Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I have just started reading the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Mataxas. I was greatly enlightened and blessed by the forward by Timothy J Keller and thought I would like to share some of it.

"It is impossible to understand Bonhoeffer's Nachfolge without becoming acquainted with the shocking capitulation of the German church to Hitler in the 1930s. How could the "church of Luther", that great teacher of the gospel, have ever come to such a place? The answer is that the true gospel, summed up by Bonhoeffer as costly grace, had been lost. On the one hand, the church had become marked by formalism. That meant going to church and hearing that God just loves and forgives everyone, so it doesn't really matter much how you live. Bonhoeffer called this cheap grace. On the other hand, there was legalism, or salvation by law and good works. Legalism meant that God loves you because you have pulled yourself together and are trying to live a good, disciplined life.

Both of these impulses made it possible for Hitler to come to power. The formalists in Germany may have seen things that bothered them, but saw no need to sacrifice their safety to stand up to them. Legalists responded by having pharisaical attitudes toward other nations and races that approved of Hitler's policies. But as one, Germany lost hold of the brilliant balance of the gospel that Luther so persistently expounded - "We are saved by faith alone but not by faith which is alone". That is, we are saved not by anything we do, but by grace. Yet if we have truly understood and believed the gospel, it will change what we do and how we live.

By the time of Hitler's ascension, much of the German church understood grace only as abstract acceptance - "God forgives; that's his job." But we know that true grace comes to us by costly sacrifice. And if God was willing to go the the cross and endure such pain and absorb such a cost in order to save us, then we must live sacrificially as we serve others. Anyone who truly understands how God's grace comes to us will have a changed life.....costly grace changes you from the inside out. Neither law nor cheap grace can do that.

This lapse couldn't happen to us, today, surely, could it? Certainly it could. We still have a lot of legalism and moralism in our churches. In reaction to that, many Christians want to talk only about God's love and acceptance. They don't like talking about Jesus' death on the cross to satisfy divine wrath and justice....Yet if they are not careful, they run the risk of falling into the belief in "cheap grace" - a non costly love from a non-holy God who just loves and accepts us as we are. That will never change anyone's life."

Well done Timothy Keller.

Have a great day,

Peter Clark.