"Cheap Grace" & "Costly Grace"

"Cheap Grace" & "Costly Grace," have become pretty come terms. It was first coined by D. Bonhoeffer in the first chapter of his Cost of Discipleship. He was executed by the Nazis at the end of WWII. I thought I'd add a summary of his thoughts here.

"Cheap grace," writes Bonhoeffer, "means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before....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.

"Costly grace is the hidden treasure in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has....Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because if calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His Son: 'ye were bought with a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us, Costly grace is the Incarnation of God."

To read more of this chapter you can go to the link below.

http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/XIII/13-3.htm