Bonhoeffer "The Cost of Discipleship"

Book Review

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship. Rev. ed. Trans. R.H. Fuller (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1959)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his twin sister Sabine were born on February 4, 1906, in Breslau, Germany. He studied at Tubingen and Berlin and went on to become a Lutheran pastor. The elections in Germany in 1932 brought about the Nazi rise to power, and the stage was set for the German church struggle. Bonhoeffer aligned himself with the evangelical opposition to Hitler, and was wholeheartedly behind the Confessing Church.

The rise of Hitler ran parallel to Bonhoeffer’s rise and it was opposition to the evils of Nazism that compelled Bonhoeffer to put his words into actions that cost him his life. As is set out in the introductory memoir in this edition, he understood that Hitler and national socialist ideology represented a grave threat to Germans, to Christianity, and to western civilisation. Bonhoeffer also understood that he could not in good conscience leave his own people to suffer on their own, thus he suffered alongside his compatriots in 1939 against Nazism. This passion and conviction eventually leads to his death in 1945.

One cannot read the Cost of Discipleship without an acute understanding of his writings on sacrifice, obedience, and the cost of grace that were mirrored by his actions. This set the scene for much of Bonhoeffer’s writings.

The Cost of Discipleship was the most famous work of Bonhoeffer, which achieved a wide reputation. It contains a profound interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount plus an exposition of Matthew 9:35-10:42, and sections on the “Church of Jesus Christ and the Life of Discipleship”. This writing quickly gave him a firm reputation in the theological world.

The book’s major theme centers on what it really means to be a disciple of Christ. This is summed up by Bonhoeffer’s statement that Christ calls us to “come and die” One is either a disciple of Christ, or they are not. The true disciple is dying to his or her life as a whole, and their old life is being replaced with the life of Christ.

The book begins with a section entitled “The Call to Discipleship”. The important question Bonhoeffer asked was this: What does it mean to follow Jesus Christ? He calls for a return to Scripture and to Jesus Christ, who has called us to be his disciples. Discipleship is not dos’ and don’ts, nor rules and dogmas. Discipleship, even though it may be hard, is not limited to a small group of spiritual elites. Jesus has promised to give the grace to do it, and it will eventually leads to Christian joy.

The background for the exposition of the Sermon on the Mount is the prevalence in the church of what Bonhoeffer calls "cheap grace." Bonhoeffer defined cheap grace as:

“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.” (36)

Against the triumph of cheap grace in the church, Bonhoeffer calls for a return to obedience of Christ. Only in costly grace is there joy in Christian living. Costly, because it cost Jesus his life, but it is grace because God did not count this too great a cost.

One becomes a disciple by taking the call of Jesus to follow him. In answering the call of Christ, one must take the first concrete step, and by faith, the disciple must arise and follow him. Now, Bonhoeffer introduces two propositions that must be held together always: “Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes” (54). There is no obedience without faith, or faith without obedience. Obedience, he says, is not optional. It is not an afterthought; something that is added to salvation at some later point. Inability to believe is probably due to unwillingness to take the first step to obey. This thought runs similar to Blumhardt’s belief of mandatory discipleship. “The first and the last word of a disciple of Jesus is “Obey! Of what use is believing if you cannot obey?”

All subterfuges based on "reason and conscience, responsibility and piety" stand in the way of complete obedience. Some reinterpret Jesus’ demands to mean that we do not leave all, but simply possess the wealth of the world as though we did not possess it. This is seen by Bonhoeffer as reducing the command to follow to just developing a spirit of inward detachment, but without attachment and adherence to Christ. To him, nothing should stand in our way to fulfil the single-minded understanding of the command of Christ, lest cheap grace sneaks back into our life.

Bonhoeffer believed that suffering and rejection go hand in hand with bearing the cross. Being a disciple is related to bearing the cross of Christ. To take up the cross is to deny oneself. This should serve as a warning to us to take the call of Jesus seriously. We should not fall into the trap of thinking that ‘dying to self’ is a suggestion; something than can be discussed, debated, and interpreted. He wants us to listen, obey, and then get on to emulate him in his suffering and death.

Every Christian must bear the cross. The cross here simply means that one must abandon any attachments of this world, and then follow after Christ and die to himself. When suffering finishes its work, it is the path to victory. The seriousness of the call of Christ is realistically set forth in all its hardness by Bonhoeffer. Discipleship is denying yourself, accept persecutions, forsake all that we previously holding on to. Yet, he who calls gives strength to endure. Surely, Bonhoeffer’s life is a poignant example of this statement.

Bonhoeffer takes the beatitudes seriously, and believed that they are incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer divided the Sermon on the Mount into three sections. First section is Chapter 5 of Matthew, which relates to the openness of the disciple’s life. The disciples in following Christ’ footsteps are thus called ‘blessed’. The poor in spirit are those who have accepted the loss of all things including their life for the sake of Jesus. Those who mourn are those who refuse to adhere to the standards of the world, and seek God’s kingdom first. The meek are those who give up claims to their own rights for the will of Christ. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are those who renounce all claims to personal achievement, and wait for God’s reign of righteousness.

The merciful are those who take upon themselves the distress and humiliation of others. They love and care for the needy. The pure in heart give their hearts completely to the reign of Jesus, and the peacemakers renounce all violence and “maintain fellowship where others would break it off”. For those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, God’s kingdom belongs to them.

Under this section too, Bonhoeffer touched on the real meaning of law by correcting the erroneous views previously held. For example, commandment on killing relates not only to the overt act but to attitudes of anger and hate as well. Bonhoeffer maintains that freedom from anger is the command for the disciple. Discipleship also forbids a free rein of lust. If the disciple gazes upon Christ, his gaze will be pure even when looking at a woman. Discipleship also means complete truthfulness. Truthfulness is the basis for fellowship among believers. Without it, brotherhood is destroyed.

