceptance, nor is it a legalism that says, "Shape us or I will stop loving you." Rather, it says, "Your sin cannot separate you from me," and then, in addition, says, "I won't let your sin destroy you." Grace comes to the unlovely person, but refuses to let him remain ugly. Grace begins as "justification," a free act of God alone, but it becomes "sanctification," a process by which the person cooperates with God in spiritual growth.

I find that a helpful distinction because it challenges my tendency to make grace cheap. Bonhoeffer's classic definition of "cheap grace" is worth repeating -- "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, living and incarnate."

In other words, it's the grace we gladly extend to ourselves, with no strings attached. But the grace of God is different. We see it modeled in the earthly ministry of Jesus: the perfect balance of grace and truth. He healed and forgave the undeserving, but he didn't leave it at that. His free grace was accompanied by a message of repentance. "Go and sin no more." Divine grace shakes things up.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.  (Titus 2:11-14)

Lord of the night (Bonhoeffer)

Reading Psalm 74 just now reminded me of a striking passage from Life Together. This comes at the end of a section on the daily corporate prayer life of a Christian family fellowship.

. . . in all the ancient evening prayers we are struck by the frequency with which we encounter the prayer for preservation during the night from the devil, from terror, and from an evil, sudden death. The ancients had a persistent sense of man's helplessness while sleeping, of the kinship of sleep with death, of the devil's cunning in making a man fall when he is defenseless. So they prayed for the protection of the holy angels and their golden weapons, for the heavenly hosts, at the time when Satan would gain power over them. Most remarkable and profound is the ancient church's prayer that when our eyes are closed in sleep God may nevertheless keep our hearts awake. . . . Even in sleep we are in the hands of God or in the power of evil. Even in sleep God can perform His wonders upon us or evil bring us to destruction. So we pray at evening:

When our eyes with sleep are girt,
Be our hearts to Thee alert;
Shield us, Lord, with Thy right arm,
Save us from sin's dreadful harm.
- LUTHER

But over the night and over the day stands the word of the Psalter: "The day is thine, the night also is thine" (Ps. 74:16)

Praying that way seems strange to us moderns, unaccustomed as we are to absolute darkness of night (thanks to electricity) and prone as we are to dismissing talk of Satan and evil spirits. It might be good to let those ancient prayers against the powers of darkness shape our own perspective on prayer. It's a gift to go to bed knowing my sins are forgiven and that I'm in the hands of the God confessed in Psalm 74: "God my King. . . working salvation in the midst of the earth."

Working salvation while I sleep.

72 years ago today

World War II begins -- from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas:

Back in March [1939], when Hitler had marched on Prague, Neville Chamberlain set down his teacup and took notice. It was then, exchanging one of his carrots for a stick, he vowed that Britain would defend Poland if Hitler attacked it. That time had come. But Hitler couldn't simply attack. He must first make it look like self-defense. So on August 22, he told his generals, "I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war; never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth."

The plan was for the SS, dressed in Polish uniforms, to attack a German radio station on the Polish border. To make the whole thing authentic, they would need German "casualties." They decided to use concentration camp inmates, whom they vilely referred to as Konserve (canned goods). These victims of Germany would be dressed as German soldiers. In the end only one man was murdered for this purpose, via lethal injection, and afterward shot several times to give the appearance that he had been killed by Polish soldiers. The deliberate murder of a human being for the purposes of deceiving the world seems a perfectly fitting inaugural act for what was to follow. This took place on schedule, August 31.

In "retaliation," German troops marched into Poland at dawn on September 1. Göring's Luftwaffe rained hell from the skies, deliberately killing civilians. Civilians were murdered more carefully on the ground. It was a coldly deliberate act of terror by intentional mass murder, never before seen in modern times, and it was the Poles' first bitter taste of the Nazi ruthlessness they would come to know so well. The outside world would not hear details for some time. It knew only that German forces were cutting through Poland like the proverbial hot knife through butter as Panzer divisions neatly erased thirty and forty miles of Poland per day.

But Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag, casting himself in the role of aggrieved victim. "You know the endless attempts I made for a peaceful clarification and understanding of the problems of Austria," he said, "and later of the problem of the Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia. It was all in vain." Poland had refused his gracious offers of peace and with a callousness not to be borne. The Poles rewarded his good faith with violence! "I am wrongly judged if my love of peace and patience are mistaken for weakness or even cowardice. . . . I have therefore resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland for months past has used toward us." The long-suffering and peace-loving Führer could take it no more: "This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our own territory. Since 5:45 A.M. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met with bombs." Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, had long dreaded this hour. He was overcome with emotion at the implications of it all. Hans Bernd Gisevius, a diplomat whom Canaris had recruited to work with him in the Resistance, was at OKW headquarters that day. They ran into each other in a back stairway, and Canaris drew Gisevius aside. "This means the end of Germany," he said. (pp. 347-8)

Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Canaris would later be executed (alongside Dietrich Bonhoeffer) for his leadership of the plots against Hitler.

BTW this excellent biography is just out in paperback.

Where we find salvation (Bonhoeffer)

Here in a nutshell Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains why the Christian community gives itself to the reading of the Scriptures as a living whole.

It is not in our life that God's help and presence must still be proved, but rather God's presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is "external to ourselves." I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ. Only he who allows himself to be found in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, his Cross, and his resurrection, is with God and God with him.

The Bible is many things, but first and foremost it's the record of God's mighty work of salvation culminating in Christ. In Bonhoeffer's words it is "the holy history of God on earth." It's there we learn to believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is our God too, and that the Father of Jesus Christ is also our Father.


Quote from Life Together, p. 54

On being thankful for the small things (Bonhoeffer)

As promised I'm back from a 2-week family vacation road trip -- though "family vacation" is an oxymoron when the family includes a toddler and an infant. Nevertheless a good time was had by all and I found time for a little reading, which included Life Together, a book I've read many times and quoted here often. No matter how many times I read it Life Together surprises me with its depth of insight. Here is some wisdom from chapter one on community.

Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. . . . If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

Bonhoeffer goes on to warn pastors, especially, against complaining to God about their congregations. Anyone who's in church leadership knows how easy it can be to become disillusioned. When a pastor or zealous church member becomes the accuser of the congregation he's set his own ideals and "wish dreams" (Bonhoeffer's phrase) up against the divine reality of Christian community. Instead of complaining he should be interceding for the brethren with an awareness of his own sin and weakness. Bonhoeffer reminds us that what seems weak or insignificant is often where Christ is most fully present -- "God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong." (1 Cor. 1:27)

What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.

Quotes from pp. 29-30 of this edition

Hitler's church or Christ's church?

From Bonhoeffer (Eric Metaxas):

One sometimes hears that Hitler was a Christian. He was certainly not, but neither was he openly anti-Christian, as most of his top lieutenants were. What helped him aggrandize power, he approved of, and what prevented it, he did not. He was utterly pragmatic. In public he often made comments that made him sound pro-church or pro-Christian, but there can be no question that he said these things cynically, for political gain. In private, he possessed an unblemished record of statements against Christianity and Christians.

Especially early in his career, Hitler wished to appear as a typical German, so he praised the churches as bastions of morality and traditional values. But he also felt that, in time, the churches would adapt to the National Socialist way of thinking. They would eventually be made into vessels for Nazi ideology, so it little served his purposes to destroy them. It would be easier to change what already existed and benefit from whatever cultural cachet they possessed. (pp. 165-6, italics emphasis mine)

Even in the cold light of historical hindsight it's difficult to believe the degree to which Adolf Hitler achieved his aim of making the churches just another instrument of the Third Reich. How is it that the vast majority of Germans, in the heart of "Christian Europe", were taken in by Hitler? And how is it that a German theologian and pastor, not yet out of his twenties, was one of the few to see Hitler and National Socialism, very early on, for what they really were? It's so apt that Bonhoeffer identified with Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, whose message of impending disaster fell on deaf ears. Once the rest of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's professing Christian brethren and fellow Germans caught on it was too late. Hitler was shrewd. In private he ridiculed the doctrines of Christianity as "insanity" and "meekness and flabbiness" -- but in public he cleverly used the language and symbolism of Lutheranism, while at the same time continuing as a member of the Roman Catholic church in order to bolster his standing in Bavaria. Yet, he wouldn't have succeeded if the church in Germany had been healthy.

