The Cost of Discipleship

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

they were not playing church but rather were the church,

in the end he answered to his audience of One, the only One whose opinion mattered. Bonhoeffer also knew that in the end that was where each of us must find himself.

life beyond this pale and preliminary life.

the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits.

An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins.

no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin.

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.

not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin.

Instead of

following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of his grace!

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

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.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it 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 at 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.

Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

limiting the application of the commandments of Jesus to a restricted group of specialists,

a higher life within the fold, and thus justify the other possibility of a lower standard of life for others.

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.

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.

The renunciation he made when he became a monk was child’s play compared with that which he had to make when he returned to the world.

The only way to follow Jesus was by living in the world. Hitherto the Christian life had been the achievement of a few choice spirits under the exceptionally favourable conditions of monasticism; now it is a duty laid on every Christian living in the world. The commandment of Jesus must be accorded perfect obedience in one’s daily vocation of life.

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.

freedom from the bondage of a self-chosen way,

And it was costly, for, so far from dispensing him from good works, it meant that he must take the call to discipleship more seriously than ever before.

That experience taught him that this grace had cost him his very life, and must continue to cost him the same price day by day.

The justification of the sinner in the world degenerated into the justification of sin and the world. Costly grace was turned into cheap grace without discipleship.

bourgeois secular existence,

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.

mutual relation between grace and discipleship.

We are not expected to contemplate the disciple, but only him who calls, and his absolute authority.

According to our text, there is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road—only obedience to the call of Jesus.

An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship whatever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ.

Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus. Unless a definite step is demanded, the call vanishes into thin air, and if men imagine that they can follow Jesus without taking this step, they are deluding themselves

For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.

In the one case faith is the condition of obedience, and in the other obedience the condition of faith.

If we are to believe, we must obey a concrete command.

If we think our first step is the pre-condition for faith and grace, we are already judged by our work, and entirely excluded from grace.

If we take the first step with the deliberate intention of placing ourselves in the situation where faith is possible, even this possibility of faith will be nothing but a work.

we can only take this step aright if we fix our eyes not on the work we do, but on the word with which Jesus calls us to do it.

But we should completely misunderstand the nature of grace if we were to suppose that there was no need to take the first step, because faith was already there. Against that we must boldly assert that the step of obedience must be taken before faith can be possible. Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe.

Is there some part of your life which you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some sinful passion, maybe, or some animosity, some hope, perhaps your ambition or your reason? If so, you must not be surprised that you have not received the Holy Spirit, that prayer is difficult,

or that your request for faith remains unanswered. Go rather and be reconciled with your brother, renounce the sin which holds you fast—and then you will recover your faith!

If you dismiss the word of God’s command, you will not receive his word of grace. How can you hope to enter into communion with him when at some point i...

The gracious call of Jesus now becomes a stern command: Do this! Give up that! Leave the ship and come to me! When a man says he cannot obey the call of Jesus because he believes, or because he does not believe, Jesus says: “First obey, perform the external work, renounce your attachments, give up the obstacles which separate you from the will of God. Do not say you have not got faith. You will not have it so long as you persist in disobedience and refuse to take...

He complains that God’s commandment is uncertain, and susceptible of different interpretations. At first he was aware enough of his disobedience, but with his increasing hardness of heart that awareness grows ever fainter, and in the end he becomes so enmeshed that he loses all capacity for hearing the Word, and faith is quite impossible.

It is now time to take the bull by the horns, and say: “Only those who obey believe.” Thus the flow of the conversation is interrupted, and the pastor can continue: “You are disobedient, you are trying to keep some part of your life under your own control.

He must say: “Tear yourself away from all other attachments, and follow him.”

Will that lead him astray, and encourage him to trust in his own works? Far from it. He will the more easily realize that his faith is no genuine one at all. He will be rescued from his entanglement by being compelled to come to a definite decision. In this way his ears are opened once more for the call of Jesus to faith and discipleship.

Here is the sum of the commandments—to live in fellowship with Christ. This Christ now confronts the young man with his call. He can no longer escape into the unreal world of his moral difficulties. The commandment is plain and straightforward: “Follow me.”

The life of discipleship is not the hero-worship we would pay to a good master, but obedience to the Son of God.