Dietrich Bonhoeffer Grace Quotations

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

The gift of Christ is not the Christian religion, but the grace and love of God which culminate in the cross.

The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

But they all stood beneath the cross, enemies and believers, doubters and cowards, revilers and devoted followers. His prayer, in that hour, and his forgiveness, was meant for them all, and for all their sins. The mercy and love of God are at work even in the midst of his enemies. It is the same Jesus Christ, who of his grace calls us to follow him, and whose grace saves the murderer who mocks him on the cross in his last hour.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all he has. It is the pearl of great price to by which the merchant will sell all his goods.

God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love. God makes us happy, as only children can be happy.

The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.

We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there he still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace.

The proclamation of grace has its limits. Grace may not be proclaimed to anyone who does not recognize or distinguish or desire it... The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and it will not only trample upon the Holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them.

The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it.

The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance.

God honors some with great suffering and grants them the grace of martyrdom, while other are not tempted beyond their strength. But in every case it is one cross.

The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves.

Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.

grace at a low cost, is in the last resort simply a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.