Elsewhere in this gripping work of history by Metaxas there are clues to why the German church was impotent in the face of the advancing darkness. The German church was deathly ill before Hitler came on the scene. Its complicity in the militarism that brought on a senseless world war was scandalous, and permanently damaged its witness among the younger generations. The church had long been fused with the state and German nationalism confused with the gospel. Christianity in Germany had only the appearance of godliness, and none of its power. Bonhoeffer saw this too, again, in a way that makes him stand out as a lonely prophet among his peers.

Metaxas writes:

He knew something was deeply wrong with the church as it then existed, and not just with the Reich church and the German Christians [a group who thought Nazi ideology could coexist with Christianity], but with the best of the church, with the Confessing Church, and with the current form of Christianity in Germany in general. He felt that what was especially missing from the life of Christians in Germany was the day-to-day reality of dying to self, of following Christ with every ounce of one's being in every moment, in every part of one's life. This dedication and fire existed among pietist groups like the Herrnhüter, but he thought that they bordered on being "works" oriented and overly "religious" in the Barthian sense. They had pushed away from the "world" too much, had pushed away the very best of culture and education in a way that he didn't feel was right. Christ must be brought into every square inch of the world and the culture, but one's faith must be shining and bright and pure and robust. . . . Bonhoeffer advocated a Christianity that seemed too worldly for traditional Lutheran conservatives and too pietistic for theological liberals. (pp. 247-8)

He felt that Lutheran Christianity had slid away from Luther's intentions, just as Luther felt that the Roman Catholic Church had moved away from St. Peter's and, more important, from Christ's. Bonhoeffer was interested in a Holy Spirit-led course adjustment that hardly signaled something new. (p. 263)

Bonhoeffer's idea of a worldly pietism grounded in the rich theological heritage of Protestantism would be taken for a test drive at the illegal Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde. Short lived though it was, there Bonhoeffer trained a cadre of young pastors who helped keep burning a flickering flame of vital Christianity during the dark days of the Third Reich. In addition, out of this experience came two great books -- Discipleship and Life Together. The latter, in my opinion, the best book ever written about Christian community. Many of the pastors trained under Brother Bonhoeffer's tutelage would die as witnesses to the true gospel and the true church in Nazi concentration camps.

Finkenwalde Seminary was closed down by the Gestapo in 1937. Hitler and Himmler thought they had defeated the Confessing Church dissidents who refused to confess anyone but Jesus as their Führer. But the example of Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church continues to inspire 21st century disciples to exclusive allegiance to Christ and his kingdom. On the other hand, the capitulation of the German church is a warning what can happen when counterfeit gospels push aside the gospel of Jesus Christ.


Quotes from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2010)

Bonhoeffer's childhood: a turning point

As described in a previous post the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's older brother Walter in the waning days of the First World War had a telling effect on the family. It also marked something of a turning point for young Dietrich. In the opening pages of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2010) author Eric Metaxas wonderfully draws the reader in to the almost fairy-tale-like world of the seven Bonhoeffer children. Yet, where in other families of privilege this could have resulted in a bunch of spoiled brats, Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer cultivated an ethic of service to others and doing the right thing which powerfully impacted their children. I think they would have agreed that, "to whom much is given much will be required."

The impact of World War I on the Bonhoeffer family was a microcosm of it's cataclysmic effect on Germany. If there had been an age of innocence it was blown to smithereens in the bloody trenches of France. Nothing would be the same again. The humiliating defeat of the German nation set in motion a train of events that would culminate in the election of a crackpot nationalist and Jew-hater as Chancellor in 1933. The Bonhoeffer family, and Dietrich in particular, would be among the first prominent voices to sound the alarm against Hitler and all that he stood for. Ultimately, two of Karl and Paula's boys, and two of their sons-in-law, would die for their opposition to the Nazi regime.

