Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works)

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Instead, the saints are called to be holy. For they are sanctified in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

All these no longer have any place in the community of Christ. They have been dismissed, judged on the cross, and brought to an end. From the very beginning Christians are told that “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal.

one of these vices is, nevertheless, discovered within the church-community, then the consequence must be exclusion from the community’s life altogether

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Fornication is the recurrence of Adam’s sin, of the craving to be like God, the aspiration to be the creator of life, the desire to rule rather than serve.

for a Christian’s body is a member of the body of Christ. It belongs to Christ alone. Bodily union with a prostitute destroys the spiritual communion [Gemeinschaft] with Christ.

The fornicator cannot escape the wrath of God (Rom. 1:29; 1 Cor. 5:1f.; 7:2; 10:7; 2 Cor. 12:21; Heb. 12:16; 13:4).

The unbridled passions of the body die a daily death in this community. With discipline and chastity Christians use their bodies exclusively to serve and to build up the body of Christ, the church-community. This also holds true within a Christian marriage, which is itself thus transformed into a part of the body of Christ.

they spring from our own selfish desire.

They live out of the darkness of their own hearts. By sinning against the body of Christ, they sin against their kindred. The body of Christ makes fornication and love mutually exclusive.

All those who live a life of excessive self-indulgence have no part in the body of Christ.

Works are dead, but fruit is alive and the bearer of seeds which themselves produce new fruit. Works can exist on their own, but fruit cannot exist without a tree. Fruit is always something full of wonder, something that has been created. It is not something willed into being, but something that has grown organically.

The saints themselves are unaware of the fruit of sanctification they bear. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. If they become curious to know something in this matter, if they decide to engage in self-contemplation, then they would have already torn themselves away from the root and their time of bearing fruit would have passed.

only the saints see strife, hardship, weakness, and sin. And the more maturity they gain in the state of sanctification, the more they recognize themselves as being overcome, as those who are dying according to the flesh. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

Christ is their daily death and their daily life.

And, unaware of their goodness, they will ask for the forgiveness of their sins. These very same Christians, who embrace the truth that sin no longer rules over them and that the believer no longer sins, will also confess that “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just in forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and God’s word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who is the righteous one” (1 John 1:8—2:1).

A church-community which does not call sin sin will likewise be unable to find faith when it wants to grant forgiveness of sin. It commits a sin against what is holy; it leads a life unworthy of the gospel. It is an unholy church-community because it squanders the Lord’s costly forgiveness.

Rather, specific sins have to be named, punished, and sentenced.

Sinners within the church-community must be warned and disciplined, so that they not

forfeit their salvation and thereby misuse the gospel. The baptismal grace can be received

only by those who repent and profess their faith ...

In the confession of sin before another Christian, the flesh dies together with its pride. It is surrendered into shame and death with Christ, and through the word of forgiveness a new human being who is confident of God’s mercy comes into being.

exercise discipline, warn, and exhort with the utmost patience in teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2).

For this is obviously the only way to struggle against daily temptation in the church-community

community and against falling away from it altogether.

For if a member of the community nevertheless commits a sin of word or deed which becomes known, then the community must have the strength to initiate the process of real church discipline against this member.

It certainly also includes their temporary exclusion from the activities of the church-community. However, this avoidance of known sinners is not yet meant to be a complete suspension of any community with them.

If the sinners repent, and publicly confess their sins, then they are granted the forgiveness of all their sins in the name of God (cf. 2 Cor. 2:6ff.). But if the sinners persist in their sin, the church-community must retain their sin in the name of God. This, however, entails exclusion from all forms of life together with the church-community.

as a handing-“over to Satan” (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Tim. 1:20). The guilty persons [Schuldige] are being handed back to the world where Satan reigns and causes death. (Here, Paul does not think of capital punishment as in Acts 5, as is evident when comparing 1 Tim. 1:20 with 2 Tim. 2:17 and 4:15.)

“they may learn not to blaspheme anymore” (1 Tim. 1:20) For sinners to be restored to the church-community or to find salvation remains the goal of church discipline. It remains a pedagogical act. The declaration of the church-community will certainly stand for eternity if the sinner does not repent. However, this declaration with which the church-community must take away the sinner’s salvation is just as certainly the final offer of life together with the church-community and of salvation.[3][4]

Sanctification always relates to the end of time. Its goal is not to pass the test when judged by the world or even by the person being sanctified, but to pass the test before the Lord.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Therefore, do not count on God’s grace if you intend to persist in sin! On the day of Jesus Christ only the sanctified church-community will escape the wrath of God. For the Lord will judge us each according to our works without partiality.

According to the Lord’s own saying, only those who do the will of his heavenly Father shall enter the kingdom of heaven.

There is no faith without the good work, just as there is no good work without faith.[5]

We have been saved through God’s own work in Christ, rather than through our own works.

God promises good works with which they will be able to stand fast on that day; God promises to preserve them in the state of sanctification unto the day of Jesus. All we can do is to trust in this promise of God because it is God’s word, and then go and persist in carrying out the good works for which God has prepared us.

Without knowing it, we have fed him, provided him with drink, given him clothes, and visited him; and without knowing it, we have turned him away. On that day, we will be greatly astonished, and we will recognize that it is not our works which endure here but only the work which God, in God’s own time, accomplished through us without our intention and effort (Matt. 25:31ff.).

To become “like Christ”—that is what disciples are ultimately destined to become. The

Every human being bears an image. Our bodies and lives manifest themselves visibly. As a human being we are not merely word, thought, or will. Rather, before and in all of these, we are a human being, a form, an image, a brother or sister. A human being thus develops not only a new way of thinking, willing, and doing things, but a new image, a new form. In Jesus Christ, God’s own image has come into our midst in the form of our lost human life, in the likeness of sinful flesh. God’s own image becomes revealed in Jesus’ teaching and in his deeds, in his life and in his death.

Jesus’ form of a servant was changed into a new body of heavenly form and radiance. But whoever, according to God’s promise, seeks to participate in the radiance and glory of Jesus must first be conformed to the image of the obedient, suffering servant of God on the cross. Whoever seeks to bear the transfigured image of Jesus must first have borne the image of the crucified one, defiled in the world.

In Christ’s incarnation all of humanity regains the dignity of bearing the image of God.

It is into this image that the disciple’s life must be transformed.

However, from baptism all the way to martyrdom, it is the same suffering and the same death. It is the new creation of the image of God through the crucified one.

The life of Jesus Christ here on earth has not yet concluded. Christ continues to live it in the lives of his followers. To describe this reality we must not speak about our Christian life but about the true life of Jesus Christ in us.

Only because we bear Christ’s image already can Christ be the “example” whom we follow. Only because he himself already lives his true life in us can we “walk just as he walked” (1 John 2:6), “act as he acted” (John 13:15), “love as he loved” (Eph. 5:2; John 13:34; 15:12), “forgive as he forgave” (Col. 3:13), “have the same mind that was in Jesus Christ” (Phil. 2:5), follow the example he left for us (1 Peter 2:21), and lose our lives for the sake of our brothers and sisters, just as he lost his life for our sake (1 John 3:16).

“imitators of God.”