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Loving Christ (Part 4) |
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By Ralph I. Tilley
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Editor's Note: This is the final installment in the four-part series titled Loving Christ. In Part Three I concluded with one of two church witnesses on this theme: George MacDonald. This part draws from the life and writings another witness—Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a Lutheran German theologian and pastor who was executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945, for his outspoken defiance of the nazified state church, which was essentially under the control of the Third Reich. In his classic work, Discipleship (a new translation from the original German edition of The Cost of Discipleship), Bonhoeffer addressed the importance of obedience in the life of a Christian. Discipleship was written by a young Bonhoeffer during a time in which Germany was embroiled in both a political and religious revolution. The church had increasingly become sterile in her devotion to Christ, losing its biblical identity as it melded with imperial and tyrannical Nazism. The average church member was only a nominal Christian, who most often had for a pastor an ecclesiastical intellectual without a saving knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. Luther's message of righteousness by faith had been reduced to a righteousness by mental assent without a corresponding righteousness occurring in the baptized and confirmed church member. Bonhoeffer was raised up by God as an intellectual, godly voice in the "wilderness" to cry out against a church that had an "appearance of godliness, but den[ied] its power.”[91] In the words of the general editors of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer "confronts his readers again and again with his own stark challenges to their facile, less than Christlike ways of being Christian.”[92] Reading Bonhoeffer's call to obedience, reminds me of James Kittleson's quotation about Luther: "I was born to go to war and give battle to sects and devils. That is why my books are stormy and warlike. I must root out the stumps and bushes and hack away the thorns and brambles. I am the great lumberjack who must clear the land and level it.”[93] Bonhoeffer was a reformer and revivalist. He labored tirelessly through both the spoken and written word to correct the average Christian's perception of what it means to live as an authentic Christian disciple of Christ. He called the church repeatedly to prayerfully go to the Scriptures in search of who Jesus really was and investigate his call to discipleship. Lifeless, ecclesiastical institutionalism was a barrier to biblical Christianity. Bonhoeffer asserted, "too much of what comes between them [Christians] and Jesus is merely human, institutional, or doctrinaire.[94] The "call to follow Jesus" supremely and practically was the very heart of Bonhoeffer's message. Such a call should neither be viewed as some impossible ideal to be achieved nor some mystical experience to be existentially realized. It was a call to be fleshed out in life's mundane matters and routine rituals. It was a call by God to follow his Son; it was an appeal to one's heart and will. It was a call to be like Jesus—a call to obey. In challenging his readers to think seriously about the essence of practical Christianity, Bonhoeffer posed a series of deeply searching questions: What could the call to follow Jesus mean today for the worker, the businessman, the farmer, or the soldier? Could it bring an intolerable dilemma into the existence of persons working in the world who are Christian? Is Christianity, defined as following Jesus, a possibility for too small a number of people? Does it imply a rejection of the masses and contempt for the weak and poor? Does it thereby deny the great mercy of Jesus Christ, who came to the sinners and tax collectors, the poor and weak, the misguided and despairing? What should we say to that? Where will the call to discipleship lead those who follow it? What decisions and painful separations will it entail.[95] This devout theologian and follower of the Lord Jesus takes the remainder of Discipleship to answer those questions. And whoever reads his searing message should never remain the same. Bonhoeffer's opening chapter is now considered a classic in Christian literature—at least among earnest Evangelical believers. In this chapter he contrasts two belief systems that had grown up side-by-side in the church of his day; and, of course, these systems have been present in the church almost from its inception. One system aligns unwittingly with what he termed "cheap grace"; the other with "costly grace." It will be necessary to quote Bonhoeffer extensively here in order to understand the characteristics of each belief system. When Bonhoeffer speaks of cheap grace, he is identifying a belief system that is at odds with the very core of the true Christian faith. This is a system of faith without works; a system whereby professed followers of the Lord Jesus have received baptism and confirmation and observe the requirements of the church, for example, but have not been transformed and do not demonstrate Christian conduct in their daily lives. In other words, they are not becoming more like Christ. Cheap grace emphasizes the doctrine of righteousness by faith, and minimizes its necessary counterpart—actual righteousness (sanctification) in the life of the believer. In the words of Bonhoeffer, cheap grace is characterized as follows: Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacrament; grace as the church's inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without costs. It is said that the essence of grace is that the bill for it is paid in advance for all time. Everything can be had for free, courtesy of that paid bill. The price paid is infinitely great and, therefore, the possibilities of taking advantage of and wasting grace are also infinitely great. What would grace be, if it were not cheap grace? Cheap grace means grace as doctrine, as principle, as system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God's love as merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins forgiven. The church that teaches this doctrine of grace thereby confers such grace upon itself. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to be set free. Cheap grace is, thus, denial of God's living word, denial of the incarnation of the word of God.[96] According to Bonhoeffer, this cheap grace is in reality Christianity without Christ, Christianity without God's actual grace. It is a caricature of biblical, radical Christianity: "Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance; it is baptism without the discipline of community; it is the Lord's Supper without confession of sin; it is absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ.”[97] From describing the symptoms of cheap grace Bonhoeffer proceeds to identify the characteristics of costly grace, the marks of an obedient disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. He calls it "costly grace" for a number of reasons. It is costly because: It is the hidden treasure in the field, for the sake of which people go and sell with joy everything they have.