But before all that there was Walter's untimely death. Metaxas suggests that this tragedy set Dietrich on the unexpected and unorthodox (in a family of doctors and lawyers) path of studying theology and becoming a pastor. Here's how Metaxas describes Walter's funeral (pp. 27-8)

In early May a cousin on the general staff escorted Walter's body home. Sabine [Dietrich's twin sister] recalled the spring funeral, and "the hearse with the horses decked out in black and all the wreaths, my mother deathly pale and shrouded in a great black mourning veil . . . my father, my relatives, and all the many silent people dressed in black on the way to the chapel." Dietrich's cousin Hans-Christoph von Hase remembered "the young boys and girls weeping, weeping. His mother, I had never seen her weep so much."

Walter's death was a turning point for Dietrich. The first hymn at the service was "Jerusalem, du Hochgebaude Stadt." Dietrich sang loudly and clearly, as his mother always wished the family to do. And she did, too, drawing strength from its words, which spoke of the heart's longing for the heavenly city, where God waited for us and would comfort us and "wipe away every tear." For Dietrich, it had to seem heroic and filled with meaning:

The patriarchs' and prophets' noble train,
With all Christ's followers true,
Who bore the cross and could the worst disdain
That tyrants dared to do,
I see them shine forever,
All-glorious as the sun,
Midst light that fadeth never,
Their perfect freedom won.

As meaningful as those words must have been to the 12-year-old boy, he couldn't have known that they were also foreshadowing of the path that ended at Flossenbürg. When Dietrich was confirmed a few years later his mother gave him Walter's Bible. He would carry it with him the rest of his life.

Over the next few weeks I'll share more vignettes from this exceptional biography.

One who stood fast

Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God—the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "After Ten Years"

Bonhoeffer's childhood: happiness interrupted

Eric Metaxas writes in his superb new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that Bonhoeffer's childhood was like something "from Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, without the undertones of angst and foreboding." (p. 25) Like the sprawling Ekdahl family of Bergman's film, the Bonhoeffer's enjoyed the best that turn-of-the-century continental European culture had to offer. Dietrich grew up surrounded by his many siblings, aunts and uncles, family caregivers, and was as sheltered from the dark side of life as one could be. The Bonhoeffer clan were a genuinely happy bunch.

Patriarch Karl Bonhoeffer was an agnostic, but he gave his pious wife free reign to instruct their children in the Christian faith. Though they weren't a churchgoing family, Paula Bonhoeffer organized elaborate celebrations of Christian holidays. For Advent and Christmas these included Bible readings, hymns and candle lightings. The Bonhoeffer's were a musical family and each Saturday evening they gathered for songs and chamber music. Metaxas paints a vivid picture of an idyllic childhood for the man whose martyrdom at age 39 we'll commemorate again on Saturday.

Dietrich was 8 years old when Kaiser Wilhelm II made the disastrous decision in August, 1914 to declare war on Russia. Three days later Britain declared war on Germany and World War I was joined. Even the war couldn't interrupt this privileged and happy existence -- yet. Most Germans foolishly thought the war would be over by year's end. Dietrich's older brothers Karl-Friedrich and Walter weren't old enough to be called up so the family seemed safe. But the war dragged on; and in 1917 the family's fortunes took a darker turn as the two eldest of the Bonhoeffer boys were called to war. Metaxas reports that the parents could have pulled strings to keep their sons away from the front lines (they had distinguished friends in high places), but they didn't. This was a family that believed in doing the right thing even if it came at great cost. It did.

In April 1918 it was Walter's turn to go. As they had always done and would do for their grandchildren's generation twenty-five years hence, they gave Walter a festive send-off dinner. The large family gathered around the large table, gave handmade presents, and recited poems and sang songs composed for the occasion. Dietrich, then twelve, composed an arrangement for "Now, at the last, we say Godspeed on your journey" and, accompanying himself on the piano, sang it to his brother. They took Walter to the station the next morning, and as the train was pulling away, Paula Bonhoeffer ran alongside it, telling her fresh-faced boy: "It's only space that separates us." Two weeks later, in France, he died of a shrapnel wound. Walter's death changed everything. (p. 26)

This tragedy had a profound effect on young Dietrich and presaged the difficult decades that lay ahead for this great family. To be continued. . .


