Costly grace

'Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.' Bonhoeffer wrote this in 1937, yet we seem to have learned very little.

'Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth . . . Cheap grace means justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. . . . Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a [person] must knock. 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' from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Church-community

The church-community is thus able to bear the sins that none of its members can bear alone: it is able to bear more than all of its members combined. As such, it is a spiritual reality that is more than the sum of all the individuals. Not all the individuals, but the church-community as a whole in Christ is the 'body of Christ'; it is Christ existing as church-community. It bears the sins by receiving forgiveness through the word and seeing its sins wiped out on the cross. It is by the word alone, but in doing so it has the Spirit. It is the bearer of the word, its steward and its instrument. It has authority, provided it has faith in the authority of the word; it can take the sins of individuals upon itself, if it builds itself upon the word of the cross, and knows itself reconciled and justified in the cross of Jesus. It has itself died and risen with Christ, and is now the nova creatura (new creation) in Christ. It is not merely a means to an end but also an end in itself. Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio, 190. This is community!

Repentance

Repentance means being open to the strangeness of resurrection and to the free and boundless initiative of faith - Karl Barth. That's a very positive definition, and a helpful one, I think.

I am only one

'I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do' Helen Keller

righteousness in God

'It becomes evident that we are looking for a righteousness without God, that we are looking, in truth, for a god without God and against God. . . . It is clear that such a god is not god' - Karl Barth writing at the beginning of the last century. How many theologians does it take to encourage us today to seek righteousness only in God?

Christmas greetings!

Wishing you a very good and blessed Christmas and New Year!

Mike Reeves, The Good God

http://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/best_christian_book_ever_read