You’ve probably seen copies of the biography titled Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy published by Thomas Nelson in 2011, fit with a massive black-and-white photo of the preacher’s face. Whenever we selected The Cost of Discipleship for our Siblings’ Book Club in 2019, we all had in mind (for whatever reason) that modern biography, not this 1937 book on spirituality. This mistake is likely why I alone finished reading this one, but don’t let our group’s failure deter you!

The Cost of Discipleship is definitely worth a careful read —it has so much to teach! But it’s a book of heavy doctrine, written a hundred years ago and originally in German (admittedly, a blurb with that info would likely kill its sales today). It’s essentially a dissection of the Sermon on the Mount, with the cost of true discipleship firmly in view.

“Cheap Grace”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his book with a lengthy discussion on what he terms “cheap grace.” If you haven’t heard that term before, seek it out, because it’s an immensely important perspective on the modern church and how we’ve learned to take God’s grace for granted. “Cheap grace,” in Bonhoeffer’s estimation, is that grace which covers our sin, even while we sin—it’s that little devil on our shoulder helping us to justify our sinful choices with the admission that “God will forgive me anyways.” This clutch upon cheap grace isn’t just dangerous, according to Bonhoeffer, but very nigh blasphemy and evidence of not having God’s grace at all. It’s a serious issue.

This concept of cheap grace is nothing new, of course. The Apostle Paul fought it (“O wretched man that I am!” see Rom. 6-8), and Bonhoeffer points out that, in the Early Church, “monasticism became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity and the cheapening of grace” (36). Perhaps you’re Baptist like me, and you aren’t so familiar with the liturgical style of many Lutheran church services or their roots in Catholic tradition, but those roots go so deep that in reading writers like Bonhoeffer, you almost need that liturgical framework from which to view the structural practicality of what he’s teaching. Without a sense of the tradition from which he writes, many readers (I fear) will miss out on the pertinent spiritual points he makes.

For example, while he recognized this ancient monastic tradition as responding to a flaw in the church, he also acknowledges the flaw in the response as well:

By and large, the fatal error of monasticism lay not so much in its rigorism (though even here there was a good deal of misunderstanding of the precise content of the will of Jesus) as in the extent to which it departed from genuine Christianity by setting up itself as the individual achievement of a select few, and so claiming a special merit of its own. (37)

What he’s saying is that, if we’re all tempted to cheapen grace, and in response we’re then tempted to work hard to fix it, we’re failing either way! We take God’s grace for granted on the one hand, and we try to earn his grace on the other. The only fix possible is that we understand God’s grace for what it is, eternally valuable, totally unearnable, and the only thing in this universe which we really need. The whole book from this point on is “a message for those who are troubled by this problem, and to whom the word of grace has been emptied of all its meaning” (44).

The Christian’s Choice

One aspect of the book that impacted me greatly is that of the Christian’s choice to follow the Savior. I have found myself preaching this truth a lot lately, especially when consider Paul’s careful choice of active verbs in his imperative sentences (“Put off the old man,” “Renew your mind,” “Love one another,” etc.). Bonhoeffer touches on this necessity in the following passages:

Briefly, the position is this. Our sinner has drugged himself with cheap and easy grace by accepting the proposition that only those who believe can obey. He persists in disobedience, and seeks consolation by absolving himself. This only serves to deaden his ears to the word of God. We cannot breach the fortress so long as we merely repeat the proposition which affords him his self-defense. So we must make for the turning point without further ado, and exhort him to obedience—“Only those who obey can believe.” Will that lead him astray, and encourage him to trust in his own works? Far from it. (58)

When the Christian confesses to the sin of accidie (that he no longer readily embraces the will of God, that he is lapsing into worldliness, that all the joy has gone out of his communion with God and that he no longer has the strength to pray) it is high time for him to launch an assault upon the flesh, and prepare for better service by fasting and prayer (Luke ii.37, iv.2; Mark ix.29; 1 Cor.vii.5)…When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh. How is it possible to live the life of faith when we grow weary of prayer, when we lose our taste for reading the Bible, and when sleep, food and sensuality deprive us of the joy of communion with God? (142)

Standout Passages

I highlighted so many passages from this book, I fear I’d simply reproduce the book in its entirely if I copy-pasted them into my review, but I do want to share a few more standout thoughts from this modern martyr. I will categorize them in the following ways: Enemies, Prayer, and Persecution.

ENEMIES:

In the New Testament our enemies are those who cherish hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility. The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus…Where is love more glorious and worthy to be praised than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies? Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another. The more bitter our enemy’s hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is no inner discord between private person and official capacity. After all we are Christians both in our official and in our private capacities, or we are not Christians at all. Am I asked how this love is to behave? Jesus gives the answer: bless, do good, and pray for your enemies without reserve and without respect of persons. (122-123)

PRAYER:

Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him. That is why intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbors, and corporate prayer, offered in the name of Christ, the purest form of fellowship. (78)

In the last resort it is immaterial whether we pray in the open street or in the secrecy of our chambers, in the Litany of the Church, or with the aspirations of one who knows not what he should pray for. True prayer does not depend either on the individual or the whole body of the faithful, but solely upon the knowledge that our heavenly Father knows our needs. That makes God the sole object of our prayers, and frees us from a false confidence in our own works. (137)

PERSECUTION:

Therefore Jesus calls His disciples blessed (cf. Luke vi. 20 ff.). He spoke to men who had already responded to His call, and it is that call which has made them poor, afflicted and hungry…Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” With each beatitude the gulf is widened between the disciples and the people, their call to come forth from the people becomes increasingly manifest. (85, 87)

It is in this light that the good works of the disciples are meant to be seen. Men are not to see the disciples but their good works, says Jesus. And these works are none other than those which the Lord Jesus Himself has created in them by calling them to be the light of the world under the shadow of His cross. The good works are poverty, estrangement, meekness, peaceableness, and finally persecution and rejection. (97)

The time is coming when the confession of the living God will incur not only the hatred and the fury of the world, for on the whole that is true already, but complete ostracism from ‘human society’, as they call it. The Christians will be hounded from place to place, subjected to physical assault, maltreatment and death of every kind. We are approaching an age of widespread persecution. Therein lies the true significance of all the movements and conflicts of our age. Our adversaries seek to root out the Christian Church and the Christian faith because they cannot live side by side with us, because they see in every word we utter and every deed we do, even when they are not specifically directed against them, a condemnation of their own words and deeds. They are not far wrong. (125)

The Cost of Discipleship promises to convict and inspire believers in their Christian walk, but beware: this is not a book for young-Christians. This is a book of theological meat, not milk, requiring a long time in the slow-cooker of the mind. Feast on it. You won’t be disappointed.

©2021 E.T.

Read More from and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

• The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1937)
• God Is in the Manger (2010)
• Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas (2010)
• The Faithful Spy by John Hendrix (2012)