Quotes from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2010)

Costly discipleship revisited

I remember well my first encounter with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It was late 2000 or early 2001 and I was newly plugged in to a large Southern Baptist congregation after many years of no church involvement. I don't remember why I picked up a copy of The Cost of Discipleship, but I was immediately struck by the powerful directness of the message -- here was someone trying to seriously reckon with the hard teachings of Jesus. The book had a quality I hadn't run into before. The fact that Bonhoeffer wrote it when he was the same age I was at the time only added to its appeal. There was a clarity and conviction to the writing that made a profound impression. Of course, that influence continues. Bonhoeffer is one of my personal heroes.

What does a young German Lutheran pastor of the early twentieth century have to say to us today? More specifically what does he have to say to modern-day evangelical Christians? A lot, says Jon Walker. If you haven't heard of Pastor Walker I'm sure you've heard of his former boss -- a fellow named Rick Warren. Thanks to the good folks at Abilene Christian University Press I've had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Walker's just published book Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship.

Much ink has been spilled in recent years lamenting the "mile wide and inch deep" nature of commitment among evangelicals in America. Despite the impressive numbers some observers see the same warning signs in ostensibly Bible-believing churches as were seen decades ago when the mainline churches began their slide into theological liberalism and irrelevance. Several years ago Willow Creek -- one of evangelicalism's flagship churches -- published its Reveal study which showed a surprising lack of correlation between participation in church programs and spiritual growth. From his vantage point as a pastor at Saddleback, Walker has seen similar signs of a dearth of genuine discipleship -- and to put it in Bonhoefferian terms -- cheap grace.

A simple glance across the evangelical landscape reveals that we've overwhelmingly embraced the lesser grace. We're barely willing to adjust our schedules let alone our lifestyles.

and

We're glad to follow Jesus. His yoke does seem easy: a few hours each week in worship, a Bible study, a small group, a bit of service at the church and perhaps a mission trip each year. We try to be good people, to help others, and to thank God for our blessings. . . . But a peculiar people? A royal priesthood set apart? What? Does Jesus really mean I'm supposed to abandon my __________ (fill in the blank)?

Walker concludes his hard-hitting critique by concluding that "we've settled for cheap grace for so long that we've allowed it to become the norm for Christian living." I think he's right, and I plead guilty. Too often we've chosen cheap grace and lukewarm discipleship, which is no discipleship at all. And as Walker quoting Bonhoeffer reminds us: "Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ." The result is what another writer, Michael Horton, has dubbed "Christless Christianity."

Costly Grace is written in such a way that it can stand alone or as a companion to Bonhoeffer's book. The author quotes liberally from The Cost of Discipleship and does a good job of summarizing Bonhoeffer's arguments and applying them to contemporary situations. Each chapter concludes with examples of what Walker calls "Fallen Thinking" or "Kingdom Thinking". These could easily be used as discussion starters for a small-group book study. I can also see how this book would lend itself well to a private, contemplative approach -- perhaps as part of one's daily prayer and study.

I would hope (and I'm sure Walker does too) that readers wouldn't stop with Costly Grace, but would read the book that inspired it, as well as Bonhoeffer's other writings to get a fuller picture of his theology and ecclesiology. In addition to rampant "easy-believism" I think American evangelicals have often had too low a view of the visible church, the communion of the saints, and the centrality of the sacraments to the Christian life, all things which Bonhoeffer wrote eloquently and passionately about. Most of all I hope this book leads readers to a renewed obedience to the one who bids us come and die that we may have true life.

Quotes from Jon Walker, Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship (Abilene, TX: Leafwood, 2010) pp. 29-30

New Bonhoeffer bio

Thanks to Justin Taylor for reminding us that today is the 65th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's death at the hands of the Third Reich. Taylor also points to a new biography of Bonhoeffer written by Eric Metaxas, with a foreword by Tim Keller. I'll be ordering this!

Much more on Bonhoeffer here.

