Sin Is Serious Business

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have heard grace defined as getting what we don’t deserve, and mercy defined as not getting what we do deserve. In other words, as sinners, we deserve to spend eternity in hell; but as forgiven sinners, we get to spend eternity in heaven instead.

Sounds good, right? Sign me up for both!

And yet, receiving God’s mercy and grace didn’t come cheaply. On the contrary, it required God, the Father, to turn His back on God, the Son, when He bore the sins of the entire world on the cross. That’s a VERY hefty price indeed! At the same time, it cost Jesus His very life as “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

That’s why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and martyr who authored today’s quote, also wrote the following…

“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.”

Let me give you two examples of repentance: one apparently genuine and one not-so-much. The first involves Philip Yancey, the Christian author who publicly admitted to an adulterous affair this week. I don’t know the details nor do I care to. All I know is that by acknowledging his “great shame” as he called it and issuing a public apology (and a private one to all the injured parties), Yancey bared his soul and opened himself up to endless criticism. To me, that is evidence of sincere contrition. Yancey is also taking the necessary steps to repair his marriage while seeking counseling and withdrawing from public ministry.

Now for the flip side…

On Monday night at our Living H2O Initiative, one of our players who is known for being overly aggressive while trying to grab a rebound, inadvertently smacked another player in the mouth with his elbow. Instead of apologizing, checking on the injured player (who was bleeding), and helping him to his feet, the offending player started making one excuse after another in a lame attempt to justify his behavior.

“But you do the same thing every week,” one of the more respected players said.

As Bonhoeffer emphasized, repentance is a prerequisite for forgiveness… and churches that baptize new believers should be equally willing to discipline wayward ones. In the past year, our church has done both – and I can tell you from personal experience that baptisms are a lot more enjoyable than disciplining an unruly member. However, both are necessary functions of the local church.

The same goes for communion, also known as the Lord’s Supper, which is reserved exclusively for born-again believers. Far too often, we offer the communion elements to toddlers who aren’t old enough to understand their significance because we think “it’s cute” and to unbelievers “as a courtesy”, not wanting to make them feel uncomfortable even though I Corinthians 11:29-30 says “For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.”

Some rather sobering thoughts for today, I know, but sin is serious business.

“How much more severely do you think one deserves to be punished who has trampled on the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” Hebrews 10:29 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President