In furthering his appeal to the church to abandon cheap grace for costly grace, Bonhoeffer cites as examples individuals and movements who practiced costly grace: the apostle Peter, the Monastic movement within the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and Luther, who spearheaded the Reformation. These men and movements should be emulated for their correct understanding of discipleship and their passionate love for the Lord Jesus, argued Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer rebuked the church leaders and those Christians of his day whom he believed had misinterpreted Luther's teaching on justification by faith. Such misunderstanding, according to Bonhoeffer, devolved into practical antinomianism. What was his recommendation to a Church that had swallowed the belief system of cheap grace? Bonhoeffer offered: "we . . . simply have to try to understand grace and discipleship again in correct relationship to each other.”[99] As a prelude to his own delineation of what he believed authentic Christian discipleship consisted, Bonhoeffer presented the following set of beatitudes: Blessed are they who already stand at the end of the path on which we wish to embark and perceive with amazement what really seems inconceivable: that grace is costly, precisely because it is pure grace, because it is God's grace in Jesus Christ. Blessed are they who by simply following Jesus Christ are overcome by this grace, so that with humble spirit they may praise the grace of Christ which alone is effective. Blessed are they who, in the knowledge of such grace, can live in the world without losing themselves in it. In following Christ their heavenly home has become so certain that they are truly free for life in this world. Blessed are they for whom following Jesus Christ means nothing other than living from grace and grace upon itself. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to be set free. Cheap grace is, thus, denial of God's living word, denial of the incarnation of the word of God.[100] According to Bonhoeffer, this cheap grace is in reality Christianity without Christ, Christianity without God's actual grace. It is a caricature of biblical, radical Christianity: "Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance; it is baptism without the discipline of community; it is the Lord's Supper without confession of sin; it is absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ.”[101] Bonhoeffer carefully examined and analyzed Christ's call to loving obedience in the Gospels and Christ's Sermon on the Mount. On the subject of obedient discipleship, Bonhoeffer said, "The road to faith passes through obedience to Christ's call." ". . . only the believers obey, and only the obedient believe." "Unbelief feeds on cheap grace, because it clings to disobedience." "The question Who is my neighbor? is the final question of despair or hubris, in which disobedience justifies itself.”[102] In summarizing his own overview of Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, Bonhoeffer underscored the importance of obedience in the life of the Christian: "From the human point of view there are countless possibilities of understanding and interpreting the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus knows only one possibility: simply go and obey. Do not interpret or apply, but do it and obey.”[103] Conclusion In summary, the following insights on the subject of loving Christ have been addressed in this four-part series: 1. One of the most persistent needs that every disciple of the Lord Jesus has, is the need to be daily renewed by the Holy Spirit so that one's love for Christ remains vital. Christians have no greater challenge, no greater need. 2. The Lord Jesus addressed this need of loving him supremely in his dialogue with Peter in John 21:15-23. 3. It impossible to love Christ without first having his love poured into our own hearts. When one has experienced such love—God's love (agape)—then one is empowered to reciprocate this love to God and manifest it toward others. 4. The disciple of the Lord Jesus can only love him because he has first been loved by God through his redemptive acts in Christ through the Cross and the Resurrection. 5. In Christ's self-sacrifice, the highest example has been set for the church to follow. Christ demonstrated his love by laying down his life for his disciples. 6. To love Christ with an agape love is to listen to Christ. The disciple hears Christ primarily through the written Word of God, but not solely. In areas of personal guidance, the sheep hear their Shepherd's voice by his speaking through the Holy Spirit. However, the Spirit always guides in harmony with the written Word of God. 7. To love Christ is to obey Christ. We saw from the Old Testament, the teachings of the Lord Jesus, and two witnesses from church history—George MacDonald and Dietrich Bonhoeffer—that God expects his people to obey him, and that through Christ's indwelling love and the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, a Christian can obey God, albeit not in an absolute sense (the Scriptures do not advocate sinless perfection). The nineteenth century prince of Scottish hymn writers Horatius Bonar, described in his hymn "I Was a Wandering Sheep" the pilgrimage from where he once was to what he became through Christ. It is an apt depiction of those who have discovered the way of loving obedience—the necessary way if one is to cultivate and express a passionate love for Christ. Here are the first and last stanzas of his hymn: I was a wandering sheep, No more a wandering sheep, Just as he asked Simon Peter on Galilee's shore some two thousand years ago, so the Lord Jesus asks his followers today, "Do you love me?" What will our answer be? - Soli Deo Gloria - Unless otherwise noted, the Bible version used in this article is the English Standard Version. 912Timothy 3:5. |
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