The Image of Christ

One more Bonhoeffer post and I promise that will be it for a while. The more I read this brother the more he stands out as one of the outstanding Christians of the 20th century. When I read him some of the adjectives that come to mind are Christocentric, catholic, and Bible-saturated. Above all, he was a pastoral and churchly theologian, beginning with his doctoral dissertation Sanctorum Communio ("Communion of Saints") which Karl Barth called a miracle. Not a bad endorsement! Bonhoeffer's writings constantly point me toward the finished work of Christ and the visible Body he left behind. I thank God for him.

The following quotes come from the last chapter of The Cost of Discipleship. For me this book and Life Together are in the category of books I should read once a year.

With the loss of the God-like nature God had given him, man had forfeited the destiny of his being, which was to be like God. In short, man had ceased to be man. He must live without the ability to live. Herein lies the paradox of human nature and the source of all our woe. Since that day, the sons of Adam in their pride have striven to recover the divine image by their own efforts. (p. 299)


God sends his Son—here lies the only remedy. It is not enough to give man a new philosophy or a better religion. A Man comes to men. Every man bears an image. His body and his life become visible. A man is not a bare word, a thought or a will. He is above all and always a man, a form, an image, a brother. And thus he does not create around him just a new way of thought, will and action, but he gives us the new image, the new form. Now in Jesus Christ this is just what has happened. The image of God has entered our midst, in the form of our fallen life, in the likeness of sinful flesh. In the teaching and acts of Christ, in his life and death, the image of God is revealed. In him the divine image has been re-created on earth. (p. 300)


Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race. (pp. 301-2)


Indeed it is wrong to speak of the Christian life: we should speak rather of Christ living in us. "I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified and glorified, has entered my life and taken charge. "To me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). And where Christ lives, there the Father also lives, and both Father and Son through the Holy Ghost. The Holy Trinity himself has made his dwelling in the Christian heart, filling his whole being, and transforming him into the divine image. Christ, incarnate, crucified and glorified is formed in every Christian soul, for all are members of his Body, the Church. The Church bears the human form, the form of Christ in his death and resurrection. The Church in the first place is his image, and through the Church all her members have been refashioned in his image too. In the Body of Christ we are become "like Christ." (p. 303)

Bonhoeffer on justification and sanctification

The New Testament clearly teaches that all Christians ("saints") have received the gifts of justification and sanctification. Like love and marriage, they go together like a horse and carriage. Both proceed from the same source -- the crucified and risen Christ, and have the same goal -- fellowship and communion with him. Though inextricably connected, they are different. This excerpt from The Cost of Discipleship is worth reading and rereading!

Justification is the means whereby we appropriate the saving act of God in the past, and sanctification the promise of God's activity in the present and future. Justification secured our entrance into fellowship and communion with Christ through the unique and final event of his death, and sanctification keeps us in that fellowship in Christ. Justification is primarily concerned with the relation between man and the law of God, sanctification with the Christian's separation from the world until the second coming of Christ. Justification makes the individual a member of the Church whereas sanctification preserves the Church with all its members. Justification enables the believer to break away from his sinful past; sanctification enables him to abide in Christ, to persevere in faith and to grow in love. We may perhaps think of justification and sanctification as bearing the same relation to each other as creation and preservation. Justification is the new creation of the new man, and sanctification his preservation until the day of Jesus Christ. (pp. 277-78)

Bonhoeffer

For the folks at Memorial Presbyterian Church here's a compilation of my posts on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I hope you've enjoyed our Wednesday night series on this extraordinary Christian, and that it has inspired you to further explore his life and writings.



The following link leads to a series of biographical sketches taken from Letters and Papers from Prison:

Costly Discipleship Remembered

Here are several of my favorite excerpts from Bonhoeffer's writings -- especially Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship -- along with some personal reflections:

The great school of prayer

Reading the Scriptures

Monday morning Bonhoeffer

Solitude and fellowship (part 1)

Solitude and fellowship (part 2)

Purposeful silence

A little leaven...

