Oswald Chambers said, “The way we continually talk about our own inability is an insult to the Creator. The deploring of our own incompetence is a slander against God for having overlooked us.” Paul said in 1 Co. 15:10, “His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.”
“Grace has been defined as God’ unmerited favor on behalf of the sinner.” In Ephesians 2:8 Paul said, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—“(NIV 1984). The verse defines grace as something that is unattainable by our own means. With this in mind Dietrich Bonhoeffer categorizes grace two ways:
1. Cheap Grace – Bonhoeffer says this is the kind of grace that is “sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares”. A cheapjack is “a peddler or dealer of cheap goods”. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cheapjacks) Bonhoeffer goes on to say that “Cheap grace 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 therefore is a grace that says we can continue to sin, live in the world and like the world because we are “covered by grace.” Paul saw this very thing going on during his life and ministry. In Romans 6:1, Paul asked a rhetorical question “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (NIV 1984) Then Paul answered his question with more questions. Romans 6:2-4, “By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
Bonhoeffer said, “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.”
2. Costly Grace – The opposite of cheap grace is costly grace. If grace is something unearned then why does it cost? If I didn’t earn it then I can’t lose it. If someone gives you a new car – unearned gift – just because “I love you” gift void of any strings – does it then not become your responsibility to care for the car, maintain it? Costly grace, “condemns sin, and justifies the sinner. …It is costly because it cost God the life of his son…and what his cost God much cannot be cheap for us. …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.”
So many Christians fail to recognize that with grace comes responsibility and discipleship. Christians claim Ephesians 2:8 without seeing there is a cost. Paul says that the acceptance of this gift (grace) we are “transformed” from the old into a new person no longer “conformed” to living the way of the world. Romans 12:2a, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (NIV 1984) Our lives are no longer ours but we belong to God. Through grace we are freed from trying to earn our way to heaven and yet this freedom is not free because of the sacrificial death of Jesus the Son of God. We are no longer slaves to sin but we belong to a Master to whom we owe our very lives.
Romans 6:15-23 (NIV 1984)
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever- increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[1] Chambers, Oswald. “My Utmost for His Highest”, Barbour Books, New Jersey. 1963. Nov. 30.
[1] Smith, Bailey E. “The Grace Escape”, Broadman Press, Nashville,1991.p21
[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “The Cost of Discipleship”, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995. p43
[1] Ibid. p44
[1] Ibid. p44-45
[1] Ibid. p45
Janet's Take on Things 