Bonhoeffer is most interesting when he treats the revenge passage of Matthew 5:38-42. To Bonhoeffer, the way to conquer evil is not politically but passively. A disciple ought to be meek, and not seek revenge when wronged. Christian cannot return hostility for hostility. Jesus commands that love for the enemy to be a hallmark of the disciple. This love is the fulfilling of the law and obedience to Christ. Resistance creates further resistance and solves nothing. It is worth noting that the strong pacifism here is remarkably in contrast to Bonhoeffer’s later involvement in the resistance to the Nazi regime as well as his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

Second section is Matthew Chapter 6, which speaks of the hiddenness of the disciples’ spiritual existence. The hiddenness is from ourselves. Discipleship means looking at and following Christ, lest it is false discipleship. When one begins to notice his own goodness, one ceases being a disciple. The disciple’s life also includes prayer, and fasting as the motive of self-discipline for better service to God. Finally, Bonhoeffer stresses the singleness of heart when following Christ. We must either love God or hate him.

The subject of how a disciple is to be related to the non-Christian receives treatment in Matthew 7, or the third section of the Sermon. No superior attitude is warranted, for the believer possesses his righteousness as gift, not by achievement. Therefore, he must come to the non-Christian with “an unconditional offer of fellowship, with the single-mindedness of the love of Jesus.” As Bosch implied in his Transforming Mission, to become a disciple means a decisive and irrevocable turning to both God and neighbour. It is a journey of continually discovering new dimension of loving God and neighbour.

This hyper-Lutheran interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount by Bonhoeffer calls the church to die with Christ to self, and to live with Christ in discipleship. Grace is only grace in close identification of the believer with Christ’s own life, death and resurrection. When we bless the status quo apart from repentance and new life in Christ, we perpetuate cheap grace.

The last part of The Cost of Discipleship addresses the issue of discipleship for today. Is there a difference between being a disciple when Jesus was alive and being one today? How are we to be sure that we are following Jesus and not following our own wishes? Bonhoeffer rejects these questions and similar ones as being wrong. The resurrection has proven that Jesus yet lives, and he calls us to follow him.

Bonhoeffer maintains that “Baptism” in the Pauline epistles, is equivalent to “following Christ” in the Gospels for the very fact that the demand of Christ for a visible act of obedience is manifested in the public act of baptism. These views seem to point up a sharp difficulty in Bonhoeffer. On the one hand, Christ calls for a decision, which can only be related to responsiveness. On the other, Bonhoeffer defends infant baptism^, which lacks a response and associates itself with coercion, which he had previously rejected. He takes the traditional Lutheran view that grace is dispensed through the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In this matter, he makes no progress beyond Luther, who never successfully resolved this antinomy.

In the chapter on “The Visible Community”, Bonhoeffer returns to a familiar theme developed in the Communion of Saints. The church is made up of the saints, and is made visible in the preaching of the Word of God and in the sacraments. The Word is shared with the community and the world, while the sacraments are restricted to the believers. Thus, Bonhoeffer holds strongly that the ministry of the Word and the administration of sacraments of paramount importance. More importantly, the church has obligations to society. He objected the notion that Christians are revolutionaries and rather, they must be in subjection to the higher powers as Paul asserts in Romans 13. In his career, the Christian works within the framework of what is compatible to the body of Christ. His way of life is accepted only within the framework of being a stranger and, not a resident of the world.

In his discussion of sanctification, Bonhoeffer speaks of sin, church discipline, and good works. There are two kinds of sin: doctrinal sin is more serious for it corrupts the gospel; whereas moral sin at least leaves the gospel of forgiveness intact. Church discipline could include personal exhortation, pulpit warnings, and church action of exclusion. This is consistent with his overall theme of ridding the church of cheap grace. Good works are necessary, for God demands them. “Yet, our good works are the works of God himself”. Thus, Bonhoeffer does not draw a sharp distinction between faith and works.

Bonhoeffer concludes this book with a return to God’s starting point. God created man in his own image that is marred after the Fall. Christ came to renew God’s work of his image in man and this image will reach its final form in the resurrection where the transforming will be complete.

The Cost of Discipleship still stands as a much-needed book. Bonhoeffer delivers relentlessly Christ-centered explanation of the gospel. It is a highly personal, yet not privatized, approach to faith, anchored in and directed by the sovereign grace of Christ. He introduces to us a Jesus who is not just a nice teacher or a heroic figure admired from a distance, but the living God, our mediator, powerful and active, who enjoins us to follow him in the way of the cross. Bonhoeffer’s life and death are vivid demonstration that Christian discipleship is in no way a spectator spot.

However, his treatment of good works leaves something to he desired. He did not achieve a synthesis of good works and faith anymore than he did on baptism and faith. On the one hand, good works are not acceptable, but on the other, we are commanded to do good works. A preferable approach would show that God’s grace and love leads us to share the same with others. One can also find Barth’s essay of Christian Discipleship a companion to Bonhoeffer’s. Barth makes frequent reference to Bonhoeffer, and drawing from him, maintains a sense of urgency surrounding the call to discipleship in a way that is compelling and fresh.

In summary, The Cost of Discipleship remains an important work. The call for costly grace is needed. It serves as a reminder to the contemporary church of today that promoted in cheap grace whereby the church has not loved all men equally, has not preached the need for repentance from all sin, and has not forsaken the world for the service of Christ. The great and urgent challenge of the church today is not merely adding more members but reproducing and multiplying fruit-bearing disciples. We are not called to make people Christians and get them baptized, bur rather to help people decide to follow Jesus and his radical message.