When God cancels our plans

Why the "verse for the day" is not enough

A prison Advent

Jesus, Socrates and Easter

Bonhoeffer on Luther and the justification of sinners (for Reformation Day 2009)

The trouble with moral difficulties

The fellowship of the blessed

The goal of Christian community

Bonhoeffer: the goal of Christian community

The day of the Lord's Supper is an occasion of joy for the Christian community. Reconciled in their hearts with God and the brethren, the congregation receives the gift of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and, receiving that, it receives forgiveness, new life, and salvation. It is given new fellowship with God and men. The fellowship of the Lord's Supper is the superlative fulfillment of Christian fellowship. As the members of the congregation are united today in body and blood at the table of the Lord so will they be together in eternity. Here the community has reached its goal. Here joy in Christ and his community is complete. The life of Christians together under the Word has reached its perfection in the sacrament.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (p. 122)

Marilynne Robinson interview

Michael Horton talks with Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Marilynne Robinson about many of the themes she explores in her writings, such as the dehumanizing affects of Darwinism, the significance of John Calvin, and the complexity of grace. Robinson is the author of Home, Gilead, and The Death of Adam. This is a fascinating and wideranging conversation! She likes Dietrich Bonhoeffer too. Robinson is an author I'll be reading in 2010.

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Bonhoeffer: Advent in prison

Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent; one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other — things that are really of no consequence — the door is shut, and can be opened only from the outside.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Eberhard Bethge - 21 November 1943, Letters and Papers from Prison

The fellowship of the blessed

The middle section of The Cost of Discipleship is a section by section exposition of Matthew 5-7 a/k/a The Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer refuses to sentimentalize or take the sharp edges off these hard sayings of Jesus. The chapter on The Beatitudes is a classic. He sets the scene and then provides several paragraphs of commentary on each beatitude. He doesn't play off a spiritualized reading of the language against a more literal reading. "Poor" can have a spiritual and a temporal meaning, "mourn" doesn't mean occasionally bummed out, etc. Jesus is describing a community, the community of those who "have publicly left the crowd to join him." The community of those who "have renounced everything at his call." This is the doorway to blessing as defined by Jesus, which definition is so different from the world's, or my own. I wonder where the signs of this kind of blessedness are to be found today.

Bonhoeffer concludes on a marvelous note. Here are two samples.

Having reached the end of the beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross of Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all. From the cross there comes the call "blessed, blessed." (pp. 113-114)

. . . while Jesus calls them blessed, the world cries: "Away with them, away with them!" Yes, but whither? To the kingdom of heaven. "Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven." There shall the poor be seen in the halls of joy. With his own hand God wipes away the tears from the eyes of those who had mourned upon earth. He feeds the hungry at his Banquet. There stand the scarred bodies of the martyrs, now glorified and clothed in white robes of eternal righteousness instead of the rags of sin and repentance. The echoes of this joy reach the little flock below as it stands beneath the cross, and they hear Jesus saying: "Blessed are ye!" (p. 114)

Quotes from The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1995)

The trouble with moral difficulties

The writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer are like a splash of freezing cold water in the face. They confront and shake the complacency of the reader. To put it crudely -- Bonhoeffer cuts through the crap. Jesus did the same in his encounters with all kinds of people. They were constantly coming to him with questions and requests. Time after time we see in the gospels Jesus forcing people to confront their real issues, the issues of the heart. He changes the agenda. Jesus is much more concerned with the individual than he is with the problems of the individual.

In The Cost of Discipleship there's an interesting section on Jesus's dialogue with the Rich Young Ruler (see Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22 and Luke 18:18-23). This young man was exemplary in many ways. His motives were sincere. He held Jesus in high esteem. Mark's account tells us that he fell on his knees before Jesus. But there's a problem. This man wants advice from a good master. He has a problem that he hopes can be solved. Jesus is a problem-solver, not the Son of God with an absolute claim on his life. His encounter with the great rabbi begins with a rude shock ("Why callest thou me good?") and ends in profound sadness. Bonhoeffer pinpoints the true nature of this young man's problem in his second question "Which commandment?" It's the follow-up questions that get you! Like the lawyer's question "Who is my neighbor?" in Luke 10, he unwittingly gives the game away. He's more interested in his own "moral difficulties" than the commandments of God. Bonhoeffer sees the devil himself lurking beneath the question. This man's questions are a form of evasion that comes naturally to all of us as a result of the Fall.

Moral difficulties were the first consequence of the Fall, and are themselves the outcome of "Man in Revolt" against God. The Serpent in Paradise put them into the mind of the first man by asking, "Hath God said?" Until then the divine command had been clear enough, and man was ready to observe it in childlike obedience. But that is now past, and moral doubts and difficulties have crept in. The command, suggests the Serpent, needs to be explained and interpreted. "Hath God said?" Man must decide for himself what is good by using his conscience and his knowledge of good and evil. The commandment may be variously interpreted, and it is God's will that it should be interpreted and explained: for God has given man a free will to decide what he will do.

But this means disobedience from the start. Doubt and reflection take the place of spontaneous obedience. The grown-up man with his freedom of conscience vaunts his superiority over the child of obedience. But he has acquired the freedom to enjoy moral difficulties only at the cost of renouncing obedience. In short, it is a retreat from the reality of God to the speculations of men, from faith to doubt. . . . He is—man under sin. (pp. 72-73)

I wonder if some times we use our questions and intellectual struggles as excuses to avoid doing what we know we should do. One of Bonhoeffer's great contributions is to remind us that the call and command of Jesus is clear and unmistakeable. However, there is one willing to provide a comforting answer to our moral difficulties—the one who was a liar from the beginning. He says, "Keep on posing problems, and you will escape the necessity of obedience." Jesus simply says, "Follow me."

Quotes from The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1995)

Bonhoeffer on Luther and the justification of sinners

I'm rereading The Cost of Discipleship -- for my money one of the best books ever written on the Christian life, especially section one with its discussion of cheap grace vs. costly grace. Cheap grace is "the grace we bestow on ourselves." It's "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross." Costly grace is "costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life." Even if you've never read the book you've probably heard the famous line -- "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." Nachfolge (Discipleship), as it was originally called, may be the high point in Bonhoeffer's struggle to work out what it means for the Christian to be fully in the world, but not of the world. What makes the book so powerful is that it was for the author more than a theoretical struggle. In his case Christ's call led to a martyr's death at age 39. Bonhoeffer's struggle was a central preoccupation for Luther also. In chapter one Bonhoeffer gives an insightful analysis of Luther's breakthroughs on justification and calling, and identifies a misapprehension of those breakthroughs that had led to an epidemic of cheap grace within the Lutheran churches of Germany. Here is some of that.

When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace. Luther passed through the cloister; he was a monk, and all this was part of the divine plan. Luther had left all to follow Christ on the path of absolute obedience. He had renounced the world in order to live the Christian life. He had learnt obedience to Christ and to his Church, because only he who is obedient can believe. The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the "religious." The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc. The monk's attempt to flee from the world turned out to be a subtle form of love for the world. The bottom having thus been knocked out of the religious life. Luther laid hold upon grace. Just as the whole world of monasticism was crashing about him in ruins, he saw God in Christ stretching forth his hand to save. He grasped that hand in faith, believing that "after all, nothing we can do is of any avail, however good a life we live." The grace which gave itself to him was a costly grace, and it shattered his whole existence. Once more he must leave his nets and follow. The first time was when he entered the monastery, when he had left everything behind except his pious self. This time even that was taken from him. He obeyed the call, not through any merit of his own, but simply through the grace of God. Luther did not hear the word: "Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness." No, Luther had to leave the cloister and go back to the world, not because the world in itself was good and holy, but because even the cloister was only a part of the world. (pp. 47-48)

It is a fatal misunderstanding of Luther's action to suppose that his rediscovery of the gospel of pure grace offered a general dispensation from obedience to the command of Jesus, or that it was the great discovery of the Reformation that God's forgiving grace automatically conferred upon the world both righteousness and holiness. On the contrary, for Luther the Christian's worldly calling is sanctified only in so far as that calling registers the final, radical protest against the world. Only in so far as the Christian's secular calling is exercised in the following of Jesus does it receive from the gospel new sanction and justification. It was not the justification of sin, but the justification of the sinner that drove Luther from the cloister back into the world. . . . That was the secret of the gospel of the Reformation—the justification of the sinner. (pp. 48-49, emphasis mine)

Quotes from Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1995)